Alabama Man inherits massive 78 record collection

[Edisonfan]

https://www.al.com/opinion/2020/01/alab ... uable.html


Found this online this morning.

[phonogfp]

It's too bad the guy's grandfather hadn't prepared for his collection to end up with a family member. A little effort on his part (which could have been fun) would have made the new owner's situation a lot better. There will be an article on this subject in the March 2020 issue of The Antique Phonograph.

George P.

[Phono48]

Sounds great, doesn't it? But as someone who has just cleared a collection of thirty thousand discs from an elderly gentleman who has no family, and offered them to me in return for a donation to charity, I can tell you that this generous offer turned out to be a double-edged sword. The records were stored in metal shelves that took all four walls of the garage, floor to ceiling, and a bedroom similarly fitted. About half were 12" vinyl albums, and the rest a mixture of 12, 10, and 8 inch 78s, with a few very early single sided 7".It meant two of us travelling 12 miles once a week, sometimes in pouring rain, loading the two cars up to the point where the suspension was in grave danger of collapsing, bringing them home and sorting through to find the anticipated "treasures", which proved to be few and far between. OK, there were some, including many early British music hall, and loads of early classical vocal, amongst which are many early discs by artists such as Clara Butt, Madame Tetrazzini, Theodore Chaliapine, Dame Nellie Melba, Caruso (of course!), Alma Gluck, etc, etc), many of them single-sided, and most in excellent condition. The main problem was that with very limited space, I had to dispose of the rest that I was not interested in before another lot could be collected. There is supposed to be a "vinyl revival", yes? Huh! only for certain ones, not Bing Crosby, Bert Kaempfert, German, Jewish, Indian, Russian, and middle-of-the-road . Fortunately the vinyl was easy to dispose of simply by giving it all to anyone who would take it away, but the 78s are proving to be more difficult. They have to be sold to raise a decent sum to make the charity donation, but how? Take for example the Clara Butt recordings. Prices being asked on ebay vary wildly, and looking at the "sold" listings are no use at all, as just because one title fetched a good price, that does not mean that another example will sell for the same, merely that someone may have been searching for that particular disc, and was prepared to pay a high price for it. Plus, do I need the hassle of buying all the very necessary packing and posting 78s one or two at a time? No, I don't! So meanwhile, I'm stuck with piles of 78s dotted all over the house that are far too good to throw away. Fortunately, the classical instrumental have been taken free of charge by a fellow collector. Many records have gone to the local tip, as I doubt anyone would have wanted, for instance, a six disc private recording of a young Jewish lad's Bar Mitzvah, but surely someone must want BBC recordings of the Royal Family's visit to South Africa in the forties, or recordings of Jan Smut's speeches, but who? On the plus side, I did get some rare Vera Lynn, Flanagan and Allan, and Gracie Fields, so all is not gloom and doom!

[tomb]

It is amazing how much people can accumulate in there house. I went over to a fellow collector and he had walls and walls of 78 shellac records on the second floor of the house. It worried me but I did not comment on the weight because he mentioned it. He is still young so he has time to deal with them I imagine he will get more though. I brought a record player off of a local elderly man and he had a garage full of records. I offered him a dollar per record and he turned me down. I guess when he dies they will go to the land fill. Listed On E bay is 10000 to 12000 radio tubes for $ 1500. Another large collection. Another land fill dump. Tom

[52089]

A dear friend of mine has thousands of records, about equally divided between rock and country. At one point, her husband built her a new room on their house just for her record collection. She has told me repeatedly that she is leaving them to me in her will. I hope she lives a long, long time because I have zero interest in country, and I already have 90% of what I would ever want in rock.

[Curt A]

I have a couple of collector friends who are obsessed with records, particularly Diamond Discs.

You would think that having 40,000+ DDs would be enough for anyone to try to manage - just imagine the tremendous weight... Every time there is a get together of collectors, they buy more 78s and DDs to the point where I have kidded them about buying by the truckload.

After a phonograph show, they couldn't pass up 5,000 unsold 78s just to get one center start Pathé record - they did get a good deal, since they only paid $20 or $30 for the entire lot... but do they sell any? No... Someone is going to have a huge problem getting rid of them if something happens to their health...

I think the Surgeon General needs to issue a required statement to be attached to all phonograph records:
WARNING: Records can be addictive and hazardous to your physical and mental health, not to mention dangerous or deadly from the possibility of your home collapsing.

[Curt A]

Getting back to the original post, I find it interesting that the writer of the article immediately jumps to the absolutely insane purchases made by a minuscule number of obsessed collectors that bought needle in the haystack type of records:
"A 78 sold for $19,600 just last week. It was by pre-war blues singer Charley Patton. A few years ago Tommy Johnson playing ‘Alcohol and Jake Blues’ brought $37,000, according to ValueYourMusic.com."

What he fails to mention is that millions of these 78s don't bring 10 cents apiece in the real world and that knowledgeable collectors sell them for $1-5 all day long, IF they can find buyers willing to part with $1-5 for them... Also, places like thrift stores or Goodwill regularly dump thousands into their dumpsters, since most people don't have any use for them.

The only way the guy who inherited them will get them off his back is to sell the whole lot, if possible, as an un-searched lot cheap. Most collectors don't want a big pile of cherry picked records

[gramophone-georg]

Another thing to remember is that people didn't buy records as investments- they bought them to listen to and because they liked the music. The most valuable records are "race" records, pretty much- and those markets were very small and poor. Look at how many Black Pattis you see, for example.

As a record collector and aficionado of the music, paying a stupid sum of money for a record such that I'd be afraid to handle it or listen to it... well, if that's not a sin... it ought to be.

[Marco Gilardetti]

I find it interesting that the writer of the article immediately jumps to the absolutely insane purchases made by a minuscule number of obsessed collectors that bought needle in the haystack type of records

Same here. It is possibly the most silly and uniformative article that I've read (well... the first lines of) in a loooong long while.

[Curt A]

"The most valuable records are "race" records, pretty much- and those markets were very small and poor."

True, and because of that not many have survived in good, playable condition - hence the premium price for good examples. The majority of those records, as well as desirable early hillbilly or country records are worn out and look like they were played with rusty nails (they probably actually were)...