A New Shipment, Some Fun Surprises, and Sadness
I have recently come into the possession of an old Victor Victrola VV-IX phonograph and have fallen deeply and madly in love with it. It is a beautiful, wonderful machine which I am not sure I can ever again do without.
That said, it has begun to get lonely. To alleviate it's loneliness and boredom I was able to find on eBay a box of 40 old shellac 78's. 40! For only $40! That's $1 a piece! Cha-ching!
With baited breath I awaited it's arrival. Today was the day! The box arrived! Excitedly, even giddily, I ripped the box open and found... a box of records! This was about what I expected.
What I did not expect, however, was the carnage that resided within, for these records were shipped just as you see. Not all of these resilient soldiers made it through unscathed. Quite the opposite, in fact. In all, 13 records looked like this
or this
or even this:
Now, not all is lost. Despite that more records than I would have liked (which is a grand sum of 0 records) were damaged, there are some positives that I can take from this:
- 27 of the records are in good shape and playable.
- Some of the damaged records are still in mostly good enough shape to be recognisable and can be turned into wall-clocks (I'm thinking Christmas gifts for these)
- That last album - the Victor - can probably easily be reshaped with some heat into a black bat.
- The fellow who shipped them did insure the shipment, so insurance will pay up for the damages.
Now for the fun surprises.
Of the 27 records that are in good shape, four of them are "Vogue Picture Records" from 1946/1947. Vogue records only existed one year before going out of business, but put together absolute works of art that looked like this:
this:
this:
and this:
Each record side has it's own image, so being that there are 4 records, there are 8 images in total. The remaining four sides are at the bottom of this post.
eBay seems to have Vogue records for anywhere between $20-$40 each. I am thinking what I want to do with these is find a clear record case and hang them on the wall, because these are absolutely beautiful. I will not be playing these for fear of ruining them.
I will, however, play the others. For your listening pleasure, here is Bottoms Up.
And for your viewing pleasure, here are the remaining four sides of the Vogue records:
(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe
About Me
Amateur photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd.
General all around problem-solver and creative type.
My Favourite Tags
#spaceforce3 | #altphoto | #crappycameraphotos |
#digitalpinhole | #pinhole | #firehydrant |
Charming and appealing antiquated sound right down to the scratchy background, despite all the broken records it still a smashing find. Perhaps you could play the others but get a digital recording that you can play more often.
It really is a nice sound, scratches and all; it's really quite surprising just how pleasant it is. What really strikes me is that we're listening to the last vestiges of the echoes from these ghosts playing a hundred years ago.
Recording them digitally is a pretty neat idea. I'll need to see if I can find something that has a little more depth to it than my phone; I'm sure I've got a microphone around here somewhere.
I buy a CD and calendar per year from a guy in South Oregon. Blues tunes from before WWII. It's nothing short of great.
A few years back (at least 10) I spent the better part of a couple weeks digitising and uploading all my CD music into ... the cloud (insert dramatic music). I haven't bought a CD since. I've always had a difficult time keeping up with new/modern music - with only a few exceptions I find I don't like "new" music until it's at least five years old.
I guess I'm really going for broke with these records being at least 80 years old. I want to rent out a hall and have a 40's styles dance with these records as the music.
We had a 78 rpm Victrola when I was just a kid. My folks bough a HiFi (mono) vinyl set up and I got the furniture that the Victrola was in. It was my liquor cabinet for probably 15 years :)
My brother and I shot most of the '78s. They break like a clay pigeon when you hit them with a 20ga shotgun shot :)
The guy in Oregon cleans up the recordings (some are still pretty scratchy) but they are wonderful. The blues have changed, of course, but this is what the players in the 60s listened to.
That hurts me to read now, but up until several weeks ago I wouldn't have cared at all. Probably pretty fun to do. :)
It was great fun. My grandparents gave us their 78s, too. We got pretty good at throwing them and shooting them!
Thank you @ewkaw and @qurator!
My pleasure :)
Hi @wwwiebe, your post has been upvoted by @bdcommunity courtesy of @rem-steem!
Support us by voting as a Hive Witness and/or by delegating HIVE POWER.
JOIN US ON
What a find!! I cannot believe that you got the Vogue ones, all of those! Can I just say Wow? I know some people don't like the sound, but, the scratchy sound and the recording is just like I see in the movies.
It is perfect.
This was truly an exciting box opening! I wish you lots of luck in finding more! Enjoy!! I think even the cat likes it!
This was the first time I have even seen those type of records from Vogue. I'm thrilled! They will be going on my wall, for sure.
And yes, the cat is impressed. 😃
Todo lo "malo" siempre viene acompañado de algo bueno 😁 excelente descubrimiento, muy bello el arte, que los disfrutes. Saludos 👋
¡Gracias! Realmente fue un hallazgo afortunado, y tienes toda la razón, siempre hay un lado bueno en todo lo malo. ¡Gracias por revisarlo!
Do you want to get involved? Do you want to support music and this project? Follow us to keep you updated and read our Introduction post!
🎶 Join us on our Discord Server! 🎵
Thank you very much!
wow such a beautiful collection. so sorry for the damage, but seems like you manage to over through this with some creative ideas :-)
Yep, I'll figure out something. I might even see if I can figure out how to use them as a frame for some negative film!
For the one who was packing this box of vinyl, I would have pulled out his hands and inserted it where the legs grow from ...
You can't do that.
As a child I was curious and ... I took apart the old gramophone to the last screw ...
Now I really regret it, but nothing can be fixed. In the attic there is only a body ... :)
I congratulate you on your good purchase. What else can I add :-)
Very aptly put. I'm still shocked that he thought packing them like that would be a good idea. At least he's refunding the share of the records that were damaged.
You know, I've taken things apart as well, but so far an entire gramophone has not been one of those things. I might need to do some repairs soon; if I do, I'll take some pictures and post them for you in memory of your past fun. :)
Thank you very much!
Children do not understand the value of many things. For me, the gramophone was just an interesting device and I wanted to know what it consists of ... :)
This is very cool, I will wait for your photos, I wonder what it will be :)
!invest_vote
@bambuka denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@bambuka thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !