[78-L] 15, 000 opera 78s for $12K: 2 competing dealers - Frederick Md vs LHol dridge

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Shapiro" <steveshapiro1 at juno.com>
> As for the opera collector with Alzheimers, a friend in New Jersey says 
> that for many 78 collectors, they don't need most of the records that are 
> in their collections, they just need to believe that they have the records 
> to be satisfied since most of the records are rarely if ever played./steve
>
All too true: However, this doesn't make a lot of difference in my own 
case...since the
whole purpose of my "half-vast shellac archive" is to ensure that at least 
ONE copy
of EVERY 78rpm phonorecord (regardless of its "quality"...?!) will remain in
existence for as long as their shellac-compound construction can 
survive...?!

I own (AFAIK) around 57,000 78rpm phonorecords. Assuming an average duration
of 3 minutes/side...and two sides/record (I have a few exceptions to 
that...?! I would
need 8,550 hours...or 356-1/4 40-hour days...to listen to both sides of all 
of
my 78's...! Seeing as how as I'm now 68-1/3 years old, it is open to 
question (and
chance) whether I might live long enough to audition all my 78's...?!

Right now, I'm going to ask a friend to help me by soldering the connections 
which
will allow me to feed the output signal of my finally-found "record player" 
with its
ceramic cartridge (1 volt output) into the "Line In" jack of my sound card. 
Whenever
I assemble this...if it works in practice as well as theory...I will be able 
not only to
play my 78's...I'll also be able to save their content as digital sound 
files!

Meanwhile, I'm ALWAYS ready to buy large accumulations of 78's...if only on
the odd chance that they might include records which I don't already 
own...?!

Steven C. Barr