How did your collecting begin?

[mjbramham]

I have had an obsession with the 1930s since as far back as I can remember. When I was about 8 or 9 I was given a cassette of Glenn Miller, which I played until it got so badly stretched that it was useless. I can remember being 11 years old and going to a jumble sale. There was a man there with a Columbia portable, and that was the first machine I saw in the flesh. I wanted a gramophone from that day but it was only when I got into my 20s that I had the spare cash to start collecting. I have always bought music on vinyl to a greater or lesser degree, simply because I liked the medium. 78s were a revelation in that regard.

My first machine was my Columbia 204, 2 years ago. I now own an HMV 156 and perhaps 200 records. I've met many knowledgeable people in that time and still have a lot to learn!

[pughphonos]

My father in the late 1960s was given a Victrola model X by an old family friend, with quite a few records (most from the 1920s). It went into the basement, where everyone ignored it--except ME! I played the "living daylights" out of it, using its rusty old 1920s needles over and over and over; Dad apparently had no notion where to obtain new needles and/or didn't care.

That, of course, is the classic way to be introduced to these machines: as a kid.

I eventually inherited the model X and kept it until 2011, when I gave it to the granddaughter of the lady who had given it to my Dad. I did quietly keep its records, though, as I had come to love them so. Amazingly, for all the abuse I visited on them, some of them still don't sound too poorly today.

Driven by acoustical considerations as I am, and not having tons of space at home, I could not justify holding on to the model X after I had purchased my Victor 4-4 ("Granada") Orthophonic. The model X went to a loving home, and that was good enough.

Ralph

[Schmaltz]

I enjoy reading how other people got into the hobby; these are great stories, and I look forward to reading more.

I'd been listening to old records my whole life, literally, and when I was the tender age of two my grandmother gave me a table-model Victrola VV-IX. It was taken away within a month since my parents thought I was too young to take care of such a machine, and they did have a point, but the hunger grew steadily and eventually I got the machine back again when I was about six. I've always had at least one machine around since then.

[ColumbiaBY]

My love for collecting was sparked about a year ago when I was 16. My friend Kevin came back from summer vacation and was bragging about his new Victorvictrola IV! He showed me pictures of it and truthfully I had never paid any attention to phonographs but when he showed me his and played it, I lost it! Luckily yet tragically my step-aunt died of a drug and energy drink fueled heart attack. I inherited a dis-repaired Columbia model BY soon after and fell in love. Probably why I haven't had a girlfriend since freshman year lol. Anyways, I scowered flea markets,half-price-books,and traded with my friend so now I have about 40 78s. Now at 17 I hope to add to my collection for the remainder of my life, and my Columbia will always be my "first."

[kirtley2012]

I started with youtube when I stumbled upon some videos of gramophones, I was intrigued but I couldn't afford one so I just watched videos and fantasized about one day owning one, in 2010 I bought a gramophone, a HMV 101 for £75 from eBay, I still have it, however before that I made a gramophone with a pencil and a paper cone with a LP I got from a friend of ky dad's, when I got that HMV I was just in wonder and there has been no stopping me since, that came with 3 78s, I now have...a few more!

(and that's much less than half! Along with many machines, alot of them not workin but when I stop spending my money and pay things off I need to I'll fix them! !)

[alang]

I grew up in the HiFi Stereo age (60s/70s)and mostly liked Rock 'n' Roll, Beatles, Doors, etc. At some point I heard ,music of the Comedian Harmonists, a famous 1920s acapella group. I liked their music so much that I started buying 78s at flea markets and listened to them on a 1950s 3-speed record player connected to a large tube radio. In 2000 I moved to the USA and took my 100 or so 78s with me. They stayed in their box for several years, until one day my wife called me from an auction and told me she had bought a gramophone. It turned out to be an Edison Diamond Disc BC-34 Baby Console, which could not play my 78s. So I started buying DDs, restored the Edison, and purchased an HMV table top player for my 78s off eBay. I've been hooked ever since, mostly because I enjoy bringing old basket case phonographs back to live. By now I have 16 working machines and 10ish more in the garage waiting for my attention. I also own about 1000 78s, 200 DDs, and some Pathés, Standards, Uniteds, etc. Even though my focus is more on the machines, I do enjoy ragtime, blues, jazz, foxtrott, swing, and other music from 1900 up to the end of the 78 era. People who ride in my car always get a strange look on their face when the music shuffles between early blues, Rolling Stones, Caruso, Deep Purple, etc
Andreas

[kirtley2012]

People who ride in my car always get a strange look on their face when the music shuffles between early blues, Rolling Stones, Caruso, Deep Purple, etc
Andreas

i know how you feel about music choices!, people sometimes ask me "what type of music do you like" to which i reply "well you know the old 78's?....", "no", "well, i like them!" then it evolves into the never ending conversation of what genres i like and artists, i just have to say "all of them" to save a endless lecture on the history of the records and artists!

[operabass78s]

I concur. My music shuffles between Caruso-era opera, Jazz, Classical, Black Sabbath, Beatles, Janis Joplin, Elvis, Gregorian chant and much more

[CptBob]

The seeds were sown when I bought a CD of transfers of Bal Musette accordéonists about ten years ago. It was one of about four or five CDs I bought at the same time. I put it on to hear a couple of tracks, but it gripped me so much I listened to it all the way through, then went back to the shop and bought a copy for a friend's birthday.

I've listened to that CD and other similar ones quite a lot over the years, and spent a fair bit of time transcribing some of the tunes to learn. From that was a short step to wanting to get a gramphone and look for the original records, and hopefully many more that hadn't been put on CD.

I went about getting my first gramophone in quite the wrong way. Ideally I'd have looked at a forum like this, but instead I looked in car boot sales (vide greniers) in France. In 2010 and 2011 sellers were still very optimistic about the prices they could get €150 for a dubiously working scruffy portable was par for the course. I did buy some 78s though ready for the gramophone when I got it. Eventually I saw a fairly tidy French HMV 101, not that i knew what it was when I bought it. The guy wanted €100 and I said "done!"

I should have done my research first - but actually the 101 wasn't such a bad buy especially after having the soundbox rebuilt by John Sleep, who transformed the sound of the machine.

I tend to scour French boot sales for records, but after buying a few job lots of records I realise I have to collect not amass, so I'm concentrating on French Traditional Music, Bal Musette, English Dance bands and early recordings of English and Scottish folk music - and of course anything else that really takes my fancy.

[clevelander]

Like most of the other collectors I started early. I asked for, and got, a Columbia Graphonola for my eleventh birthday, and when neighbours and friends found out I was deluged with old cast-off 78s.
I bought a Sonorophone horned gramophone from a local saleroom in 1970 for £21, and was nearly disowned by my parents for "Wasting my money on junk". I still have it.
My first phonograph (an Edison Standard) was bought when I was sixteen and required total refinishing.
Over the last twenty or so years the bug has really taken hold, I have reduced my gramophone collection but the phonographs now number more that fifty, and have totally taken over an attic room.
I started with one shelf, followed by as many as the walls would take.
I am now at saturation point!