[78-L] VICTOR LABEL BOOK -- you MUST get it

[Michael Biel]

Since I have not read any reviews yet, all I can think is that nobody 
here has ordered the new revised edition of Michael W. Sherman's (with 
Kurt Nauck) "Collector's Guide To Victor Records" yet.  WHAT ARE YOU 
WAITING FOR???  An engraved invitation?  If so, consider this to be 
one.   My copy had been buried in my unopened mail from my recent trip, 
and was mailed Nov 15, so ordered copies should have already arrived.

I have been carrying around a set of page proofs for 4 months now which 
I have been correcting and adding to, and as dazzling as they are, now 
that I actually have the completed bound book I am absolutely 
overwhelmed.  It is far beyond my expectations and I thought I knew what 
it would look like.  The book is breathtaking.

I might be a little biased, but my participation is minor.  Mike and 
Kurt have worked wonders.  I did the matrix prefix section at the end, 
gave the pressing plant info in the footnote section for Chap 9, did 
some proofing, and provided some labels that are, in all modesty, 
knockouts (The Vouce of the Victor on page 214 and the Bluebird on 215 
are a couple of examples) but 99 & 44/100% is Mike and Kurt.  The 
comparison with the two earlier versions is beyond belief.

I am flattered that they surprised me with placing my most amazing find 
on the end-papers, and actually it was Vince Giordano who first spotted 
it.   We had gone to the Sony archives to find one specific thing (which 
we couldn't find) but in an afternoon where we DID find some amazing 
stuff, he was sorting thru a file box of misc. label stuff for me to 
photograph when he opened a mailer flyer and said "you've got to see 
this."  The label pictures in it are amazing enough -- you've never seen 
anything like them -- but as we read what the flyer actually said, what 
it actually proposed, we knew we had stumbled onto unknown history.  I 
even took some shots with my phone to set it to mike, but there was no 
phone service deep in that building so he and Kurt had to wait till the 
evening. They kept their enthusiasm well hidden -- when we roomed at 
IASA last month Kurt did not even hint at that they had used it for the 
end-papers.  I opened the book an hour ago and WOW!

I am not telling you what that flyer is, although I showed it to a few 
people like the Rolfs since the photos were still in my camera.  It will 
have to be your surprise WHEN YOU BUY THE BOOK!!!

So go to Kurt's web site 78rpm.com and order it for Pete's sake. for 
YOUR sake.  Even after my build-up you won't be disappointed.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com