[78-L] 78 collectors

[Bill McClung]

I've really only gotten serious about 78s in the past ten years even though
I bought my first 78s twenty-five years ago.  I'm also fortunate to be
self-employed in such a way that I travel somewhere almost every week.

Every time I walk into an antique store or antique mall I ask if they know
someone in town that collects records.  Most times they don't but sometimes
they do and I contact that person and ask them if they have 78s and
sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.  That's one way I've connected
with other 78 collectors.  And then those collectors will tell me about
others.

Now I've got 78 collector friends in Austin and Big Spring and Dallas and
Fort Worth and Houston and Humble and Llano and Laredo and Lubbock and
Midland and Odessa and San Antonio and Seguin and Sherman and Spring and
Waco.  That's just in Texas.  There are also 78 friends in Madill and
Oklahoma City and Tulsa and Memphis and New Orleans and Birmingham and
Denver and Houston, Mississippi.

And I visited Mr.Chichester in Virginia and I'm hoping to meet Mr.
Settlemier in Plano and Mr. Bratcher in Houston soon.

I wish you good hunting both for 78s and for fellow collectors.

They (we) are out there (here).  I'm thinking there are a few thousand
instead of a few hundred.




> [Original Message]
> From: Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com>
> To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Date: 7/8/2009 8:06:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [78-L] 78 collectors
>
> 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
>
>
>
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