Harry's

Vinyl pressing plant in Heist-op-den-Berg (Belgium), founded in 1972 by Constant Verbeeck ("Stan") who named it after his son Harry Verbeeck who had sadly died in a car crash the year before. The plant started out with one singles machine and mainly operated for Polydor. By the start of the 1980s the plant had 8 automatic machines for singles, 6 semi-automatic machines for albums and employed some 30 people. It also housed a lacquer cutting facility (hence it also appears as Harry's Cutting), equipped with a Neumann lathe with SX74 cutterhead. At it's height the plant had a capacity of manufacturing 26,000 singles and 12,000 LPs daily. Major clients from the Benelux included CNR, Ariola, WEA, Philips, Barclay, PolyGram, EMI, Indisc and RCA. Between 1980-1986 it was also one of the plants mainly employed by Les Disques Du Crépuscule and Factory Benelux. The plant was owned consecutively by Harry's Pvba (until 1985), Harry's Muller B.V.B.A. (1985-1992) and Harry's n.v.. Around 1992 Verbeeck's daughter Renée took over. The plant ceased activities when Harry's n.v. went bankrupt in April 2002. At that point it still employed 16 people. Adjacent to the plant was the printing company Harry's Printing. In 1975 Verbeeck bought a cassette factory in Nivelles from Ampex. This was renamed Harry's Cartridges and later moved to Heist-op-den-Berg. For the CD manufacturing please see Harry's Belgium.