How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Discussions on Records, Recording, & Artists
Post Reply
Vinrage_mania
Victor II
Posts: 391
Joined: Thu May 03, 2018 2:03 pm
Location: SF Bay Area

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Vinrage_mania »

oww 1 is too many do not have a count ,but the last one was Columbia 2136 Lee Morse Taint no sin .....and i was not happy....
anyone got a copy they wanna off ??

User avatar
gramophone-georg
Victor VI
Posts: 3984
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:55 pm
Personal Text: Northwest Of Normal
Location: Eugene/ Springfield Oregon USA

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by gramophone-georg »

I was gonna say- it's like "How many kidney stones have you had?"... one is too many...
"He who dies with the most shellac wins"- some nutty record geek

I got PTSD from Peter F's avatar

User avatar
Marco Gilardetti
Victor IV
Posts: 1394
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:19 am
Personal Text: F. Depero, "Grammofono", 1923.
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Marco Gilardetti »

Fortunately very few: I remember two. I care a lot about records and I store them in a way that really minimizes the chance of an incident.

One was a record I brought to school to demonstrate it. I put it in a portable's record compartment and when I got to school it was shattered in pieces. (RULE: never use record compartments if you care about your records). Sadly this was a promotional record with an advertisement tune sung by the Italian dubbers of Laurel & Hardy, and I've never found it again.

The second was cracked - go figure - in an album (RULE: never store records that you really care about in albums). The odd thing is that it didn't crack while turning the pages as usual, it cracked just by pulling the album out of the shelf and holding it with a hand on bottom. Fortunately this was not any rarity or favourite tune, I remember it was a song by tenor Carlo Buti but I don't even remember the exact title.

Menophanes
Victor II
Posts: 429
Joined: Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:52 am
Location: Redruth, Cornwall, U.K.

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Menophanes »

I still mourn for a late Columbia brown wax cylinder, In the Shadow of the Pines by Harlan & Stanley – the most charmingly evocative cylinder, of any period, that I have ever owned. I think it was cracked for part of its length when it came to me, and one day I pushed it onto the mandrel half a millimetre too far. I think I managed to glue it back together, but when I last looked at it (I have kept the fragments, in a carton which I designed especially for this record), it had fallen apart again.

Among discs, my greatest loss – not my only one, I must confess – was one of the five 12-inch black-label H.M.V. records on which Frederic Lamond (piano) and the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra under Landon Ronald performed Beethoven's Emperor concerto, the first ever recording of this work (about 1923). Next to this, I regret a Columbia record of 1913 on which Romano Romani (an Italian vocal coach and minor composer, best known for his association with the soprano Rosa Ponselle) conducts fifty members of the 'Milan Symphony Orchestra' in two Wagnerian extracts; this is the largest orchestra I have ever encountered on an acoustic record. Each of these still exists but has a bite out of the edge so that the first thirty seconds or so are unplayable.

Oliver Mundy.

User avatar
FellowCollector
Victor IV
Posts: 1931
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2009 7:22 pm
Contact:

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by FellowCollector »

I've broken quite a few 78rpm records and also quite a few cylinders over many years of collecting. The only 78rpm records I've intentionally broken were ones that were already cracked, badly warped, badly worn or were 1940 (and later) records that I considered pretty much worthless in spite of many being in near mint condition. The only cylinders I've ever broken intentionally were already cracked, moldy, had stripped or hung groove(s), badly worn, missing plaster (BA's), large edge chips out of an end or were considerably out of round. I have unintentionally broken some otherwise nice early 78rpm records in our finished basement which has tens of thousands of early records. I cannot tell you how many times I had carefully placed fifty or more disc records "stacked" vertically intending to relocate the group on a shelf only to mis-step(sp?) later in dim light causing the first couple in the stack to become horizontal and that's all she wrote for those.

There is, however, one early record that to this day I lament having broken unintentionally and have never found another copy and probably never will. It was "Ten Little [n****rs]" on the orange Little Wonder label and it was in beautiful condition. I had successfully finished playing the record on one of my Victor M phonographs and on attempting to remove the record I realized it was stuck down on the turntable spindle. Instead of gently rotating the record at the edge with a careful lifting action to sort of "unscrew" the record off the spindle I simply gave a little lifting tug at the edges of the record never dreaming that the record and spindle would say "not today, pal" and that was all she wrote for that record. What a blunder. I should never have played that particular record on that particular machine as a couple of other records had stuck (a little!) on that spindle in the past. But none ever broke. But this particular Victor M was nearby and ready to play a record. Who-da-thunk the record would snap using (what I considered!) a gentle lifting action up from the spindle. Never again. Taught me a lesson all right.

Doug

Phonofreak
Victor VI
Posts: 3718
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:00 pm
Location: Western, WA State

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Phonofreak »

I had too many other important things to deal with than keeping a count of broken cylinders and 78's. So my answer is too many. :P :lol:
Harvey Kravitz

User avatar
Curt A
Victor Monarch Special
Posts: 6412
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:32 pm
Personal Text: Needle Tins are Addictive
Location: Belmont, North Carolina

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Curt A »

52089 wrote:I broke the very first cylinder record I ever tried to play, "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" on Edison 2M wax. I wasn't sure how the record fit on the mandrel, but I figured that the "wide" end of the record would be near the top of the box so that you could put it on the mandrel without touching the playing surface. Surprise! :oops:

I kept that broken cylinder and later used it as a prop in my German class. While demonstrating my Edison Home to the class, I talked about how fragile the wax records were and crushed the already destroyed record in my bare hand. You should have seen the looks on everyone's faces!
That one was destined to be broken/destroyed... at least it wasn't something REALLY good, like "The Old Oaken Bucket"... :lol:
"The phonograph† is not of any commercial value."
Thomas Alva Edison - Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull.

"No one needs a Victrola XX, a Perfected Graphophone Type G, or whatever you call those noisy things."
My Wife

HisMastersVoice
Auxetophone
Posts: 2587
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:01 am

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by HisMastersVoice »

Curt A wrote:
52089 wrote:I broke the very first cylinder record I ever tried to play, "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" on Edison 2M wax. I wasn't sure how the record fit on the mandrel, but I figured that the "wide" end of the record would be near the top of the box so that you could put it on the mandrel without touching the playing surface. Surprise! :oops:

I kept that broken cylinder and later used it as a prop in my German class. While demonstrating my Edison Home to the class, I talked about how fragile the wax records were and crushed the already destroyed record in my bare hand. You should have seen the looks on everyone's faces!
That one was destined to be broken/destroyed... at least it wasn't something REALLY good, like "The Old Oaken Bucket"... :lol:
I understand that every copy of “The Old Oaken Bucket” is protected by ancient dark magic and cannot be destroyed....

User avatar
Curt A
Victor Monarch Special
Posts: 6412
Joined: Fri Jul 09, 2010 8:32 pm
Personal Text: Needle Tins are Addictive
Location: Belmont, North Carolina

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Curt A »

The best 78 that I accidentally broke and have not managed to find another, was a Dock Walsh - "Knockin' On The Hen House Door"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ysBr151Xw

I picked it up by the edge before the turntable had completely stopped and "snap" - a huge chunk ended up in my hand...
"The phonograph† is not of any commercial value."
Thomas Alva Edison - Comment to his assistant, Samuel Insull.

"No one needs a Victrola XX, a Perfected Graphophone Type G, or whatever you call those noisy things."
My Wife

Joseph Clack
Victor Jr
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Dec 26, 2017 2:13 pm
Personal Text: records galore

Re: How many records have you broken in your lifetime?

Post by Joseph Clack »

I don't break very many, but when I do, they are often the ones I am most worried about. Recent victims include a near-mint Whit Cunliffe (music hall) record and Uncle Dave Macon's last record, also near-mint.

Post Reply