Victor 14" Deluxe Special Record List & Questions
Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2018 2:42 pm
Hi everyone! Now that the greatest day of the year (Record Store Day!) has come and gone, I am hoping some of you can help a fellow collector out with a (hopefully) quick project. I have recently come into the possession of a scarce 14" Victor Deluxe Special Record from 1903, which plays for almost six minutes at 60 rpm and is a rendition of Strauss' "Morganblätter Waltz" by the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Miraculously, it is in playable condition, but because of the record's large size, I will have to dig out my transcription turntable and make some needed repairs to the cartridge before I can actually play this behemoth, probably for the first time in its life since the WWI era!
We know from surviving Victor ledgers that between 20 and 25 of these 14" Deluxe Special Records were recorded between 1903 and 1904. However, I couldn't see any listed as being recorded in 1905 despite Victor briefly offering them for sale that year. With this baseline established, I have two questions expanding on it:
1. Since Victor only released about 150 of the 12" Deluxe Records (the second-most expensive records they made during that time until Victor switched over to the Grand Prize label in 1905), would it stand to reason that perhaps only 100 or so of the 14" Deluxe Special Records were ever made? At $2 a pop (about $75 today!), these were not only expensive to purchase, but also doubtlessly expensive to manufacture and difficult to sell when most record buyers of the time were not buying any records larger than 10". In addition, I doubt these large records were even playable on the inexpensive front-mount machines (like, say, a Victor Type P or Z) which were the most popular options available to customers of the era.
2. If my assumption is correct that about 100 of the 14" Victor Deluxe Special Records were made, that would mean about four copies of each recording were made. Statistically, if assuming a (generous, in my opinion) survival rate for all these discs of about ten per cent, that would mean we could expect to have approximately ten of these discs in existence today of any title(s). As such, to the best of my knowledge, all the 14" Victor Deluxe Special Records I have found to be in existence today through a cursory Web search are listed as follows:
a.) "The Flying Dutchman" (Victor 2030)
b.) "Three Dances from 'Henry VIII'" (Victor 2026)
c.) "Falling Leaves" (Victor 2009)
d.) "1812 Overture" (Victor 2217)
e.) "Pique Dame Overture" (Victor 2001)
f.) "Oberon Overture" (Victor 2016)
g.) "Selections from 'Aida'" (Victor 2018)
h.) "Mignon" (Victor 2023)
i.) "Selections from 'Romeo & Juliet'" (Victor 2011)
j.) "Selections from 'Attila'" (Victor 41001), and of course
k.) "Morganblätter Waltz" (Victor 2025)
Since eleven are listed, that exceeds the ten per cent figure I estimated and is almost half of all the 14" Deluxe Special Records released. If you have a 14" Victor Deluxe Special Record in your collection (or have other knowledge of one) that is NOT listed above, please let me know! Given that these large (both physically and in price) records represented the pinnacle of early 1900s audio recording and reproduction, it is a shame that very little attention seems to be given to them in the collecting world. I also know Columbia made some 14" records around the same time as Victor made theirs, but information about them is even harder to come by than the Victor records!
Thanks for your assistance in this and take care!
We know from surviving Victor ledgers that between 20 and 25 of these 14" Deluxe Special Records were recorded between 1903 and 1904. However, I couldn't see any listed as being recorded in 1905 despite Victor briefly offering them for sale that year. With this baseline established, I have two questions expanding on it:
1. Since Victor only released about 150 of the 12" Deluxe Records (the second-most expensive records they made during that time until Victor switched over to the Grand Prize label in 1905), would it stand to reason that perhaps only 100 or so of the 14" Deluxe Special Records were ever made? At $2 a pop (about $75 today!), these were not only expensive to purchase, but also doubtlessly expensive to manufacture and difficult to sell when most record buyers of the time were not buying any records larger than 10". In addition, I doubt these large records were even playable on the inexpensive front-mount machines (like, say, a Victor Type P or Z) which were the most popular options available to customers of the era.
2. If my assumption is correct that about 100 of the 14" Victor Deluxe Special Records were made, that would mean about four copies of each recording were made. Statistically, if assuming a (generous, in my opinion) survival rate for all these discs of about ten per cent, that would mean we could expect to have approximately ten of these discs in existence today of any title(s). As such, to the best of my knowledge, all the 14" Victor Deluxe Special Records I have found to be in existence today through a cursory Web search are listed as follows:
a.) "The Flying Dutchman" (Victor 2030)
b.) "Three Dances from 'Henry VIII'" (Victor 2026)
c.) "Falling Leaves" (Victor 2009)
d.) "1812 Overture" (Victor 2217)
e.) "Pique Dame Overture" (Victor 2001)
f.) "Oberon Overture" (Victor 2016)
g.) "Selections from 'Aida'" (Victor 2018)
h.) "Mignon" (Victor 2023)
i.) "Selections from 'Romeo & Juliet'" (Victor 2011)
j.) "Selections from 'Attila'" (Victor 41001), and of course
k.) "Morganblätter Waltz" (Victor 2025)
Since eleven are listed, that exceeds the ten per cent figure I estimated and is almost half of all the 14" Deluxe Special Records released. If you have a 14" Victor Deluxe Special Record in your collection (or have other knowledge of one) that is NOT listed above, please let me know! Given that these large (both physically and in price) records represented the pinnacle of early 1900s audio recording and reproduction, it is a shame that very little attention seems to be given to them in the collecting world. I also know Columbia made some 14" records around the same time as Victor made theirs, but information about them is even harder to come by than the Victor records!
Thanks for your assistance in this and take care!