Lyntone was set up by Hungarian immigrant, Paul and his wife, Lya Lynton in the late 50’s. Paul was born in 1922 in Budapest into a Jewish family and was named, Paul Lichtenstern. The family moved to Vienna where his father was transported to Dachau concentration camp. Paul managed to escape to Palestine in 1939 and spent a transient life until getting work in Tel Aviv as a musician. From there he joined the British Army and was part of ENSA entertaining troops. In 1946 he was demobbed and started out as a theatrical agent in Soho. Before marrying Lya in 1950, he had changed his name from Lichtenstern to Lynton.
TV advertising was in its’ infancy and Paul took the opportunity to promote various companies and their products. It was here that he spotted the advertising cards that were a cheap gimmick offering gift postcards . He had probably spotted London companies such as Melody Cards who were producing German and Eastern Bloc style musical gift cards. He obtained a licence from Eva-Tone Soundsheets in the US to produce these freebies in the UK. According to the promotional booklet featured here, he established the company in 1958. It’s here that we see the name “Audio Plastics Limited” which is printed on flexis from 1960 to 1966 even though the Rank Organisation bought the company in the early 60s. There are also discs with “Rank Audio Plastics” printed on them in the early days, but the name Lyntone appears on most as the manufacturer.
The original plant was located at 46 Penton Street, Angel Islington, and later in 1970 it was moved to the larger, 7 Wedmore Street in London. This company was responsible for releasing a huge amount of “Slimdiscs”, which, according to their promotional booklet from Wedmore Street, was “1,000,000 Slimdiscs” per week – a staggering capacity and one wonders if it ever got near that figure? The plant also pressed vinyl which was more profitable than flexis, but it is the flexi disc that Lyntone is known for, even though they had to be produced in vast quantities to make a profit.
So far, I’ve found about 156 titles from the 60’s, 279 in the 70s and some 300 in the 80’s. These figures are estimates as not all discs have dates but it gives an indication of when the flexi disc had “arrived”. As the digital era approached, magazines started using cassettes, then Cds and the humble flexi died. Damont Audio Ltd. purchased Lyntone in 1986 and it closed its’ doors in June 1991.
