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I found this Edison Phonograph. It runs good and has 34 records. Are certain records more valuable than others? Thanks.

There was an ad on this board recently offering to sell a similar machine for $50 with no takers. This is a cheaply made machine and has the disadvantage of taking up a lot of floor space. It's perfectly fine as a basic machine, if you could get it for under $100. For more than that, IMHO, you should find something else.

As 52089 implies, machines like this generate very little interest among collectors and are hard to sell.

As for record value, a few rare titles can be valuable, but the vast majority of Edison discs are not valuable at all ($1 or $2).

Marvelous posts. They're discussing a phantom phono...!

Inigo wrote:Marvelous posts. They're discussing a phantom phono...!

The original post had a picture of an Edison London Console in so-so shape, missing one of its grills. The poster seems to have removed those photos.

Is there any type of list of rare titles for records that are more valuable than others? Or is it mainly what your taste is in music which becomes valuable to you?

AZ* wrote:As 52089 implies, machines like this generate very little interest among collectors and are hard to sell.

As for record value, a few rare titles can be valuable, but the vast majority of Edison discs are not valuable at all ($1 or $2).

ArtVan wrote:Is there any type of list of rare titles for records that are more valuable than others? Or is it mainly what your taste is in music which becomes valuable to you?

AZ* wrote:As 52089 implies, machines like this generate very little interest among collectors and are hard to sell.

As for record value, a few rare titles can be valuable, but the vast majority of Edison discs are not valuable at all ($1 or $2).

As far as record value goes, you are asking a question with absolutely no simple answer.

You need to spend time talking with record collectors, researching record books, record auctions, record sales at phonograph shows, eBay, Naucks record auctions, etc. which will take you a number of years to be educated on the subject and still not really knowing, in total, the vast set of details that make up "record values".

There are collectors who pay high prices for records made for certain machines, certain dates, certain titles, obscure performers, types of records, record labels and on and on... Also, just because one buyer paid a large amount for a single record doesn't mean that is its actual value... And, it goes without saying that "asking" prices on eBay don't mean anything in determining actual value... Someone might ask $100,000 for a record that they think is rare, out of stupidity... just because they have never seen one doesn't make it "rare" and rare is an overused term on eBay.

The vast majority of records that you will find "in the wild" are common and not worth much - $.50-$2.00, usually the more valuable records have been collected for the past 100 years by knowledgeable collectors and have stayed in collections. Extremely rare records are in collections that don't break up until the collector dies or something drastic happens, so the chances of you finding one is a needle in a haystack chance. That being said, it does happen that somebody inherits a collection, doesn't appreciate it and sells it in a yard sale or gives it to GoodWill, but the caveat is for you to be well enough educated on the subject that you recognize the item or items for what they are and buy them. Which all goes back to the only way to know what is "valuable or not" is to be educated...

There is no all inclusive formal list that you can reference... and even if there was, you still wouldn't find them without education and good contacts in the collector world.

Also, you can research Popsike.com for prices realized on past record sales of specific titles. But Popsike doesn't really say what the actual worth of a record is, as the same record X may have sold for $10, $50, and $200 depending on if there was a bidding war for it, and it's condition. So if you have record X is it worth $10, $50, or $200. Most sellers take condition into play, and get an average of the prices to determine an asking price. So their record X might not be mint like the one that sold for $200, but might be E- or VG+, so they add the three prices and get $260, and then divide by 3 and get about $85. But it's only worth that if sometime agrees to buy it. Also format is important to record collectors. You can by Caruso records all day long on the Victrola label for $1 and $2 each, but if an opera record is on a 4 minute maroon box Grand Opera Edison cylinder, the price can exceed $100 each!

Someone gave me some records which were not taken very good of over the years. They have different kinds of gunk on them. What is the best thing to use to try and clean these up without causing anymore damage to them? Is it safe to use rubbing alcohol on them? One record looks like it has tiny specs of paint not sure if there is anyway to get that off.

ArtVan wrote:Someone gave me some records which were not taken very good of over the years. They have different kinds of gunk on them. What is the best thing to use to try and clean these up without causing anymore damage to them? Is it safe to use rubbing alcohol on them? One record looks like it has tiny specs of paint not sure if there is anyway to get that off.

This board has an excellent search function. If you search for "how to clean records" or something similar, you will find many discussions on the subject.