[78-L] Durium Hit of the Week 'Hoard'

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <78records at cdbpdx.com>
> Just bought a collection of about 600 78s and found a small 'hoard' of 40 
> or so Durium 'Hit of the Week' records. 14 have sleeves, I've never seen 
> those before, and 7 of those with artists pictures on the back, blew me 
> away. View them at:
> http://78records.cdbpdx.com/HOTW/
> Most are in pretty good condition, a couple have significant creases and 
> all are 'warped', though the surfaces on them remain quite glossy and 
> uncracked. My collection previously had a half dozen or so really crackled 
> examples, this group is way more than I'd hoped to find.
>
I have almost ALL of the HOTW discs! The main problem one encounters with 
these is
cases where the paper "base" has been so badly creased/bent that the 
"durium" layer
is actually "broken"...giving the same effect as a cracked shellac 78!

There were a bit over a hundred HOTW issues...these were listed in Record 
Research.
The hardest to acquire are those among the first few issues; there was also 
one HOTW
specifically aimed at us Canadians...which MAY well be scarce "south of the
border"...?!

Those original sleeves are actually MUCH rarer than the discs themselves; 
the latter
were usually included in stacks/piles of phonorecords, where they were 
generally
missed/ignored...while the former were most usually thrown away!

Steven C. Barr