Columbia Records' first attempt at the 7" 33 single

In mid-1948, Columbia Records announced the new "long-playing" 33 1/3rpm vinyl record, a vast improvement (in sound quality, convenience and playing time) over the then-standard 10" shellac 78rpm.  Six months later, RCA (Columbia's main competitor) announced the 7" 45rpm disk, which had the same playing time as the 78, but was far more convenient and durable.  The new RCA disks had a special, larger spindle hole (which would prove to be useful for jukeboxes), and otherwise offered no advantages over the 33's.  In those days, it seems RCA routinely tossed out half-baked technologies just for the sake of seeming competitive (when in fact, this only served to inconvenience consumers).  In early 1949, Columbia decided to start issuing 7" 33rpm singles to standardize all turntables at the new speed (33) instead of requiring two or three speeds on each unit.  This plan eventually failed, probably because the Columbia 7" disks had small center holes... and DJs found they preferred being able to pick up a stack of 45s with the large hole.  This is my guess, anyhow, because it's one reason cited a decade later, when Columbia (along with RCA and other companies) tried 7" 33's again.  The only notable side effect from these late 1950s/early 1960s disks is that they were in stereo, and several of the Elvis releases have become sought after.
But going back to 1949, both RCA and Columbia eventually decided to release 7" 45s, 12" 33's and nothing else, leaving the 7" 33 as a curio.  I recently found a handful of these early Columbia disks, and I profile their anomalies in this video...