"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

My impression is that someone removed clicks
by some method that simply magnetically 'wiped' very short sections of a
tape they'd made from the 78s.

Did anyone ever do anything like that? Or would it be that they'd cut and
spliced out the clicks with a noticable lack of overlap?

IIRC The LPs were from the 1970s.

Yes, I am familiar with this technique. It was known as dissolving.

The declicking method to which Dave refers was frowned upon,
(but nonetheless widely done!) and referred to as "destructive editing"
as one not only removed the click but the music underneath it.
No self-respecting editor would want to do such work, so it was usually
given to trainees, who were instructed to "keep all the bits" (which they
did,
numbered with white chinagraph pencil, and stuck to the front of the tape
machine with editing tape in the right order, until their engineer or
producer
approved the job)

FWIW I've recently been transferring and de-clicking some Ellington 'Radio
Transcriptions' discs released on Decca London in the late 1970s. These
are
remarkably good compared with what you'd expect from commercial 78s from
the time (1946-7). Sadly, the shop only had volumes 1-4 so I didn't get
volume 5. But not bad for 3 quid a pop. :-)

Those transcriptions were probably made from the original
polyacetate cuts, which were 14 inch and very low noise,
so no shellac involved.

In 1941/2 when shellac was in very short supply,
some 78s were issued on ean early form of vinyl.
They sounded rather good:-)

BTW, Jim if you are interested in early Ellington, look out for a double CD
called
The OKeh Ellington. The recording as beautifully restored and presented by
Columbia.
Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Okeh-Ellingto.../dp/B00000274L

Iain.