[78-L] Peter Leavitt (was: Ooops)

[Michael Biel]

From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
> Peter Leavitt used to run a VERY interesting (to me, anyway)
> mail auction. He had acquired a VERY large (and apparently
> well-known) collection of 78's...so his lists often included
> near in-order runs of various vintage labels. I bought A LOT
> of these, since they often included records of no great "jazz
> interest" but ones which filled numeric gaps in my holdings.

> I assume that Mr. Leavitt went to that "great record market
> in the sky"...is this true? 

Fortunately, no, it is not.  Kurt Nauck has visited Peter several times,
and he might be the better person to answer this.  But while at ARSC I
asked Kurt about Peter and he explained that Peter had had some health
problems and during that time had also had some damage to his house
which damaged some of the warehouse holdings.  I believe Kurt feels that
Peter does not have the energy or interest to start up the auctions
again right now but it could happen.

> And...if so, has someone else acquired this bunch of 78's...
> AND are they selling, or going to sell, these records?

They're still there, and Kurt has gotten a relatively small amount of
things from there.

> I need to find an auction list that sells a lot of "junque"...
> so I can continue to fill gaps in my holdings...!! ...stevenc 

Well, there's plenty of junque on ebay!!!!  I think, as I know you
realize, that most dealers now feel that the expense of listing now
requires that junque not be included on lists.  That stuff is piled up
for on-site sales and occasional shows.  I noticed a few days ago that
one of the dealers at the Jazz Bash who had priced all his records at
$3.00 was selling off the things that had not sold in his ebay auctions
for 7.99 and 9.99 minimum bids.  (I was attempting to bid on a few
things this week and was looking thru the closed auctions of his and
recognized a lot of things!)  So you gotta start travelling (when you
get your cash.)

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com