[78-L] Fonotipia with Dealer stamp

[Michael Biel]

From: "I. Cubillo" <i.cubillo at telefonica.net>
> Here in Spain, 78s usually carry stamps too, mainly
> the copyright ones. Guys, some of those really are
> worth it's good value... 

I bought the book that a New Zealand listmember published last year
about these stamps.  These non-postal stamps are called Cinderella
stamps.  The book is very well done.  I had not really seen stamps with
record company logos like HMV, only those from music publishers and
mechanical rights houses, but there are whole series of stamps with
Nipper, etc.

> Of course not the current ones with pre-printed music
> copyright owners' names, like B.I.E.M. stamps, or EDIFO,
> or many others so common in Europe... although some of
> them were really nice. I'm talking about the copyright
> stamps made by the authors directly, not through a music
> representative. Many were blank HMV or Columbia stamps,
> where the authors imprinted their own ink & rubber
> signatures. And here's the plot: some authors really
> signed each stamp with a fountain pen, so you can
> have original signatures by famous authors!

This was not mentioned in that book.  Most of the written notations on
the stamps were numbers, indicating the amount of royalty.  

> Many spanish 78s carry also dealer stamps. I used to
> register tham in the past, making a directory of
> record stores.

We occasionally have dealer stickers on the labels here in the U.S., but
it was the white rubber stamps around the edge of the label that were so
unique.  Ever see them in Europe?

> Then I used to visit the places to see what remained. 
> Surprisingly, some of the stores still were selling
> records and music, and some of them still have some
> 78s left, back in the early eighties.

By the mid-70s I seem to see the old stores disappearing.  There was one
in Englewood, NJ which had a great group of 45 EPs including hundreds of
the RCA Victor Gold Standard Series which I scooped up a lot of great
ones for about a quarter each.  Then a friend of mine told me that the
musical instrument store in Hackensack which used to also sell records
in their old location still had their old stock down in the basement. 
There was a lot of great stuff there but I only went thru the childrens
78s and got a lot of great ones in dealer stock condition.  

I've discussed before the famous old time store that was still in its
1908 location until the early 70s, H. Royer Smith in Philadelphia.  They
had a back room of 78s in the 1960s when I was in college, and I wish I
had had more money and experience back then.  I did get some good stuff
there but I know there was a lot more that I didn't recognize for their
importance, such as V shellac in the screw-together covers which I
avoided.  And I didn't know I should get every one of the Victor
Heritage Series discs, of which they had plenty.

> The best one was a small corner music store I discovered back in 1979.
> It was carried on by two mid -aged ladies, the daughters of the former
> proprietor. When I entered the store, I couldn't believe what I saw there...
> an entire wall shelved with 78s.  Iñigo Cubillo

One time in the Spring of 66 I visited my future wife when she was a
nursing student at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital, and on a walk in the area
we came across a storefont which we could see thru the front window that
had walls lined with shelves full of classical 78 albums most still
wrapped in their original shipping paper.  It was closed that evening of
course, and I could never find it again.  

Brigadoon?   

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com