The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have bought a near identical lot like this from the same seller. Apparently he has quite a few. Mine arrived most in unplayable condition with white chalky buildup/mold spots on the surfaces and rim flakes/chips. Don't spend your money on this. Out of the 50 discs, 3 were reasonably playable and nothing was of considerable interest. If they were NOS they were NOS stored next to the sump pump in a leaky, damp basement.

richardh wrote:I am curious, how can you tell if you have a NOS disk? Did they come in sealed record covers? or is it just the lack of any needle trails on them?

RJ

I found mine framed w/ the original descriptive sleeve & a sheet talking about a stash of these that someone found. I posted about this several yrs. ago elsewhere thinking it was a joke but found out it was a true story.

NOS is one of those potential "weasel phrases," like "minty." As the fella said, "I don't like 'minty'---what other flavors you got?"

I don't thinks i've ever seen a DD in it's original descriptive sleeve.

Here are a couple of pictures of one of these supposed NOS DD from Hawthorn. I recall reading from his auctions that some of the records may have the filmy coating that Operabass78s described. Hawthorn claims that this can be cleaned right off with no impact. None of the records I scored has this so I can't comment.

The sleeves are very clean where the disc's sat against each other, but show aging and grime in the corners.

When my lot was received, none of the discs came with sleeves, although they were not pictured with sleeves either.

Yes we have mentioned this seller often as someone who is not quite reliable.. He is the one that usually runs them as something he found at an sale and has no use for. He offers many machines for sale, so he must be a major collector whom is probably around here somewhere? One of our members purchased some of those sets in boxes and was not pleased with the condition as I recall.

eBay seller terms like NOS are fairly loose. I recently saw an Edison recorder which the seller stated was "never used." I asked how he knew this. The reply? "I'm just assuming from the condition of the box..." Yeah, right. The (several) photos didn't even show the bottom of it, and MANY people asked if the cutter was attached. It wasn't.

larryh wrote:Yes we have mentioned this seller often as someone who is not quite reliable.. He is the one that usually runs them as something he found at an sale and has no use for. He offers many machines for sale, so he must be a major collector whom is probably around here somewhere? One of our members purchased some of those sets in boxes and was not pleased with the condition as I recall.

I have not purchased anything from him outside of his record auctions and have bid in every one for the past 4 or 5 years. I have won some ephemera and hardware for reasonable bids. I have always found him to be quite reliable and his condition grading to be fair. One nice thing he does is include with your invoice is a list of the winning bids on the items you were not the sucessful bidder on. Nauck sells this.

Your mileage may vary, however, my experience has been consistent and positive.

Had the camera out so I figured I would share some pictures of the 50 NOS DD lot I purchased a few months back....