"It was a sad and poignant sight to see our much-pampered pieces of machinery- the core equipment of our Barclay-Crocker enterprise- being shouldered like livestock up the ramp of a rental van amid so much panting and cursing and carried off into the night by their new owner. We like to think that the ghost of Howard Kovner (our engineer for so many years) was lurking vigilantly in the leaves nearby to make certain that his precious Ampex 440s and Ampex duplicators were being treated with the same reverence and loving care that he had lavished on them from the beginning. There may have been a whole host of spirits in that parking lot behind our building- customers, employees, suppliers, record company executives- gathered for one last time to witness the fall of the final curtain on the long-running road show of prerecorded open reel. Like a lot of respectable acts, it closed out of town.

As we promised in our final-notice card, we are including in this bulletin a list of all the tapes we have produced over the years, and the number of copies of each title we have sold. Since 1977 we have duplicated over 123,000 tapes with a dollar amount of over $1.3 million.

We still have a few titles remaining in inventory. Please drop us a line or call if you would like a current list.

We also have blank B-C blue single-reel and 2-reel boxes available. The single boxes are $.40 each and the double boxes are $.65. We have a small supply of large-hub reels at $.35 each and a good supply of small-hub reels at a special price of $.30 each. The basic shipping charge of $2.00 still applies to each order.

The B-C Open-Reel Frequency Test Tape is no longer available, but we do have some Cassette Alignment and Audio Test Tapes left (PRO-1 $9.95 plus shipping).

We have decided not to produce our stained-glass medallion because our customers did not show sufficient interest in the project.

If you have ever wondered what the quality control number on Side Two of every B-C tape means, here is the key: The first number indicates the slave on which the tape was duplicated, the second the year (i.e., 9 for 1979, 4 for 1984), the next two numbers the month (08 would be August) and the final two numbers the day. The letters following the QC number are the operator's initials: RF (Rich Fill), WC William "Briggs" Cunningham), WC (Wayne Chin), and EH (Erich Hissel). There may be a few HBs (Henry Barclay), but since most of the time his fingers were laced with dust balls and peanut butter, we tried to keep him away form the duplicators as much as possible.

Several of our customers have surprised us by indicating an interest in starting a club for open-reel enthusiasts. To make their task a little easier, we will be happy to turn over our mailing list to them, and to anyone else serious enough to want to expend the considerable time and effort necessary to organize such a club.

In the coming months you should receive a mailing from the Direct-To-Tape Recording Company in Haddon Heights, New Jersy, which produces open-reel tapes in real time.

Barclay-Crocker is not ready yet, however, to hoist anchor and sail away into the sunset. We are exploring the possibility of a new musical venture that will also be marketed through the mail. If it ever gets launched, our little drunken violinist, proud emblem of the Barclay-Crocker empire, may once again be peering over the rim of your mailbox. In the meantime, we hope you continue to enjoy your open-reel collection and are properly forbearing with those friends who stare up at your open-reel deck and ask, "What's that for?" Tell them it's a fantastic new invention called analog sound!

Appropriately, Carl Bauman, who wrote the "Open-Reel Update" column for Fanfare magazine, stopped by our offices on the day we duplicated our last open-reel tape. He carried off a load of our tape box covers to recycle them as note paper and several spline labels that appear on our double-reel boxes to use as bookmarks. All box covers are printed on one side only on excellent-quality white or yellow paper. If you have any use for these graphics, please give us a call. Although there is no charge for the graphics, we will ask that you pay the shipping cost".