[78-L] Kurt Nauck's Auctions.

[Steven C. Barr]

From: "Cary Ginell" <soundthink at live.com>
>
> And I know that if I had Steve's budget for buying records, I'd certainly 
> be satisfied with buying one $100 record a month rather than 30-40 dust 
> catchers of marginal interest or condition. Don't knock 78 collecting. 
> Three bucks is still dirt cheap for a 78, and for the nominal price of 
> $50, you can still get a pretty darned good collector's item.
>
However, that $100 discs fills only one (or two?) data records in my
78 database...in fact, it is most likely already listed therein, since the
"Abrams Files" were compiled using all the standard discographies...!

OTOH, my 30 (or more?) Henry Burr and such discs will fill 30 (or more?)
blamk data records (and yes I will enjoy listening to them...!).

> I also object to your repeated assertions that 78 collectors are all 
> retirees. What survey is that based on?
>
No formal surveys; however I think 78-L did a survey on the ages
of their subscribers and came up with a number around 60...! In a
way this stands to reason...78's were basically introduced in the
mid-forties (yes I know they were sold sporadically in the early
thirties...); 45's took over a the standard pop speed" around
(IIRC) 1955. This means that people who recall hraring their
pop favourites on 78 must have been teens in the forties/early fifties
putting their birth dates in the twenties and into the thirties...!
If you were born in 1936, you are now (or soon will be) 75.

I was born in 1942...I grew up listening to my dad's 300-odd
78's (which I inherited in 1974...starting my 78 archive!),
I DID accumulate a large bunch of 45's in my high school days
(1955-60); sadly my alcoholic brother grabbed it when I
left home for the USAF (1967)...he took NO care of it
and the records all wound up scratched and scarred int
non-playability. In 1973 I started actively collecting 78's
(they were common in thrift stores back then) and owned
around 16,000 by early 1977 when I emigrated to Canada...
I was 35 then...!

I also belong to The Canadian Antique Phonograph Society...
anothr group with a rapidly-increasing average age...!
I wonder if to-day's teens will be busily collecting CD's
(and/or MP3 files?!) from their "younger days" in 50
years or so (assuming that the planet and life thereupon can
last that long...NOT a given...!)

Otherwise we can expect one of two fates...!

1) One (or more) institutions elects to become the "official"
repository for all still-existing 78's (there will be a LOT of
duplicates...what happens to them...?!)

2) Production of machines capable of playing 78's fades
out...leaving us with a few million 78's which we can no
longer play...?!

Steven C. Barr