Tranco Limited

Vinyl pressing plant and manufacturing division of Pye Records (Sales) Ltd. An abbreviated form of Transcription Manufacturing & Recording Co Ltd. Located in Mitcham, Surrey, UK. Renamed to Precision Records & Tapes Limited in 1980 and closed in August 1981. Pressing equipment was then transferred to the Damont plant in Hayes, beginning in August 1981. Characteristic for Tranco LPs is the elevated ring close to the runouts. Generally, pressings can appear slightly translucent (most commonly red) when held against strong light source. This is due to a different vinyl formulation, unique to the UK. Other colour possibilites are green, orange, blue or purple. The solid center 7"s usually have a milling around the labels (similar to EMI pressings). Note: While it's safe to assume that all Pye UK releases were pressed by Tranco, not all Pye masterings were necessarily pressed by Tranco. Pye Studios did a lot of contract mastering for other labels that were then pressed somewhere else, e.g. by CBS. The plant itself is not identifiable by characteristic matrix etchings or stamps. Pye Records also had a 50% share in the Carlton Productions plant in Ireland until July 1972, where most of the records for the Irish market were pressed. Customers a.o.: BBC Records, Ariola, Magnet and MAM.