[78-L] 78 collectors

[Michael Biel]

Sammy Jones <sjones69 at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> Maybe I'm a rare case, but I've only ever met one other 78 collector
>> in my life (granted my age is probably a little under the average)!
>> There was a time (before I discovered 78-L) that I thought I
>> pretty much must be the only one in the world,

One of the questions my daughter Leah asked when interviewing collectors
for her documentary was "when did you first meet other record
collectors?"  With a few exceptions most had not known there were others
like them for quite a while before meeting any others.  For me it was
when I was in college and was doing a radio program with my 78s.  The
most extreme example was a friend of Kurt Nauck's who was a lifelong
collector in his 60s when he first discovered and met his first fellow
collector: Kurt!  

While it is good to get together here on 78-L, you will find it most
rewarding to go to some of the meets, record shows, and conferences that
we discuss here.  I don't know where you live, but there's bound to be
something within a few hundred miles of you once in a while.  IAJRC is
in Minneapolis later this summer, I believe.  ARSC is in New Orleans
next Spring.  Will Friedwald wrote a great article in the Wall Street
Journal about the recent NJ Jazz Bash a few weeks ago.  And there is a
Music Machines show each Spring and Fall in NJ that attracts a lot of us
78 collectors.  CAPS meets every so often, and we have nearly monthly
meetings of the NYC ARSC branch.  We go for the records (except at
ARSC), sure, but even more for the comradships.  Will's article mentions
that many of us only see each other once a year at the Bash, which is
what I had long considered ARSC to be for me.  When I first discovered
the 78-L about 12 years ago I immediately realized that it was like a
daily ARSC -- and it still is, even more than the ARSCList which was
founded about ten years ago.  


>> I've been thinking about this recently: how many 78 rpm record collectors
>> are there in the U.S., North America, the rest of the world?
>> but then there are lots of people making a living on 78 record
>> auctions and restorations, and eBay does a swift business.
>> There must be enough people to support all this. Has anyone
>> ever done an estimate? Are there merely hundreds of us, or is
>> it conceivable that our numbers could reach past a few thousand?

From: Erwin Kluwer <ekluwer at gmail.com>
> Kurt Nauck only has approx around 1000 different customers each
> auction...I know a lot of collectors whe never by on Ebay, Naucks,
> etc... just fleamarkets, and other local events...
> My wild gues: between 3000- 8000 worldwide....    Erwin

Although the lists will include duplications, and institutional
collections (who's representativess and curators are sometimes personal
records collectors as well -- but many times not) and will also include
people who collect forms of records other than 78s -- you need to add in
the lists of members of these organizations and the number of attendees
at the meets and bashes.  There have been directories of record
collectors published going back into the 1940s when the only things out
there were 78s!  The jazz list I have from around 1940 shows a few
hundred, and a couple of people I know are still alive and collecting.  

> Sammy Jones (who's been collecting since about 1996, and whose first 78s
> were Frank Crumit singing "Margie" on Columbia and somebody singing "I'm
> Just a Vagabond Lover" on Velvet Tone)

Hope to see you somewhere at a meeting sometime.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com