I just purchased my first antique phonograph, see it here. http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =2&t=21522
The questions I have reflect my total lack of knowledge about collecting vintage recordings. Thanks for your help.
1. Is it possible to buy specific titles without hunting in antique stores? Of interest to me are popular jazz recordings from the 1920s.
2.Where can I get an education about record labels? Again, I don't really want to look for rare recordings, just great jazz from the 1920s.
3.What should I expect to pay for a jazz standard from the 1920s?
4.Since the records I'm interested in getting were popular, is condition going to be an issue? What should I look for with regard to condition.
5.Are there records that won't play right on my Sonora?
"You can't take the phonographs nor the money with you, but the contentment the phonographs bring may well make your life better, and happier lives make the world a better place."
Your machine is not quite suited to late 20's electrical recordings. Records from 1926-1930 will play OK on your machine, some may play very well, but you'll notice that they can blast a bit and might seem just a little too strident.
Later records (something like Big Band records from the 40's and later) won't sound good.
20's dance band records are plentiful- prices can start at a buck. You may not recognize a lot of the bands but don't let you stop- a house band like Nat Shilkret and his Victor Orchestra might not sound exciting, but they made some fine records: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVORcAU-kAc
estott wrote:Your machine is not quite suited to late 20's electrical recordings. Records from 1926-1930 will play OK on your machine, some may play very well, but you'll notice that they can blast a bit and might seem just a little too strident.
Later records (something like Big Band records from the 40's and later) won't sound good.
I don't know about OP's 1916 Sonora, but my 1917 VV-XI plays all of the above-vintage records and they sound just great. If the Sonora sound box is up to it (rebuilt as needed), his probably will, too. My Exhibition came to life after a rebuild, and it continues to demonstrate its full potential, especially on jazz and big band records from the 1930s.
estott wrote:Your machine is not quite suited to late 20's electrical recordings. Records from 1926-1930 will play OK on your machine, some may play very well, but you'll notice that they can blast a bit and might seem just a little too strident.
Later records (something like Big Band records from the 40's and later) won't sound good.
I don't know about OP's 1916 Sonora, but my 1917 VV-XI plays all of the above-vintage records and they sound just great. If the Sonora sound box is up to it (rebuilt as needed), his probably will, too. My Exhibition came to life after a rebuild, and it continues to demonstrate its full potential, especially on jazz and big band records from the 1930s.
30's is a grey area- some of those will play well on an older machine- I think they dampened the curve a bit on popular records because people were playing them on portables and the like. Once you get into the 40's records begin to not only sound bad on an acoustic machine they can do some damage.
Just to set the terminology straight......78's are NOT "LP's". LP stands for Long Play which is a term commonly used for vinyl albums playing at 33 ⅓ rpm and containing 10-25 minutes of music per side. 78's refers to records playing at 78 rpm, and usually containing one musical selection per side with a running time of about 3 minutes per side. You would never play a modern vinyl plastic LP on a vintage wind-up player. It would immediately ruin it. The hey-day of 78's, the records were made of shellac compound that would stand-up under the brutal weight of a steel needle and heavy sound-box.
i think a number of the machine collectors on this forum could be considered machine hoarders (like me!) with each machine buy there might be stacks of records and if they are like me that will ad up after a wile
we like the rare records for our rare machines but the everyday stuf will pile up after a while i have the habit of giving records away to beginning collectors
sadly i live in europe too far away for you
maybe there are other collectors on this forum with an unwanted growing pile of records? to help you out
'Phile, the link to Nauck's is a good place to start in identifying various labels. If you haven't found it already, there's a link there to a gallery of labels. Unfortunately, the labels depicted don't have their production dates listed for some reason (the dates would have been helpful, and easy enough to include), but you can get a sense of what's out there to look for.
To answer your last question first (and sidestepping the controversy over whether or not to play late 78s with an acoustic reproducer, which is completely a matter of personal preference; personally, I don't do it) -- you'll definitely want to restrict your record selection to lateral recordings only. Vertical recordings, such as Edison discs and some others such as many Pathé discs, not only won't play well on your machine, but you'll most likely damage or destroy them if you try. Likewise with late 78s from the 'fifties and beyond -- they'll be made of an entirely different material than the shellac records of previous decades. You can feel the difference in their lighter weight, and see the difference in flexibility. If a record is at all flexible, it'll be wrong for your machine. Not that flexibility is the only guide -- but shellac discs (and hoo-boy, Edison discs) aren't flexible at all, and they'll break before they bend, so don't try too hard!
eBay is an excellent source of 78s. Just do a search there for "78 rpm" and see what comes up. Or cut to the chase and search for a specific orchestra or title you want, but add "78 rpm" to the name in your search or you'll also get listings for CDs and LPs (vinyl!) and it'll dilute your results. It'll help to buy -- at least at first -- from sellers who sell a lot of, or exclusively, 78s. They'll know how to pack 78s for shipping, where sellers who just happen to have listed a 78 or two that they got at a garage sale may not, with the result that an improperly packaged 78 may arrive to you in several pieces. Pay attention to a seller's feedback history, and also to the cost of shipping. Personally, I tend to grumble if shipping is much more than four bucks for media mail, even if I bid. I know shipping can be managed in the four-dollar range (or even less), because many reputable sellers do it. A few sellers of 78s have been nudging their shipping cost north toward the seven-dollar mark, for no reason other than that they can. All this really means to a buyer is that you're paying a couple or three dollars more for the record itself. This isn't that big a deal for a valuable record -- say, over fifty bucks -- but for a record nominally sold at five bucks, it means you're really paying closer to eight for it, due to the high shipping cost. Normally I think twice before buying records with a high shipping cost, because I'm cheap (I'll maintain to the end of my days that the "correct price" for any 78 is one dollar, despite the fact that that's become almost completely unrealistic) and I'm not a high-end record buyer.
For your purposes (and mine, mostly), a condition of V+, using the nearly universal VJM (Vintage Jazz Mart) grading system, which you can look up (or many sellers display it in their listing pages)is usually perfectly acceptable. A V or even G+ rating might be just fine if you really want the title and it's going cheap, but V+ and up will often provide a better listening experience. Value and price shoot up exponentially in the upper grading tiers -- take a look at prices of the same title in V+, E+, and Near Mint condition; you can do this by doing an eBay search for a given record and then comparing past prices for various conditions. There's a button at the bottom of the search criteria menu that says "show sold listings". Or you can look up past eBay prices for many titles, going back several years in some cases, at collectorsfrenzy.com.
Be aware that there's controversy among collectors over whether anyone should be playing these old records on the old machines at all. To me, this makes a certain amount of sense when playing records that are legitimately scarce which have survived in fine condition through all these decades. When you play an old shellac record on an old machine with its heavy soundbox, make no mistake, each time you play it, the record is degraded slightly. An easy, if inconclusive, way of telling how much damage is occurring is to "squeeze" the tip of the needle between thumb and forefinger after playing a record. You may or may not see black dust on your fingers. Follow the all-important rule of changing the needle each time you play a record, and you'll minimize the dust and the damage. A record that in some era of its life has been played by someone who repeatedly neglected this rule is very likely to have been started on an irreversible path of degradation; once the grooves have started to grey out, you can only minimize further damage by changing the needle. But with proper care, cleaning, and needle-changing, you can still get years of good sound out of a V+ or even V record. I do care that records, especially anything at all scarce, should be preserved for as long as possible into the future, in as good a condition as possible -- but I don't have my several machines to not play records on them. My compromise is to leave the better records to better collectors, those who'll only play them on electrical equipment. This is fine with me, as records in V and V+ states are plentiful and often relatively inexpensive, and usually suit my needs well enough. My "collection" will never be worth much (take that, heirs!) but I'll sure have enjoyed assembling it and listening to it.
As far as finding quality '20s jazz on 78s, you may want to look for reissues in, for example the Brunswick "Collectors Series" or late-running Bluebird labels, among others. These tend to be much cheaper than the original issues, and are often pressed from the original masters so they'll sound just as good.
Some records were made better than others. For example, many Columbia records, and those produced by Columbia for client labels such as Diva, Velvet-Tone, and Harmony, can be pretty beat up and still deliver surprisingly good sound. And, even after Columbia switched to electrical recording in 1925-'26, much if not most of what was released on the budget labels was recorded acoustically right up into the Depression, so there's a fair amount of late '20s jazz on these labels that should really sound good on your machine.
There's no way to answer your question about what you should expect to pay for 78s. It'll depend on the title, condition, whether you're in the right place at the right time, and, more than anything else, what you're willing to pay. By all means, check your local Goodwill/Salvation Army or other charity shops, and yard sales -- that's where you're much more likely to pay the least. But eBay and other online auctions can be a steady and reliable source, with the benefit of not spending a lot of time or gas money driving around. (Although keeping a watch list and following searches on eBay etc. can be a real time-sink -- beware, it can be addictive, but that's the way the hobby goes.)
I hope all this blather helps you get started. Now the coffee's gone and I've gotta get started -- with work! May your collection grow and provide you with many hours of pleasure!
"Gosh darn a Billiken anyhow."- Uncle Josh Weathersby
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