The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have a lot of Historical personality recordings in my collection as I tried to collect them as much as possible. Some of them were quite expensive while others were very reasonable. My Digital Camera is temporarily out of order but I will post some photos of them later. For some of them, I have posted videos on my YouTube channel as well.

This is the list of the ones I currently have.

U.S. Presidents and World Leaders :
Woodrow Wilson (1912 Victor - later Special White Label pressing)
Herbert Hoover (1930s Victor - later Special White Label pressing)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1920 Nations Forum, and one Private issue - 1941 "Day of Infamy" speech)
King George V & Queen Mary (1923 HMV)
King George VI (1939 HMV - The original "The King's Speech"!)
Queen Elizabeth II (1941 HMV Private, then Princess Elizabeth)
J. Ramsay MacDonald (1928 Columbia)
Neville Chamberlain (1938 HMV Private)
Winston Churchill (1941 ~ 1952 Several HMVs)
Benito Mussolini (1928 Victor)
Mahatma Gandhi (1931 Columbia)
Vladimir Lenin (1940s Gramplasttrest Dubbing of 1919 Centropechat issue)
Chairman Mao Zedong (1962 Chinese RED Guard 78)

Actors and Actresses
Viola Allen / Otis Skinner (1941 IRCC Private issue)
Joseph Jefferson (1940s Collectors Record Shop dubbing of 1903 Columbia)
Lillian Russell (1940s Collectors Record Shop dubbing from 1912 Unissued Columbia Test)
Ellen Terry (1913 Victor)
Charlie Chaplin (1923 Brunswick - Guest conducting Abe Lyman Orchestra / 1936, 1951 two Swedish HMVs)
John Gielgud (1937 HMV Coronation Commemorative Record)
John Barrymore (1928 HMV)
Lawrence Olivier (1948, Excerpts from his film, "Hamlet", on Victor Set DM 1273)
Rudolph Valentino (1940s Collectors Record Shop dubbing of a dubbing (!) of 1923 Unissued Brunswick Record)
Tyrone Power (Jr.) (1940s Victor)
Sarah Bernhardt (One original 1902 G&T and one HMV No.2 Reissue, and 1945 Dubbing of 1917 Aeolian-Vocalion)
Alexander Moissi (1912 German Gramophone - Electrola Reissue)
Coquelin Aine (1948 Association Gramophile du Francaise dubbing of 1900 Phono-Cinema-Theatre Cylinder)

Literary People
James Joyce (1929, HMV Special Issue for The Orthological Institute at Cambridge)
James Whitcomb Riley (1913 Victor)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1928, HMV)
Jean Cocteau (1933 Columbia)
Leo Tolstoy (1909 HMV No.2, English Version)

Other historical figures
Florence Nightingale (1933 Edison-Bell Dubbing of 1890 Cylinder)
William Jennings Bryan (1923 Gennett)
Booker T. Washington (1960s Vinyl pressing of 1908 Columbia Private issue)
Dr. Stephen S. Wise (1920s Nations Forum)
Albert Einstein (1936 Address at Natural History Museum of NY, Acetate)
P.T. Barnum (1939 National Vocarium Dubbing of 1890 Cylinder)
Thomas A. Edison ("Let Us Not Forget" DD, 1939 National Vocarium Dubbing of 1908 "Electricity and Progress" Cylinder)
Robert G. Ingersoll (1960s RCA Victor Vinyl pressing of 1897 Berliner)
Charles Lindbergh (1927 Victor)
General Douglas McArthur (1951 "Old Soldiers Never Die" Speech, Nippon Columbia)
General John J. Pershing (1917 Nations Forum - incredibly short!)
General William Booth (Several 1907 Columbias)
Captain Robert Peary / Captain Ernest Shackleton (1911 HMV No.2)
Herb Morrison (1937 Private Record of Hindenburg Disaster Radio coverage)

Now you have the chance to add Otto von Bismarck to your collection of Famous Historical Figures: http://www.ebay.com/itm/290769884304

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqDdSR0jBKg[/youtube]

If you put it on your record shelf you'll come back to find it has pushed your Pathé records into a corner.

A couple more in my collection......Note....King George died less than a month later on January 20 1936. You can hear how years of heavy smoking have taken their toll. Although this record is not of a historical figure. It is a very historical recording and in fact the only actual recording of a WW1 battle as it's happening. Recorded by a historical figure of recording Mr. Gaisburg. In fact this recording this would eventually cost him his life . That is dedication.

I've wanted to hear the shelling record- could you or someone put it on youtube?

OK, I found it online: http://acenturyofnovember.com/html/audi ... rdment.php

Not meaning any ill to Mr. Gaisberg it sounds entirely false to me- like a stroke on a bass drum and a party noisemaker. I can not believe it is real even though he says it is. Having been quite near to a black powder cannon being fired I can tell you in not only makes a tremendous noise but a sharp physical concussion. I'd expect that the needle would have jumped right off the wax, but this recording is not only clear it is TOO clear.

If I am doubting and cynical it is because a great deal of fakery was passed off as the real thing, even by the government. Crowds wept at British government sanctioned documentary THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME which contained scenes of men dying in the trenches. One prominent woman said "Now I know what my son died for". Well, all the footage was fake, shot at a training school in the UK Midlands. I can be tolerant and forgive it- this was material people really wanted to see, and I suppose it gave many of them some comfort.

Yes, it really is a true "on site" battle recording and the only "true" recording of WW1. Mr. Gaisburg had set up his recording gear in the ruins of a house.....I believe in the remains of the kitchen. He had inadvertently inhaled some of the gas and upon his return to England developed (gas related) pneumonia and within a couple months was died. He was still fairly young.

gramophone78 wrote:Yes, it really is a true "on site" battle recording and the only "true" recording of WW1. Mr. Gaisburg had set up his recording gear in the ruins of a house.....I believe in the remains of the kitchen. He had inadvertently inhaled some of the gas and upon his return to England developed (gas related) pneumonia and within a couple months was died. He was still fairly young.

Died fairly young? Are we talking about the Fred Gaisberg who died in 1951 at the age of 78?

Here's his obituary in The Gramophone: http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/Oc ... 15/785786/ He was still working at HMV well into his 60's.

I have to agree completely with Estott on all points; the record sounds fake. If the recording lathe was close enough to pick up voices of the firing crew and the ejected shell, then it would have been too close to record the cannon. I have shot and stood near large cannons, and their deafening concussion ought to propel an acoustic cutting stylus through the adjoining groove and into the next county. The whiz of the departing shells also sounded like a sound effect.

estott wrote:

gramophone78 wrote:Yes, it really is a true "on site" battle recording and the only "true" recording of WW1. Mr. Gaisburg had set up his recording gear in the ruins of a house.....I believe in the remains of the kitchen. He had inadvertently inhaled some of the gas and upon his return to England developed (gas related) pneumonia and within a couple months was died. He was still fairly young.

Died fairly young? Are we talking about the Fred Gaisberg who died in 1951 at the age of 78?

Here's his obituary in The Gramophone: http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/Oc ... 15/785786/ He was still working at HMV well into his 60's.

No not Fred. His brother was the recording engineer for this recording William Conrad Gaisburg 1876-1918. 42 years of age.

OK, I did make a mistake on that, though brother William seems to have been overshadowed by Fred. He definitely did make records overseas though- he applied for a permit to visit Turkey. In the only notice I can find his death is recorded as part of the influenza epidemic. Can you cite a source?

I still think the record is a fake- very possibly they tried to make one and cooked this one up after.