The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A bunch of my records have address labels on them with old sounding names (at least my early records). One such record I was playing the other day and the address was only about a 30 min drive from me. I took a pic of it and next time I head out that way I want to drive by the residence and just look at the house; if it in fact still exists. Has anybody done this before? Or am I the only one that seeks such a connection to my prized possessions?

You're not the only one. I've driven to the storefront of original retailers, customers' homes, and factory sites to take pictures. I dunno what the impetus is, but it's there...

George P.

Me too. Old record store addresses was a starting clue for buying more. And the phone book too. When young, I found a store that still operated, and kept tons of NOS 78s for the last price they had 20 years before! I also found some other surviving stores, but most of them didn't have 78s left. Yet some few I found that still had some stock left. Great times!

Last time that I was in Vienna in autumn, I reached the place where the superb Monarch II that I have the luck to own was originally sold. In my mind I had always figured a narrow, curvy downtown road in a pedestrian zone, still retaining some of the spirit of the times. My disappointment has been abysmal when I saw that the address corresponded to the ugliest concrete buiding with aluminium windows you can think of, all submerged by car traffic.

However yes, I also felt compelled to reach the place suggested by the dealer's tag.

With 78s... one never knows. In a thrift store some years ago I found one by the Comedian Harmonists, at a mere 2€, in perfect shape. The store was devoted mainly to second hand clothes. Go figure! A very nice record with Aufwiedersehen my dear and Heute nacht oder nie. Very nice love songs!

Inigo wrote: Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:51 am Me too. Old record store addresses was a starting clue for buying more. And the phone book too. When young, I found a store that still operated, and kept tons of NOS 78s for the last price they had 20 years before! I also found some other surviving stores, but most of them didn't have 78s left. Yet some few I found that still had some stock left. Great times!

That’s pretty cool to hear that the same shop was still open. BTW, when were the last 78s issued in Spain? I kind recall seeing some from 1957, but none afterwards.

The Spanish hmv catalogue for 1962 still had a few dozens of 78s. I bet this was the last year they pressed them here. Our independent Columbia company issued 78s in 1957, but still I have to check later catalogues. From 1954 on they had an agreement with US Decca to press American deccas for the Spanish market. They also had by then agreements with UK Decca, Italian Durium label and French Barclay enterprises.

That shop, Discos Muñoz, was a fortunate discovery. A very small shop, it was opened somewhere in the mid thirties (guess herein) and operated until 1990 or so. After the microgroove boom in the mid fifties to early sixties (from which they still kept some stock) everyone was dumping 78s out, but this owner didn't want to dump the stock of old records, so... yet they were there, quietly sitting in their shelves for 35 years more... and a lot of them still in boxes in the basement. Imagine my surprise in 1978 when I entered the store and asked the woman, looking at the shelves, plenty full of records in brown paper sleeves... if they still had 78s! She said YES!, All those are 78s... pointing to the shelves.... And there are yet more in the basement.
Price? And she said... well, the last price list (1960s) marked 49.40 pesetas each, so I'll charge 50 pesetas each. By then this was something like $0.70... The real dream for a youngster! Pity I had only my weekly pocket money (not too much), no place at home to store them, and the shop didn't open on Saturdays... Nevertheless I kept visiting that shop steadily for ten years, buying a small bunch of them each time... Some 200 or so 78s of my collection were bought there. Completely new... Some years later a 78 dealer discovered that shop and started buying 78s there by the hundreds, so in a couple years more the stock was emptied. But guys! What a pleasure was going there!

In the early 1970's I saw an ad in the Louisville paper that said 78's for sale. The ad was for the Star 5 & 10 Cents Store. I drove out there and started looking around and all I saw was a wooden rack full of LPs. I asked the guy where the 78s were and he pulled the rack out of the way and the original pigeon holes in the wall were filled with unsold 78s. I can't remember what he wanted for them, but I think it was 50 cents or a dollar. I didn't have a lot of money but I bought what I could. They were all old King Records of folks like Grandpa Jones and the Browns Ferry Four.