Rarest record catalogs in the World

[AllenKoe]

Next to the records themselves, what might be just as rare, or even harder to find?

I am reminded of 2 excellent examples:

On April 1, 1892, the North American Phonograph Co. began to issue their first regular & official catalogs of recordings. They listed the "channelled" style of brown wax cylinders which originally had a paper ring impressed with the title information - unfortunately these "rings" generally fall out of their rims over time. The announcer nonetheless would actually recite the catalog number as part of his prologue. The first cover was shown several times in the original 'Phonogram,' the short-lived journal that was edited by V. H. McRae. The small catalog was entitled 'Bulletin No 1,' and contained 36 selections. Despite a lot of looking, for many years, not a single copy has ever turned up.

That series of cylinders was quite extensive (literally starting with #1) and their announced numbers went as high as #1468 (in various Supplements, over two years) - they ceased around mid-1894. Even Ada Jones made two songs as part of those offerings, #1289 and 1292 (in 1894). Very rare also.

And when did the Lambert Co. of Chicago issue their first paper catalog? The earliest reference that has turned up, in advance of the Sep AP magazine article on their history, was in January 1901 - and by that April it contained just over 200 titles. Yet no Lambert celluloid cylinder record catalog has ever turned up prior to 1903! Their last "monthly supplement" was Feb-Mar 1904 and contained some real puzzlers. Lambert had a nice booth at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, not too far from Edison's own, but no photo of their Display has ever surfaced, despite a Win in the Bronze.

In the many hundreds of Ads that I have scrutinized, from 1900 to 1905, the distinctive color of the cylinder was mentioned only twice (months apart) - pink.

So there's still a lot of stuff to search for...

Allen