Lil' Bit of Gold---mini CD's by Rhino

[JohnnyK]

I just found in my basement a long forgetten CD made by Rhino records. It is 3" in diameter with a paper sleeve and is gold in color. Mine has the four big hits by the Classics IV. The label name is "Lil' Bit of Gold" by Rhino. As I recall, these were available in the late 80's for about $5.00 each. I guess that they never took off. The sound quality is pretty good.

Anybody have an information or history on these mini CD's?

[Gary]

I have a MCA mini CD of the Who - 4 songs - early songs. My Generation is on it. I think. Pretty bad stuff. I guess it's one of the USA '80's mixes.

The MCA Chuck Berry mini CD sounds better...

[Sckott]

I have a few of those. A Who, Steppenwolf and a couple of Chess ones. They're cute! The Little Richard one on Rhino sounds nice.

[Pinknik]

I have The Beach Boys w/ California Girls, Help Me, Rhonda, Wouldn't It Be Nice and Good Vibrations. RHINO (R3 73001) from 1988. I also had several singles. I was kinda sorry to see them go, as far as neato factor was concerned.

[Doug Hess Jr.]

Let's see... Go Go's, Classics IV, Todd Rundgren and I think that's it.

[Pat]

I have acquired a lot of these during their "closeout" phase. The MCA/CHESS ones were called Vintage Gold CD3. Some of these sound really good, like the early stereo re-recordings on the Pat Boone CD3.

I still see these around (Rhino & MCA 3"ers) sealed in some stores...definitely neat stuff! Anyone remember the adapters that came with 'em for playback on early CD players without 3"mini disc capability????!

Was Steve H. in on any of these? :cool:

[Bill S]

I've got Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Tommy James and The Shondells and The Turtles. I still have the 5" plastic converter so I could play these in my first Kenwood CD player which wasn't set up for 3" discs.
I see you can now buy 3" CD-Rs which hold 21 minutes of music. Kinda cool. :cool:

[Holy Zoo]

I there there were quite a few Beatles 3-inchers released. I still have Something in the original longbox (err... short & narrow box!) :)

[RetroSmith]

Hey, I have FOUR of those 3 inch Cds....with picture sleeves. I'be got Gary Lewis and The Playboys (with the alternate "sure gonna miss her") The Easybeats, The Rasberries, and Bobby Vee.

At one time, Tower records by me was selling these out for 1.99 each!! I wish I had bought their whole stock.

mikey

[John Carsell]

Got a few of those myself. Raspberries, Turtles and Tommy James and The Shondells, which has the song "Crystal Blue Persuasion"without the horns overdubbed at the end. IMO it sounds better that way. Seems like the 3" format died 'cause the availability on those was rather poor.

[Joel Cairo]

I've probably got around 100 of them, including the first 30 Rhino releases (but no Beatles, at this time)... I always thought they were beyond cool, myself, and I was disappointed to see that they didn't catch on here.

FWIW, they were much more popular in Europe, and were the dominant CD singles format in Japan during 1987-88.

Some interesesting oddites would pop up on the format every now and then. One of my Michael Jackson 3" singles is **mono**!

-Joel Cairo

BTW: a search on Google for "cd3 complete discography" will yield what appears to be a resonably complete listing of titles released on CD3 **in the US**, compiled by David Pearlman. His version 1.5 (from 11/96) appears to be the latest effort.

[ November 17, 2001: Message edited by: Joel Cairo ]

[Pat]

Thanks for the info Joel,

Check out the site if you are interested in the 3"ers! I'll bet most people didn't know that there were that many of 'em issued. A true collectible!
http://members.tripod.com/~Vinylville/faq-6.html

:eek:

[ November 17, 2001: Message edited by: Pat ]