The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

As the title states I'm looking for the original Okeh issues from the original 1926~ Hot Five.

No missing pieces, cracks or imperfections are fine.

Located in Detroit's West Side

They’re expensive. What’s your budget?

And if you can only afford one or two, make sure “West End Blues” is included.

I hate to say this, but the Nauck’s auction that just ended bidding a few days ago had a few in various conditions. I’m not sure if these appear regularly in the auction catalog, but I’d keep your eyes open when the next auction happens in the spring.

I know theres only one acoustic issue, the rest are Electric recordings. I don't want to spend more than $30-60 per record, hopefully. I'd like them to be decent condition, atleast no physical portions missing.

I tried getting onto those auctions but they wanted me to give a lot of personal info upfront and my mom struck it down.

Suggest you look at Vocalion 78 record pressings from the mid to late 1930s. These are cheaper and are just represssings of the late 1920 pressings on Okeh 78s.

Interesting. I was not aware of these repressings.

Honestly I would not care about the actual pressing rather than having the complete set of Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five 78s.

Here is a nice example of what I’m talking about. This is the 1928 recording of West End blues on Okeh records. This vocalion record was pressed in 1937.

This record is worth about $20-$30 in Excellent condition. Vocations are also quality records… not the cheap dime store stuff…

It’s probably a good strategy to explore YouTube for Hot 5 and Hot 7 records, and listen to each so that you can learn which are your favorites. Then you can target your searching. And of course all this stuff is available, cleaned up, on CD - if you have access to a means of using that medium.

https://youtu.be/1IhuSnSnwdY?si=Ds2kge7bgnW3UZzi