[78-L] Signed-in-wax recordings post-Berliner (such as Mary Garden on Columbia A 1190) query.

[David Lennick]

> From: mshoshani at sbcglobal.net
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 15:09:07 -0500
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Signed-in-wax recordings post-Berliner (such as Mary Garden on Columbia A 1190) query.
> 
> On Tue, 2010-05-04 at 20:14 +0100, Royal Pemberton wrote:
> > I found a fairly nice copy of A 1190 at the local Salvation Army yesterday.
> > One of the things that moved me to buy it was seeing that Mary Garden had
> > autographed the dead wax area on both sides of it.
> > 
> > Handwritten/signed label copy went out with the adoption of paper labels
> > around 1900, but is there a listing anywhere of recordings afterward where
> > the performer signed the wax (or waxes) like Mary Garden did with this disc?
> 
> 
> I have a Victor pressing of an HMV-issued recording of "Song of the
> Volga Boatmen" by Chaliapin; in the dead wax of this 12-incher is a
> signature in a somewhat shaky hand: Feodor Chaliapin Tokio 1936.
> 
> He may have signed it "Chaliapine", as his name was spelled on HMV
> records. It's at home and I am not, so I am unable to check it.
> 
> MS

 

Chaliapine and Charlie Chaplin both signed their discs..interesting.

 

For years I thought that Chaliapin had just signed an existing master while in Toky(i)o, but it turns out that these were new recordings made in 1936.

 

dl