what nobody wants those records......

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78recordpicker
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what nobody wants those records......

Post by 78recordpicker »

On a board like this, it might be easy to assume that the only music someone might collect is 78s. I actually have an equal fondness for 45s and LPs, and my collection spans 1900-present. There has been a huge upsurge in interest in LPs. Several record shops have huge signs - buying LPs, cash paid. So the amount of Lps in thrift stores has dropped, or they are the dump offs after the owner took them to the shop and they only really wanted to buy rock albums. Same with 45s.
But 78s! i know of no shops that want them, so they often get dropped off at thrift stores, or they hit the dumpster. So the opportunity to find 78s (we want them) is sometimes easier than LPs (good luck finding a Led Zeppelin I at at Sal Army).
But here is the increasing bad news I'm hearing - workers at some of the thrifts are trashing ANY 78s they get, because they are under the impression no one will by them even for a quarter or dime ("Those things are worse than worthless"). So the other day I went into a thrift store on ½ off day. a week before there were about 250 prewar 78s, nothing super rare but some cool stuff, even some early Okehs. Bought about ten. Thinking the rest would be there a week later I come back to buy them all for 13 cents each (mostly V grade Victor scrolls, but not beat to death). they are all gone. Bought by a sharper picker than me? Nah, the workers threw them all out, they were breaking and were too heavy (sigh). Wither the 78s, it breaks my heart.

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Wolfe
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Wolfe »

Goodwill has it's own online auction site now for several years. They put the more saleable records (like Led Zeppelin) there and leave the store bins for all the Christmas albums, Jim Nabors, Barbra Streisand, John F. Kennedy Memorial album, etc.

Goodwill puts 78's online. Haven't seen much of interest, but it's been a while since I looked.

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Marco Gilardetti
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Marco Gilardetti »

This is periodically discussed here.

The waiter you talked to is right: most customers don't even know what a 78 RPM is, and they break them while going through them. Here, the very few shops that sell them usually keep them in a separate hidden room, where selected customers are admitted by request. Of course this is not very profitable, so in most shops there are no 78s at all.

The market for 78s is extremely small as 99% of people doesn't like music so old, and 99.9% of the population doesn't have a turntable/gramophone to play 78 RPM records anyway.

Moreover, back then the market was literally flooded with low quality records which are of no musical interest and have a very thin historical interest also. Add to this the fact that - with extremely rare exceptions - all symphonic records, which are by far the most common, are worth 0 (zero) and you'll have a sketch of what we're talking about.

By long tradition I end posts about this topic offering for free a huge bunch of unlisted 78 RPMS to whoever would like to pay postage and take them. Aside few messages inquiring for a list ( :roll: just to check if I was perhaps an idiot giving out for free records worth $10000) nobody ever claimed this free lot. Exactly as it will happen once again this time around.

So yes: they go to the dump quite often.
Last edited by Marco Gilardetti on Fri Jan 25, 2019 7:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

epigramophone
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by epigramophone »

Very true.

Last year I and two other collector friends cleared over 5,000 78's from a damp 17th Century barn in deepest darkest Somerset. It took several visits and was heavy dirty tiring work, especially as we were all in our 70's. In return we were allowed to keep any records we wanted, and there were enough good finds to make the effort worthwhile.

Any others which we though might be saleable went to a local charity shop, but the vast majority went to the tip. Some were so affected by the damp conditions that their labels had disintegrated and were illegible. After receiving the first pick-up truck load, even the staff at the tip were not keen on taking any more, so the rest went gradually by car.

VanEpsFan1914
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by VanEpsFan1914 »

It might not be that no one wants them, but that those who want them have no space for them.

I would very much like to snag more 78s, collect more phonographs, and own an unmodified prewar automobile. (Hotrods being the automotive crapophone.)

Unfortunately, I have been dealing with the aftermath of a shelf collapse, and with my travel plans being very uncertain, I am unable to buy a prewar car.

Find other people & get them involved is the best guess.

Zkeener323
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Zkeener323 »

ive seen elsewhere in this forum the same notion. I am glad I am not alone in my observations. I am about thirty years old and can remember fifteen years ago going to any thrift shop in my very small hometown to find 78’s priced at a dollar per album of twelve. The lps and 45s were a dollar or 50 cent respectively. Now I on rare occasion find a 78. I’ve spoken to many shops and they all say- vinyl is in. So the prices went up to $1.90 and even individually price lps they presume are valuable (aka any well known name) Shellac has gone the wayward. Most shops discard it in the belief it’s too fragile and or outside the realm of consumer demand. I guess I can’t argue on the last point. But the result is very few 78s available, and when they are it is a price premium. Red label Columbia’s are labeled as “antique” and put at $5.00 a pop. God help you if it’s a Sinatra- suddenly that’s rare and will be $25.00. I guess in my small town at least, the already decade long niche of buying records has concentrated on the era most popular, and 78s fall outside of it. I’m just waiting on machine prices to drop that way too.

Garret
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Garret »

Zkeener323 wrote:...But the result is very few 78s available, and when they are it is a price premium. Red label Columbia’s are labeled as “antique” and put at $5.00 a pop. God help you if it’s a Sinatra- suddenly that’s rare and will be $25.00. I guess in my small town at least, the already decade long niche of buying records has concentrated on the era most popular, and 78s fall outside of it. I’m just waiting on machine prices to drop that way too...
It is definitely getting harder to find clean 78s than machines. There are literally thousands of nice machines available across craigslist, Facebook, and elsewhere, but good records are a different matter.

Garret

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Wolfe
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Wolfe »

Zkeener323 wrote:ive seen elsewhere in this forum the same notion. I am glad I am not alone in my observations. I am about thirty years old and can remember fifteen years ago going to any thrift shop in my very small hometown to find 78’s
Where I live has gentrified a lot in the last decade or so. Property values and rents rise, and out go the fun little junktique shops that used to sell bric-brac including plenty of 78 records. In their place is another Starbucks or a bank or a sushi restaurant, etc. :|

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poodling around
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by poodling around »

I said lately how sad it is that auctions don't even bother to say anything about 78 records other than there are some. They do other inane things like state there is 'a box full of 78 records' and only photograph the box.

This sort of thing is also sad in my personal opinion - melted 78rpm records on wooden armature



http://longplayingart.blogspot.com/2012 ... -shin.html
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Wolfe
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Re: what nobody wants those records......

Post by Wolfe »

^ If the records were worn out and/or content wise simply dross, then good for them being repurposed somehow.

I've had more records than that pass through that I wanted to chuck in the tip for the above reasons.

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