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45worlds Forums » 78 RPM » View Topic
| What is your background in 78rpm records? How did you come to collect 78rpm records? |
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| 13th Aug 2017, 6:39 AM | #1 REPORT | |
 | Bob1951 Member since Oct 2016 2678 Points | Hello, OK, I'll Start. I always liked 78rpm records even when I was a kid in the 1950's. We had an old 78rpm record player and only a few 78rpm records but the one I remember was "This ole house" sung by Rosemary Clooney. I collected them for many years, long after my old 78 rpm record player had worn out. I could get them at auction for very little money, like 50 cents or a dollar for a box of 60-70 records. A lot of them I got for free, even at auctions as no one wanted them back then. I accumulated thousands of them over the years. Even though I had a lot of these records, I did not play any for many years. (like maybe 30 years or more!) Then, I bought a few old school house record players in the 1990's and listed to some of the records on them. Finally in 2009, I decided to get a good record player. (which I had never had before) the old one was a junker from the beginning, but at least it played them for a while before wearing out. I bought a brand new Audio-Technica AT-PL120, mostly because it was one of the few available at the time with the 78rpm setting. I am still using this record player daily. For awhile I recorded them with my computer and donated a lot of the recordings to the internet archives. If you see rec78, or brrc, on the internet archive recordings, they are from me. After I gave this up, I digitalized a lot of them to mp3 format and made over 150 CD's for myself. I did sell quite a few of them over the last 20 years. I had never planned to collect them. My plan was to record the music on them and sell them. Now, my plan has changed to put the music on CD's for the music that I like and sell them after I make sure that the label images are on this website. So far as of 8/13/17, I have imaged and uploaded about 20-25 percent of my current 78 rpm collection labels to this site. I do not have them in any sort of order. I am the most dis-organized person in the world. They are all over the place in boxes. containers and even filing cabinets. Bob Edited by Bob1951 on 16th Aug 2017, 9:15 AM |
| 13th Aug 2017, 8:11 AM | #2 REPORT | |
 | xiphophilos Member since Dec 2013 3351 Points Moderator | One of my dad's old school friends had an old gramophone and a number of records that fascinated me when my family visited him in the 1970s. So when I saw my first 78 on a flea market in Germany (Glenn Miller's American Patrol and Moonlight Serenade on HMV), I bought it even though I had nothing to play it with. A few months later, I spent far too much money on my first table top gramophone so that I could finally listen to the handful of 78s that I had purchased in the meantime. I brought that gramophone and about 200 shellacs, most of them acquired on a visit to the US, with me when I moved there permanently in the 1990s. I started collecting more seriously only 4 years ago. Nowadays, however, I usually play my 78s on more modern machines that won't wear them out. And yes, storage is already a problem. I need to get rid of some records before I acquire any more. Edited by moderator on 13th Aug 2017, 8:23 AM |
| 13th Aug 2017, 10:14 AM | #3 REPORT | |
 | zabadak Caddacack oh da ca-caddacack, shy shy skagellack Member since Jun 2010 4156 Points | My dad had some so I got into it through them!  |
| 14th Aug 2017, 9:58 AM | #4 REPORT | |
| lorangrecords SUBS (Ulf) Member since Jan 2013 5803 Points Moderator | I started collecting 45s in the sixties, but more serious in the 90s. When buying records at flea markets (which I often did), there was often a container or box with both 45s and 78s. So at one point, I had a collection of 78s as well. Still collecting EPs and albums too. Thinking of how to handle this, when there is no room left for my wife  Edited by moderator on 15th Aug 2017, 3:18 PM |
| 14th Aug 2017, 1:44 PM | #5 REPORT | |
 | Jock_Girl A girl who looks good in vinyl Member since Dec 2012 1544 Points Moderator | My interest in 78s developed as a result of absolute disgust over the state of music today, which I find to be mundane, unoriginal and overproduced. Basically I discovered that there is over a century of fascinating music that is out there to be discovered. Plus I love the investigative angle -- trying to research release dates etc. Amy Edited by moderator on 15th Aug 2017, 3:18 PM |
| 14th Aug 2017, 9:34 PM | #6 REPORT | |
 | Charlie Chalk Self praise is no recommendation. Member since Oct 2011 45189 Points Moderator | I rarely buy 78s, but I'm fascinated by music history. If I had the space, I'd collect them far more than I do. I have many CDs of recordings from the 1890s to 1930s. |
| 15th Aug 2017, 7:30 AM | #7 REPORT | |
 | LaurenceD SUBS Member since Aug 2011 7708 Points Moderator | Long story: I had little interest in 78s until a friend (the father of an old schoolmate) and I got to talking about music and he mentioned that he had hundreds of them in boxes in the garage and was no longer able to play them. He was nearly blind and didn't have the wherewithal to set up a turntable and such, so I said that this sounded like an interesting project and I would then educate myself and put something together so that I could digitize them and burn some CDs of his favorite recordings. I took them all home, cleaned them and started to work. Beginning with his favorite artists, I managed to get his Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughan, & JATP recordings done and returned those CDs and 78s before he passed away. As I'm inclined to do, I also researched each recording to ascertain the recording date and participants where possible. This got me started on 78s. Plus, my damaged hearing makes older 'organic' recordings sound more appealing than, say, a Milli Vanilli record with all of that electronic stuff generated from sequencers. So with all due respect to the 60s and 70s, I now enjoy hearing all that music that I missed out on because I wasn't born yet! Edited by moderator on 15th Aug 2017, 3:20 PM |
| 15th Aug 2017, 11:08 PM | #8 REPORT | |
| mojofilter Member since Jul 2012 1434 Points | My parents and grandparents had small quantities of 78s stored under their record players, going back to the early 1930s and up to the end of the 1950s. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to them and watching them go around on the turntable. When I was in second grade, because he knew that I was interested in them, the elderly man next door gave me a box of his records that went back to 1904 and were no newer than the invention of the microphone. I still have them. This was my first exposure to gramophone records. I discovered records for cheap at thrift shops before it was a known thing in collectors' circles, and before the people who worked at them thought they knew which ones were valuable and charged accordingly. So I was able to get many, many 78s, some that had been inside paper sleeves or in albums since they were new, for ten cents each. In more recent years, people who knew I was into them have given me their parents' or grandparents' collections - either I would take them, or they would throw them out. Can't have that! A man I worked with, who spent a lifetime collecting 78s and restoring gramophones, who had a big-band radio show for decades, wanted me to have his record collection after he became ill, but I had to decline. [His house was like a gramophone museum. Dozens of them, and they all worked. Cylinder players, Diamond Disc machines...it was unbelievable.] There were so many records, and they (and the shelves to hold them) would have weighed so much, that the concrete slab foundation of my house would have been insufficient to carry the weight. It was an historian's dream, and I couldn't take them, and now he has passed away. I will never find out what happened to them. I will always regret it, but I really could not take them. |
| 16th Aug 2017, 8:31 AM | #9 REPORT | |
| xiphophilos Member since Dec 2013 3351 Points Moderator | Let's hope his collection ended up in some kind of museum. You were right, for sure, to be concerned about the concrete slabs of your house. Just read a story of an American collector whose 20,000 shellacs, all stored in one corner of the garage, did crack his house's foundations. Edited by xiphophilos on 16th Sep 2017, 6:17 AM |
| 15th Sep 2017, 2:58 PM | #10 REPORT | |
| j.monk Member since Sep 2017 167 Points |
Jock_Girl wrote:
Plus I love the investigative angle -- trying to research release dates etc.
If I obviously love the format and the music, looking for the artists behind the pseudonyms, the history of the labels etc add some value to the pleasure for sure. I've been intensively collecting 78s for the last 5 years or so. I grew up far from the format or the music it holds, but I eventually understood jazz and blues and then wanted to live the real deal, feel the experience and listen to this music as people did when they were released. I spend most of my spare money into 78s since then. Nothing excites me more than a package of 78s. Thing is, I live in France and collect American music. Shipping makes this hobby quite expensive. Edited by moderator on 28th Sep 2017, 3:53 PM |
| 11th Feb 2018, 2:52 PM | #11 REPORT | |
 | soultwinz SUBS Member since Mar 2011 1567 Points | I've had a fascination with the 78rpm disc, since the late 60t's/early 70t's as my maternal grandparents had a small collection of about 200 of them and i was always in amongst them on my visits to their house. Fast forward to late 1986. I saw Dennis Potters Singing Detective on BBC TV. Fell in love with the programme and its soundtrack music. I acquired the LP and virtually played it to death over the next few months. Then one day was just harking back to the 70t's days at my grandparents house and the 78's it just occurred to me why not try to get these fabulous tunes on the soundtrack on the original discs ... guess it just sort of escalated from there..anyroads...30 years down the line..am still chipping away at it :) Edited by moderator on 12th Feb 2018, 11:40 PM |
| 13th Feb 2018, 3:43 PM | #12 REPORT | |
| j.monk Member since Sep 2017 167 Points | You must have collected quite a lot of record since the mid 80's ! A picture of your collection is welcome on the dedicated topic, if you feel like to share  |
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