It took me a while to find this record in my collection. My administration says it is the next I bought, but where is it? Then I remembered I also have some records on ten inch, EP format. And yes, there it was. Maybe that was the reason I bought it, because of the funny smaller format.
10 inch is a bit smaller, actually the same format as its older cousin, the 78 rpm, from before World War II. In the early days of the ‘microgroove’, many 33 1/3 speed records were still pressed on the smaller ten inch format. Until the end of the fifties the ten inch remained the dominant format. Twelve inch was gaining in popularity, mainly because it could hold more music.
Why keep the ten inch at all I wonder? It might have to do with the size of older record players: they were not equipped to handle the bigger format. So people with older players kept buying the smaller discs. This record is from 1964, so they were produced for a long time. In fact, I also have some modern pressings. They might have been pressed as special versions, as curiosities.