.
Posted on 10/01/2015 2:46:21 PM PDT by originalbuckeye
Does anyone have any ideas what can be done with old 78 rpm records? It seems such a shame to throw them out as some are in pretty good shape. I just cannot keep them anymore.
The ChiComs will reverse engineer it and have it for 200 bucks if there’s enough demand, LOL.
.
The background pops are caused by cross-scratches that are created when the needle gets deflected out of the groove by rough handling.
The hiss is caused by normal wear.
Both can actually be filtered out digitally these days.
It was pretty much standard practice to replace needles frequently. They weren’t expensive, and came in packages of 50 or 100.
the stuff available in 2015 is likely a lit better and considerably cheaper than the stuff they were selling last century... 1994
Every buddy luvz a wize azz.
I wish I could quote the prices for the older software based click pop and hiss reduction stuff
It was pricey though.
I looked at it the same year I bought my fist computer and first sequencing a digital audio software.. Good Old...LOGIC AUDIO 2.0
Thanks for the tip, friend!
Local museum? Actually, any local used / collectible record store might take ‘em. One of the local stores here even buy Edison cylindrical records (owner has one of the players).
One of the former indie record store owners and retired DJ told me once that 78s don’t ship worth a darn (break; crumble in the case of the Deccas).
The likelihood of having a one of a kind in any collection of 78s is probably near 100 percent, fwiw.
Old blues is the best seller of 78 records. Judy Garland singing “Over The Rainbow” sells for about 15 bucks. Tom & Jerry could be Simon and Garfunkel and sells for between 50-100 bucks. A lot of the big band,Polka and Cowboy stuff might sell for a few bucks. Be carefull shipping 78s,they break very easy.
Yes, some of them are worth thousands. Find a mint original Robert Johnson on Vocalion, and you've got a winner ($10K or more).
Also in demand is early jazz. Generally speaking, the most valuable records are by black artists and groups, both for their musical quality and rarity. They tend to be rarer because the blacks couldn't afford to buy many of them, and ones they did, they played to death.
Early white hillbilly records can be very desirable as well.
Rock-a-Billy.
Yes, but in general, rock-a-billy is more of a 45rpm thing as it was around as the 78 was being phased out.
Good gravy that is expensive!
The filtered, cleaned up versions are nice, but for many people, I believe the hiss and background static of many old 78's is part of their charm. This probably relates to nostalgia and sentimentality, and memories of grandma and grandpa, and more decent and innocent times (before queer "marriage", and legalized baby murder, and selling babies' heads and hearts and other body parts), and so forth, when many of those 78's sounded exactly like that even back then, with the hiss and the static right there in the background.
Think about people who like to take a walk through the woods, and listen to the birds singing. Some may prefer to hear just the birds, clearly and distinctly, while others might also enjoy the "background noise" that God provides with the birds singing (such as the "hiss" of the wind whistling through the trees, or the "static" of the leaves blowing across the ground).
Now, obviously, frequent needle replacement was NOT the standard practice of everybody during the 78 RPM years. (That is why there are so very many youtube clips available out there today which include those hissing/background static noises. To get the songs links I posted for the original poster of this thread, in order to show them some ideas of what they might do with their 78's, before diposing of them, I just did a quick random search on youtube and I found a whole bunch of unfiltered 78's with the hiss and static still present.)
I think it was not just a matter of the cost of the needles (although many 78's were made during the "Great Depression", when many people did not have two nickles to rub together to get a can of beans), but changing the needles so frequently also involved a strong nuisance factor, which many people who were not professional musicians clearly did not follow (especially the teenagers of that time). To illustrate, how many people actually read their auto manual, and get their oil changed as often as the manufacturer recommends in the manual? Certainly not the majority of people.
.
I can’t imagine where the “nostalgia” would come in for the pops and hiss.
Back in the day, they were not a part of the listening experience unless one abused their records.
But if you like it, enjoy!
.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.