The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Lets keep it honest, but I thought this would be fun to find out the most we have spent for our prized records.

#1 Let Us Not Forget on D.D. - $ 75.00 (new sleeve)
#2 Come Josephine in my Flying Machine - Jones/Van Brunt on Indestructable - $ 127.00


These are the most I spent on the older records.

Mine was a 50's aussie recording of "The lady who swallowed a fly", at $120.00.
Peter Dawson's 1930s recording of Advance Australia Fair cost me about the same....it might have been a little more actually. Cant quite remember.

So far, it would be my 1898 Berliner of "Dixie" by Sousa's Band which was $36 at Stanton's last weekend. Other than that, I think I've paid in the 30's for a few cylinders, too. I guess I'm not a high roller yet.

I paid in the $90-100 range for each of an early De Lucia G&T (aria from Manon) and a Sobinov Russian Amour. This was a few years ago, and I am not at home to be able to be more detailed.

$600 for Billy Murray's Edison Diamond Disc of "Kansas City Kitty" in stunning new old stock mint condition. I don't regret a single penny of that, it was on my "want" list for well over 30 years before I could find a copy for a comparatively good price, it usually goes far higher than that.

Sean

Cylinders: An extremely special one for €3500, another very special one for $755, and another for $350.

Discs: $300 for two special Diamond Discs each and $350 for a rare jazz 78rpm.

All of these are exceptions, of course.

$60.00 for the three published sides of Nellie Melba's Covent Garden 'farewell'in 1926.

Which falls in line with as much as I've ever paid for a 78 (or cylinder for that matter.) 15-20 dollars.

My most expensive, single record is a very clean, 7" Victor #2738 "Pop Goes The Weasel" by Charles D'Almaine from 1904.

The price paid was a whopping...$9.00 + $3.99 S/H.

About $90 on Victor's first ever picture disc, the Paul Whiteman side "Night At The Biltmore". It was worth it, that disc is so beautiful to look at!

And Sean - I know how you feel about the Murray side, having heard it myself I can agree with you on that one!

My most expensive buy on Records was a Francis Plante on French Columbia D-13062. I won my bid on a certain record auction for exactly $125.35, plus 25 dollars shipping cost. The Plante record was actually in a poor condition, so I was rather disappointed, but at least I can say that I own a Francis Plante record.

And I was very close to break my record on this (pun intended! ) recently while bidding on a Eugene Ormandy Violin Solo recording on Okeh....although, fortunately(?), I lost the bid to someone else about 15 seconds ago before the bidding closed down.

I have spend a lot of money on other stuffs - couple of years ago I spent well over 600 dollars for A MONTH for buying some expensive records - as a result I had to skip all of lunch at my school for the next two months or so.

I've made some good deal over the years though, such as a time I've sold one very rare Korean 78 to another Korean collector for about 200 dollars. And there's a guy I've known for some time that would trade any Victor Single-side Red Seals (I have a lot that I don't need anymore!) to something else he has in his stock - sometimes I can find some very nice records that I want in there.

Mark.