diff --git a/RELEASE.rst b/RELEASE.rst
index 94926034c48c0..31ded56bb9263 100644
--- a/RELEASE.rst
+++ b/RELEASE.rst
@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ pandas 0.8.2
   - Handle PeriodIndex in to_datetime instance method (#1703)
   - Support StaticTzInfo in DatetimeIndex infrastructure (#1692)
   - Allow MultiIndex setops with length-0 other type indexes (#1727)
+  - Fix handling of DatetimeIndex in DataFrame.to_records (#1720)
 
 pandas 0.8.1
 ============
diff --git a/pandas/core/frame.py b/pandas/core/frame.py
index 60dd9b15ce46c..b72f9ce4c6566 100644
--- a/pandas/core/frame.py
+++ b/pandas/core/frame.py
@@ -882,13 +882,15 @@ def to_records(self, index=True):
         y : recarray
         """
         if index:
-            arrays = [self.index] + [self[c] for c in self.columns]
+            arrays = [self.index.values] + [self[c].values
+                                            for c in self.columns]
             names = ['index'] + list(map(str, self.columns))
         else:
-            arrays = [self[c] for c in self.columns]
+            arrays = [self[c].values for c in self.columns]
             names = list(map(str, self.columns))
 
-        return np.rec.fromarrays(arrays, names=names)
+        dtype = np.dtype([(x, v.dtype) for x, v in zip(names, arrays)])
+        return np.rec.fromarrays(arrays, dtype=dtype, names=names)
 
     @classmethod
     def from_items(cls, items, columns=None, orient='columns'):
diff --git a/pandas/tseries/tests/test_timeseries.py b/pandas/tseries/tests/test_timeseries.py
index 4724ad9b76c14..558c6e33e2202 100644
--- a/pandas/tseries/tests/test_timeseries.py
+++ b/pandas/tseries/tests/test_timeseries.py
@@ -1075,6 +1075,16 @@ def test_frame_datetime64_mixed_index_ctor_1681(self):
         d = DataFrame({'A': 'foo', 'B': ts}, index=dr)
         self.assert_(d['B'].isnull().all())
 
+    def test_frame_timeseries_to_records(self):
+        index = date_range('1/1/2000', periods=10)
+        df = DataFrame(np.random.randn(10, 3), index=index,
+                       columns=['a', 'b', 'c'])
+
+        result = df.to_records()
+        result['index'].dtype == 'M8[ns]'
+
+        result = df.to_records(index=False)
+
 def _simple_ts(start, end, freq='D'):
     rng = date_range(start, end, freq=freq)
     return Series(np.random.randn(len(rng)), index=rng)