see end...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Probably because a lot of your 78s are very obscure or of no commercial
value and/or little academic
value? Or because the ones of commercial value have already been re-issued
in a new format with good
transfers made from metal parts? Have you approached any record companies
with offers to share from
your collection, with the interest being to get the disks of interest
transferred and preserved (and
maybe even make a little money)? Have you sought any grant money? Have you
offered to donate the
collection to a library or national archive in exchange for seed money to
start transferring it? Do
you publish and speak widely? I don't know of very many people for whom
the world beats a path to
their door over an obscure thing like a giant pile of 78's (there are
exceptions but note that those
guys have a ton of rare/non-available-elsewhere content vs a large pile of
stuff that's elsewhere --
and those guys tend to be pretty good self-promoters, with no negative
connotation on my part
because I think it's very good business sense). No offense, but marketing
attracts attention and
otherwise, talk is cheap.
Also, just because something was once recorded and once released
commercially doesn't mean it has
any lasting value (or is likely of any interest to all but a handful of
collectors or fans of the
obscure). I can think of piles of useless no-hit wonder garbage singles
that used to be tossed into
large boxes at the college radio station, free for the picking but never
picked over and the boxes
were tossed in the dumpster when they started to overflow. Last time I
went back to visit, in the
mid-90's, it had evolved into a box of no-hit wonder CD's. Then there's
the lesson of "antiques
roadshow" -- just cause something's old doesn't mean it has a cent of
value. Sorry to be harsh but
reality is reality.
Okeh...
First off, I wasn't suggesting my shellac archive was of inestimable
value...rather, I was suggesting my half-vast knowledge of the history
of the record industry (I've authored "The (Almost) Complete 78rpm
Record dating Guide" which is a standard reference work in the
field) combined with my database skills might be!
I'm fully aware that my shellac hoard isn't going to make me rich
in my old age (hey, I'm already there!). I have specifically avoided
buying rare (and expensive!) records...not a Robert Johnson original
to my name, or the second known copy of that famous Oliver Gennett.
It was collected primarily with discography in mind (especially
Grey Gull discography). As such, it would only be of interest
should Jon Noring's "Project Gramophone" become reality. In fact,
until I can scratch together the necessary coin of the realm to
acquire a new N8-3D (or equivalent) needle, I can't even listen
to the dommed things!
What I am thinking of doing (which has to be accomplished before
the Canadian government rewrites our copyright law to match the
eternal term mandated south of our border...?!) is to assemble
sets of discs I own and hand-burn CD-R's of their content...which
is, so far, entirely legal up here (copyright on a sound recording
runs out at the end of the calendar year fifty years following
its first "publication, so anything recorded on or before
12/31/1955 is now in the public domain!), so I can possibly
sell, say twenty copies of "Original Hits of 1913" (et al).
If it costs me $0.50 to burn them, and I can get $10 each,
I've just made $190...which is about 18% of what Ontario
grudgingly recompenses me as an officially-designated
cripple!
I'm just saying that should there be, somewhere in our
space-time continuum, an institution with a vast (or even
half-vast) holding of 78rpm discs, and no idea of how to
catalog same (as the original message in this thread implied)
I could be of recompensable value thereto...
Steven C. Barr