Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

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OrthoSean
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by OrthoSean »

78recordpicker wrote:if you go to popsike.com, you can get a few free searches, I put in Caruso 12 inch and saw 67 sales hits at 20 bucks or more, but the site archives back quite a few years, so....its possible you have a few sellable 20 dollar ones, etc if you were so inclined
Popsike is nothing more than prices realized on eBay, the place where any two idiots with no sense and too much money can drive prices way beyond reality. Sorry if I sound sour, but I really can't stand eBay, I used to enjoy selling there once in awhile if I came up with something nice that wasn't in my collecting range, but ignorant buyers and eBay policies favoring them no matter what drove me and many others away, which is fine, I've never cared about how much any record is "worth", I know it very well from being around them and the market for decades, but it's no fun when money gets priority.

That said, there are certainly a couple of Caruso 12 inch discs that are not at all common, but these are so few they aren't worth mentioning. I've been at the classical record game for 36 years now and trust me when I say none of his 12 inch Victors that are rare. None. I have at least 300 dupes of his currently that get handed off to anyone that visits here and wants them. I have another 300 or more I keep in machines to play, then there's my "archive" of his that will never see steel as long as I live, because they're the mintiest copies you'll ever see, but alas, even those aren't worth much, but I enjoy them more than the Marston CDs.

I'm sure there are even more of his lurking in boxes from a huge collection I bought years ago that I still haven't finished dealing with, but that's another story.

As to Caruso on Edison, I seem to remember in one of the books that published TAE's comments about singers, he couldn't stand Caruso's singing....

Sean
Last edited by OrthoSean on Wed Jul 10, 2019 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Wolfe
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by Wolfe »

Edison was a big fan of Giovanni Martinelli when it came to signing tenors for the Diamond Disc. Martinelli's little vibrato and loud nasal tone probably sounded good to Edison by that point when Edison was (by all accounts) mostly deaf.

Viva-voce
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by Viva-voce »

I'll add my two cents here to what Sean has so well said, and mention Caruso's first three 12-inch recordings, all from 1904: Victor 85021 (2nd verse of Una furtiva lagrima) and 85022 (Celeste Aida) on the De Luxe label, and the Pearl Fishers aria on red G&T 052066. First-edition pressings of these in top condition could fetch $50 each or more. Those are probably the only ones that have significantly more monetary value to collectors than the other 12-inch issues. And, by the way, I think Caruso's voice was captured much better on the 1904 recordings than on a great many of his later ones.

Steven

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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by melvind »

Lucius1958 wrote:
Too bad he was locked into that Victor contract: I wonder what he would have sounded like on Diamond Disc...

Bill
I don't think Caruso had an issue with his contract with Victor as he made 50 cents per record sold. It made him a multimillionaire!

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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by estott »

melvind wrote:
Lucius1958 wrote:
Too bad he was locked into that Victor contract: I wonder what he would have sounded like on Diamond Disc...

Bill
I don't think Caruso had an issue with his contract with Victor as he made 50 cents per record sold. It made him a multimillionaire!

And if he'd recorded for Edison he'd have had to put up with Edison's dislike of Italian Tenors.

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gramophone-georg
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by gramophone-georg »

OrthoSean wrote:
78recordpicker wrote:if you go to popsike.com, you can get a few free searches, I put in Caruso 12 inch and saw 67 sales hits at 20 bucks or more, but the site archives back quite a few years, so....its possible you have a few sellable 20 dollar ones, etc if you were so inclined
Popsike is nothing more than prices realized on eBay, the place where any two idiots with no sense and too much money can drive prices way beyond reality. Sorry if I sound sour, but I really can't stand eBay, I used to enjoy selling there once in awhile if I came up with something nice that wasn't in my collecting range, but ignorant buyers and eBay policies favoring them no matter what drove me and many others away, which is fine, I've never cared about how much any record is "worth", I know it very well from being around them and the market for decades, but it's no fun when money gets priority.

That said, there are certainly a couple of Caruso 12 inch discs that are not at all common, but these are so few they aren't worth mentioning. I've been at the classical record game for 36 years now and trust me when I say none of his 12 inch Victors that are rare. None. I have at least 300 dupes of his currently that get handed off to anyone that visits here and wants them. I have another 300 or more I keep in machines to play, then there's my "archive" of his that will never see steel as long as I live, because they're the mintiest copies you'll ever see, but alas, even those aren't worth much, but I enjoy them more than the Marston CDs.

I'm sure there are even more of his lurking in boxes from a huge collection I bought years ago that I still haven't finished dealing with, but that's another story.

As to Caruso on Edison, I seem to remember in one of the books that published TAE's comments about singers, he couldn't stand Caruso's singing....

Sean
While we owe Edison an indisputable debt of gratitude for originating recorded sound that could be played back, paradoxically, the most insurmountable challenge to success that Edison Records had was Edison.
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78recordpicker
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by 78recordpicker »

OrthoSean wrote:
78recordpicker wrote:if you go to popsike.com, you can get a few free searches, I put in Caruso 12 inch and saw 67 sales hits at 20 bucks or more, but the site archives back quite a few years, so....its possible you have a few sellable 20 dollar ones, etc if you were so inclined
Popsike is nothing more than prices realized on eBay, the place where any two idiots with no sense and too much money can drive prices way beyond reality. Sorry if I sound sour, but I really can't stand eBay, I used to enjoy selling there once in awhile if I came up with something nice that wasn't in my collecting range, but ignorant buyers and eBay policies favoring them no matter what drove me and many others away, which is fine, I've never cared about how much any record is "worth", I know it very well from being around them and the market for decades, but it's no fun when money gets priority.

That said, there are certainly a couple of Caruso 12 inch discs that are not at all common, but these are so few they aren't worth mentioning. I've been at the classical record game for 36 years now and trust me when I say none of his 12 inch Victors that are rare. None. I have at least 300 dupes of his currently that get handed off to anyone that visits here and wants them. I have another 300 or more I keep in machines to play, then there's my "archive" of his that will never see steel as long as I live, because they're the mintiest copies you'll ever see, but alas, even those aren't worth much, but I enjoy them more than the Marston CDs.

I'm sure there are even more of his lurking in boxes from a huge collection I bought years ago that I still haven't finished dealing with, but that's another story.

As to Caruso on Edison, I seem to remember in one of the books that published TAE's comments about singers, he couldn't stand Caruso's singing....

Sean
I personally have had wonderful experiences on eBay, and if that is the market where 'reality" is distorted and a person can get more value from the records they don't want....Put them up. This assumes the person:
1. did their homework and didn't put up something worth much more than they posted....
2. And they understand the actions of shill bidders, especially if they are a possible buyer.

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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by epigramophone »

Lucius1958 wrote:
Wolfe wrote:Sound quality ? Victor did a crappy job of recording Caruso. A lot of Victor records have crappy sound compared to some other acoustical records. But some of the worse problems come out on Caruso records. This peaky, strident sound that's really irritating to listen to. But because it's Caruso, we struggle along.

With careful attention in execution, my own transfers of some good Caruso pressings I find satisfying, as well as some of Ward Marstons. Still, the whole shebang of Caruso's Victor catalog is a very mixed bag with regards to sound.
Too bad he was locked into that Victor contract: I wonder what he would have sounded like on Diamond Disc...

Bill
The vertical cut system might have restricted his record sales. I wish that, like many of his fellow Italian artists, he had recorded for Fonotipia.
Last edited by epigramophone on Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

estott
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by estott »

epigramophone wrote: I wish that, like many of his fellow Italian artists, he had recorded for Fonotipia.
He did record for Pathé - they had their chance.

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Wolfe
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Re: Any value to these Enrico Caruso 78's?

Post by Wolfe »

Caruso recorded for the Anglo-Italian Commerce Company (AICC) in association with Pathé and his Zonophone records were the same. The Pathés are announced that way too. AHN-GLO-EETALIAN COOMMERCE COOMPANY! Some have positied that it's Caruso himself doing the announcments on the AICC/Pathé records. IIRC, Caruso's son thought it was Caruso's voice in those announcements. He said Caruso's speaking voice was fairly unremarkable.

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