> <i>For decades, the stamps were dismissed by the philatelic establishment as tacky novelties and were, correspondingly, as cheap as chips, [...] valued at around £17, the equivalent of £28 at 2015 prices. But following their recent discovery by collectors of rare vinyl, particularly in the US, you will be lucky to pick a set up for less than £300.</i><p>I love how one group of collectors goes "tacky novelty!" and another group goes "amazing rare find!" over the same thing. It all makes sense, but it's still weird.
As another curiosity, the link comes courtesy of Metafilter's 404 service, which provides interesting links during maintenance downtime.<p>Metafilter: Cool even asleep.
Since the exact dimensions are curiously not mentioned, here's my service to answer your questions:<p>The stamps have a diameter of typically 69mm, while larger ones are 100mm.<p>(Source: <a href="http://www.megaministore.com/stamps/asia/bhutan-stamps/bhutan-phonograph-record" rel="nofollow">http://www.megaministore.com/stamps/asia/bhutan-stamps/bhuta...</a>)
A similar interesting usage of a exotic medium for pressed music are the bone records or "rib records", apparently used to smuggle western music into Soviet [1]. I've also heard of pressing music into postcards, but cannot find a good source on that at the moment.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-grooves-weird-secret-history-of-soviet-x-ray-music" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2016/01/09/462289635/bones-and-grooves-w...</a>
In Poland in 60s, there were also some post-related records sold: <a href="http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/postcards.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.lukpac.org/~handmade/patio/misc/postcards.html</a>
Wow, this is wonderful. How large are they actually? The article says miniature but, surely, a vinyl record would weigh a substantial amount even at a tiny size.<p>The designs on these are really intricate as well, I know that vinyl lovers tend to say that the addition of pictures hurts sound quality but in this particular case, a novelty set, I feel like it's more than justified.
As if the Kingdom of Bhutan couldn't get any cooler!<p>- - - -<p>I remember an advertising gimmick in the 90's, plastic ribbons with tiny ridges that you attached to balloons and then you could pinch them and draw your fingers down, running your thumbnail over the ridges. The result was that the balloon acted like a speaker for the sound waves encoded in the ridges.
Techmoan needs to do a report on this. It's right up his alley. For those that don't know he's a youtuber with some very interesting technical factoids. Mostly about audio/video.
<a href="http://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/onebhut.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.wfmu.org/MACrec/onebhut.html</a> ORIGINAL article here, found after 3 different blogs cited each other.<p>web2.0 was a mistake.
I would love to get a link to the full version of that music in the link. I know it's a version of Bhutan's national anthem "Druk Tsendhen" but couldn't find that exact one on YouTube.