Paramount Record found at book store

[reverendpen]

So I was looking around a used bookstore and came across this record. Got it for $0.99. What is funny is that of all the 78's in the box, the paramount one was the only one without a sleeve. It now has a nice protective sleeve to call home
I know some paramount records are worth more than others (more rare than others), so I would appreciative any comments about this particular record. It needs a cleaning but plays all the way through on both sides.

[estott]

Harry Yerkes' orchestras (he used a lot of names)were based around a marimba or two- often played by one of the Green Bros. He recorded for a variety of labels and Emerson even pressed a special YERKES DANCE RECORD label for him. He played lively music that is sometimes jazzy but never really "Jazz". Stuff like this is typical of what Paramount issued before they tapped into the Race market. This was probably pressed from a Banner or Emerson master.

A nice find for a buck, that's about what it's worth.

[Wolfe]

There are very many common popular type issued (like yours) on Paramount records. Quite distinct from Paramount's "Race" series, which contains some of the rarest and highest valued 78's around.

[reverendpen]

How would I know which ones are the Race records. What record numbers should I look out for?

[FloridaClay]

How would I know which ones are the Race records. What record numbers should I look out for?

The test is content. The ones that tend to be high dollar value are those by old-school southern African American blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson. You should be able to find a ton of information on the internet by Goggling things like "Paramount Records blues". There is a strong collector market for those. Ordinary pop recordings of the era like the one you picked up are just that, ordinary, and, like the great bulk of 78s, not worth much as far as I know.

Clay

[victorIIvictor]

"How would I know which ones are the Race records. What record numbers should I look out for?"

Blues and jazz records on Paramount were issued in their 12000/13000 catalog series (yours is in their 20000 popular series). Country records on Paramount were issued in a 3000 catalog series. It is issues from these series that often command large amounts of money from collectors, because Paramount had an excellent catalog and is a fairly rare label, because it was not well distributed outside of the American South.

Just because your disk is on Paramount, I would say it would typically fetch $10-$20 in an auction, depending on condition. It would have made my day find this disc. I am far more interested in collecting these types of records, since all of the really expensive 78's have been re-issued in better sound than what I could hope to accomplish. But here, you have a no doubt enjoyable record that almost certainly has never been reissued anywhere. Money aside, I'd rather hear this.

Best wishes, Mark

[FloridaClay]

If you've got $400, you can get this very snazzy reproduction set.

http://youtu.be/Td60tYC_GhQ?list=UUYjxh ... UeEz8rY27g

Clay

[victorIIvictor]

Ah yes, The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1. Well, the **packaging** is undeniably snazzy, and no doubt the books contain a lot of interesting and useful information. But in the end it comes down to the music, and since I, at least, have a lot of Paramount's most sought after titles on excellently-remastered LPs and CDs, I hesitate on shelling out for much of the same material issued, as here, on a lossy, compressed format such as MP3.

Plus I was irritated with the many anachronistic aesthetic choices used in putting together this set. The USB drive containing the recordings is made to look like a "Paramount No. 2" sound box, but I'm pretty sure there never was such a thing. The LPs are pressed on mottled vinyl (so they look like mid-1920s Pathé Actuelle discs, not Paramounts), and they have gold leaf labels (so they look like Leeds discs from the first decade of the 20th century, not Paramounts). The people who compiled the written material for this set have already put out a book on the Rise and Fall of Paramount (on Mainspring Press) and four of five volumes of a complete Paramount discography (on Agram Books).

So, snazzy, yes, but you could get almost all the same material in better sound, and probably almost all the same written material, for much less than the price Third Man Records is charging for this. To me, it's mostly about the packaging, which is the last thing I am interested in.

For what it's worth, Mark

[Wolfe]

I had thought about buying the set when I initially heard it was coming out on vinyl, it looked tempting, especially that Christopher King did the transfers - in my experience he does good work.

But 800 + sides of Paramount 78's was a little more than I felt like wanting to get into. The set will still be around in the future, and I have many of it's "stars" in some form in my music collection already.

[reverendpen]

So who owns the copyright for paramount recording (or any music from companies no longer around)?