[78-L] Your Mother's Son-In-Law - BG and Billie Holiday onColumbiaBlue Shellac

David Lennick dlennick at sympatico.ca
Tue May 3 20:20:01 PDT 2011


xxxx-D titles still of interest were priced at 75 cents in 1940, but good luck 
finding them in that year's catalogs. They seem to have been overlooked except 
where they're part of an album set, which could mean only the Bessie Smith 
collection, and THAT'S listed only in the numerical sequence of album numbers. 
Popular records are strictly the 35xxx 50-cent titles and the remainder of the 
catalogs list classical and in-between stuff (the 300-M series etc).

dl

On 5/3/2011 11:06 PM, Steven C. Barr wrote:
> From: "J. E. Knox"<rojoknox at metroeast.org>
>> Greetings from FixitLand!
>> Steven C. Barr wrote:
>>> ...It is possible ... that the final issues were on the usual "red
>>> Columbia"
>>> label, but still bore the xxxx-D catalog numbers...?!
>>
>> Izzatso? That would be a first in my estimation. In forty-plus years
>> of collecting I've never seen a red Columbia pressing of a popular -D-
>> series issue. There are lots of 'em with -F and a few others, and
>> lots of blue and green Columbia Masterworks -Ds, but 2xxx-D or 3xxx-D
>> on red Columbia? That would be something to see if you indeed have
>> one. Probably as inexplicable as why CBS chose to start the pop red-
>> Columbia series at 35201 rather than a more even number such as 30000>
>> (or why the 3xxx-D series wasn't continued but the classical suffixed
>> numbers were).
>>
>> I was thinking this did get reissued on red Columbia, but I find I'm
>> confusing it with Columbia 35839 "Why Couldn't It Be Poor Little
>> Me" (reissue of Columbia 2871-D).
>>
>> To Cliff, who started this thread -- Nice find, and I wish I could've
>> been at that estate sale. Once in a while you get lucky. Congrats!
>>
> These records were the last *-D Columbias to be issued; one would
> have expected them to have been issued on 3xxxx but they were too
> early for that...! They stayed in the catalog for several years...and
> kept their 3xxx-D catalog numbers. I dimly remember owning
> red-label versions of these, which still used their original -D catalog
> numbers; sadly, my "half-vast shllac archive" is in hopeless disarray
> (NOT my doing...long sad story...!) so I can't even pull out my
> copies to check. That's the trouble with being a "dedicated pack rat"...
> there arev too many people who want to "cure" you of your "disease"
> and whilst doing so trash your belongings...!
>
> What these poor fools don't realize is that ALL the stuff in museums
> or even "antique stores" still exists becase one of us "pack rats" kept
> it rather than tossing it...!
>
> Steven C. Barr
>


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