78 Collectors: Why are they so weird?

um, if i'm laying down $1,500 or more i'm sure as hell going to be "nitpicky."

NIC PICKER

i'm scared that i am going to get addicted to buying 78s. got some really nice hawaiian stuff in. sooooo cool. edison cylinders too! and some country stuff, which is less high quality but still really cool & plenty of stuff i want to own.

really nice sol hoopii & kalama's quartet 78s

heh
http://m.post-gazette.com/Article.aspx?itemid=1046759

http://www.bluesworld.com/Auc40preview1.html

drool
i decided i'm gonna collect 78s but only ones i'll actually listen to & enjoy. ugh, i despise my life choices.

i have all those.

only going to collect, btw:
-hot hawaiian geetar
-old-timey ballads & fiddle breakdowns
-brother duos (shelton bros, delmore bros, blue sky boys, monroe bros etc etc.)

but i intend to be very discerning within these categories.

of course if i saw a calypso 78 i just had to have...

also entertaining the idea of specializing in quebecois reels & jigs.

Old guy across the street who always got his newspaper at noon while wearing a smoking jacket went into the nursing home. Tag sale last weekend. He bought everything he ever liked on CD in the 90s, but it doesn't look like he played it. $5000 stereo. Hundreds of Rat Pack related CDs. The vinyl was picked over before I got there. But there was a two foot row 78s. Every single one was Glenn Miller, and ever single on was sub-captioned "Foxtrot".

Was "Foxtrot" some sort of catch-all phrase for jazzy dancing? I think of it as a 20s thing, so I'm trying to figure out what it meant at the end of the 30s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-47z3RQRQ1w

^^ have a nice copy of this one as of a few days ago..

foxtrot means music for kinda mellow dancing as opposed to something described on a label as a 'stomp' or 'hot dance' which tend to be more uptempo & rhythmically driving. many many many many many records were listed as fox trot. i am not a historian of dancing so i don't know if the dance came before or after the label designation. the ones that are usually really boring is anything described as a 'waltz' tbh unless it's a string band record imo.

Found this blog today, might be of interest to y'all: http://excavatedshellac.com

damn ian, should i sell off a shitload of my CDs and LPs are start buying some 78s?

this seems like a very bad moment in history to be acquiring this habit.

don't start. it is a bad time. i should not have started.

tbh though, i did win two alfred karnes 78s on ebay over the weekend and hopefully they play as well as they were described. i love that fuckin guy. i also got a gamelan 78.

i was at a flea market last weekend and there was a victrola player selling for $400 ... is that insanely expensive, or is that standard pricing ...?

i have no idea how much victrolas generally sell for... it probably varies widely by condition, vintage, make/model etc.

whoa a gamelan 78!

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/nashville-musician-shingles-roof-with-records.php
not 78s exactly but you get it

Got a pretty great 3CD collection on Dust to Digital in today's mail - Baby, How Can It Be?: Songs of Love, Lust and Contempt from the 1920s and 1930s. Liner notes by Nick Tosches, but they're easily avoided.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/11/23/arts/music/20101128-arhoolie-ss-slide-0S5F/20101128-arhoolie-ss-slide-0S5F-slide.jpg

Arhoolie at 50

One thing I have always wondered about re 78 collectors: Are they just collecting them because they are rare, or are they heavily into the Great American Songbook and pre-rock music?

they're heavily into american music of the twenties & early thirties, usually.

there was a record shop that only sold 78's a block or two away from where i was staying in edinburgh last summer. it was run by these two old cranks who claim to have been against vinyl from the beginning and wanted nothing to do with it or any the music on it

Of course it was the evil vinyl that corrupted the younger generation and got them into overtly erotic and noisy music with screaming singers. :)

I wish I was a 78 collector - they're cool dudes imo

Of course it was the evil vinyl that corrupted the younger generation and got them into overtly erotic and noisy music with screaming singers. :)

― You're Twistin' My Melody Man! (Geir Hongro), Monday, November 29, 2010 9:29 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

Funny those guys sound to you what you like to use ;)

What a beautiful thread...you know if you were a serious collector you wouldn't miss the old music. The artwork on the labels is high quality, I am saving every photo!

I am not a collector (don't have any others), but I bought some today. Re-purposed from the Buy That For $1 thread:

$2, total, at an Austin garage sale today for 40 78-RPM records -- mostly looks like square dance music on local Texas labels like Blue Star and Longhorn, but one is Red Foley "Milk Bucket Boogie"/"Salty Dog Rag" on Decca; another (sadly slightly chipped -- the only one I've seen that is) is unfortunately named Western Swing guy Adolph Hofner and the San Antonians "Cotton Eyed Joe"/"Put Your Little Foot" on Columbia. There's also a "Cotton Pickin' Polka" by Lester Woytek, and at least one other version of "Cotton Eyed Joe." There seem to be a few each by the Sundowners and by Red Warrick, whoever they are. Also included in the box were file dividers for all the records, and -- weirder -- lots and lots of lyric (square dance call) sheets and/or dance instructions for individual songs, some of which look like they were officially issued by the record companies with the records, but others of which are either typed out or written out longhand. Also, an 80-page pamphlet/mini-book called It's Fun To Square Dance: Six Easy Lessons By Louie Ratliff, one Elks Club card, and two cards apparently allowing dancers free "goofs". All for $2.

Now all I need is to get a 78 needle.

was just listening to r crumb on this wfmu show: http://wfmu.org/playlists/AP
i don't collect but for some reason i like hearing collectors gab about it.

I always buy foreign language, country, western swing, gospel. and big band 78s when I see them. Yesterday I got about ten Russian 78s for a quarter apiece. Some had cool labels, and two had black and white photograghs for labels. I don't know what you call them. They weren't monochrome. The other kind, the more detailed kind.

And, you know, some bebop 78s go for about $10. I would totally pay that.

Well, not just any big band. Where is that cat?

Now that I have a player (one of those awesome old tube-amp school library ones with the flip needle to play regular LPs as well), I pretty much buy anything that looks interesting and is less than $3. Another advantage of having a player is that a lot of those record-your-own discs (which I seriously collect and will ALWAYS buy) are 78 RPM. Plus the collection & player look great in the living room.

My initial collection came from the dump, I used to have a friend who worked there. Seven boxes! I eventually gave most of the Glenn Miller & Bing Crosby stuff to a local thrift store.

Hey, you're right, I forgot that I found a few record-your-owns. The other cool thing about 78s is they track really well even when they're really scratched.

yeah, a lot of 78s can sound grrrreat, even when they look trashed. on the other hand, they can also sound awful when they look clean! needle damage can be hard to spot sometimes. tbrr, it was quite nice out a few days ago and i spend the evening in the backyard listening to (mostly country) 78s & drinking, it was lovely.

my ravens 78 got broke :{ was in a box. maybe i put stuff on top of the box? dunno. such nice shape too. oh well.

http://78records.cdbpdx.com/

what turntable do y'all use to play your 78s? do you have a separate stylus to play 78s?

Article in Chicago Reader this week about a Dust to Digital release from a 78 collector

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/dust-to-digital-steven-roden/Content?oid=4456763

http://www.chicagoreader.com/imager/b/magnum/4456766/9159/Roden034_magnum.jpg

that was a nice article, i read it yesterday.

amateurist, i use a crappy numark portable hooked up to my marantz receiver with the numark-manufactured '78 needle' (approx $15-20.)

i am waiting for ten 78s to come in the mail this weeb btw....

4x carter family
blue sky boys
jack reedy's walker mtn string band
blue ridge highballers
roane county ramblers
three tobacco tags
riley puckett

weeK

for some reason i loled at weeb

i will never be a 78 collector, so these comps are very interesting to me. i'm thinking about buying myself one for my bday, but having a difficult time choosing which one.

(i don't think 78 collectors are weird btw, i just don't see myself collecting them -- 78s, or 78 collectors ;)

my friend john put together a comp for dust to digital which is really great and covers a wide range of american musical styles--
http://dust-digital.com/baby

"songs of love, lust and contempt"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003640416924506.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

ooooh that's one of the ones i wanted! who could argue with love, lust, and contempt?!