The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

check out what I just found.

http://cgi.ebay.com/7-U-S-Berliner-858- ... dZViewItem


ending soon...


Paul

Here is a second one. I wonder how high this will go?

http://cgi.ebay.com/7-U-S-Berliner-216- ... dZViewItem


Paul

How high will it go? Possibly higher than the machine on which it will be played. On second thought, I would not play a Berliner on a vintage machine.

Judging by the high bids on these records and my Ebay losses on cylinders and old records catalogs, I can only assume that we are living in a period of unprecedented economic wealth!



Rocky

Wow I really never would have expected it to go for that amount of money. maybe that much or even more if it was an early Black Quartette, but not for this Quartette There must have been a couple of Berliner Collector really bidding this one up.

...and they say collecting 78's is not worth it.

If you look at the bid history of the first one, there were only two people in past $100. I think these records in "good" condition, whatever that means for a Berliner record, should go in the range of $100-150 for most of them. This could be a particularly rare title or it could be just two guys that "had to have it". I've paid way too much in the past if I there was something that i really needed to fill a void in my collection and that does not come up very often.

Also note the seller gives a good description, has very good feedback and has obviously been seelling records for awhile. This helps alot on the price. I would not buy anything like this from an inexperienced seller who one could not trust to accurately describe the condition. They may not be trying to cheat you but they just dont know sometimes.

EdisonSquirrel wrote:How high will it go? Possibly higher than the machine on which it will be played. On second thought, I would not play a Berliner on a vintage machine

You think so? The contemporary machines are worth a lot more than the records, surely? I'm also a believer in playing and matching the records to their contemporary playback equipment so I WOULD play a Berliner on a vintage machine that was originally designed to play it. Mind you, I wouldn't be paying these sums for the records! If I did, I would maybe only play the record a few times but then again, what's the purpose of having records you don't / can't play?

Ah, the paradoxes of collecting.

Even my least valuable machine (near worthless actually) is worth several times what my most valuable record might be, so thankfully I never run into this dilemma! Phew!