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This term has come up many times, sometimes referring to Berliners, Black Patti's or even certain songs, like the Paul Whiteman or CA Ramblers versions of Charleston. Please help me try to understand the different genres of early recorded music. What are the "Holy Grails" of the different labels and songs?
Thank you.

A Buddy Bolden cylinder. Allegedly made but never found.

Check out this list of "lost" recordings. https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-r ... ding-list/

Some are more holy grail-ish than others. Like the Patton and Lee sides vs. Frank Sinatra, for instance. Nothing against Sinatra, but he has thousands of other recordings extant.

There are other blues records made for Paramount that were known to have been issued but haven't been discovered in even one copy.

Another example would be the Edison Lateral, "Sunny Skies", by The Piccadilly Players. This record was never released and is stored in the Edison Archives. It has been released on a CD after digitizing and professional noise reduction, but owning a copy of this record is unheard of. The Diamond Disc of this song, on DD 52478-L, can be found sometimes on a rare occasion, for $50-200.

Most recordings by Al Starita or Jack Hylton and his Kit Kat Band or Picadilly Revels are great and hard to find... HOT jazz/dance...

Magnolia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtKlGPVTyN0
Nashville Nightingale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPnepKtBvCk
Brown Sugar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XOm7p-ytv0
Crazy Words, Crazy Tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPxWBuv2c-M
Ain't She Sweet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAEjRjG3g4Q
My Cutie's Due at Two to Two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjTjnVjT4v0
No. 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Hq1mIr9tM
Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqBsv8Jml-E

The two recordings made by Jean de Reszke for Fonotipia in Paris on 22nd April 1905. Although they were given catalogue numbers and advertised as forthcoming issues they never appeared. The story is that de Reszke was dissatisfied with them and vetoed their release, but what happened to the test pressings?

The cylinders that Louis Armstrong recorded for Melrose that were used for the transcriptions of the Hot Choruses music book.

Here is a great example of the holy grail: http://www.popsike.com/RARE-TOMMY-JOHNS ... 25287.html

I also know of two very early operatic 78's that were in excess of $50,000 each. I can't release the info as they were private sales.

Polyphone wrote:Here is a great example of the holy grail: http://www.popsike.com/RARE-TOMMY-JOHNS ... 25287.html

I think I can speak for most collectors in saying that this record isn't worth very much just to listen to, unless by some odd miracle you enjoy that song. Although it does hold value because it is a rare very early blues record, which there is a small (but high paying) market for.

John Tefteller bought that Tommy Johnson record. Tefteller's Blues Images concern puts out some very good sounding CD's of early blues records.

http://bluesimages.com/

It should be noted that it wasn't until probably 1950's - 60's that early blues records were considered holy grail material by most collectors.

donniej wrote:This term has come up many times, sometimes referring to Berliners, Black Patti's or even certain songs, like the Paul Whiteman or CA Ramblers versions of Charleston. Please help me try to understand the different genres of early recorded music. What are the "Holy Grails" of the different labels and songs?
Thank you.

You might want to look through the back auction catalogs on Kurt Nauck's 78rpm.com site. He does not release a "prices realized" list, but the minimum bids shown will give you some idea of what's really valuable.