My wife visited her mother last year and while she was there, shipped home a bunch of old records. We were storing them in a bedroom closet and just got around to opening and inventorying them. I was pretty surprised, I though she was sending back a lot of trashed records from when she was a teenager. Instead they turned out to be mostly old hard vinyl (and maybe some shellac?) 10", 78rpm double sided singles. Mostly jazz, big-band, ragtime and a little country. Artist include Les Paul, Mary Ford, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, Doris Day, Enoch Light & Orchestra, Johnny Marvin, Sinatra, Ozzie Nelson, Jimmy Rodgers, The Troubadours, Waring's Pennsylvanians, Benny Strong, George Olsen, Dorothy Shay, Jesse Crawford, etc.
A few are broken or the surface is obviously damaged, but most appear to be in good condition, although they do need to be cleaned. Quite a few are labeled as promotional or DJ issues and there are no sleeves for most. Many appear to have come from a jukebox and my wife confirmed that her grandmother owned a restaurant in the '40s and '50s with a jukebox. They have been stored in album 'books', with brown paper sleeve 'pages'. Maybe these were what the original meaning of "record album' was referring to? Unfortunately, most of the books are in poor condition. The paper sleeves are very brittle, most have torn and the glue has dried out and failed. These have been in storage for at least 40 years.
She did also send some of her teenage records home, but it turns out she had pretty good taste and knew how to take care of her records. They have always been properly stored on edge and never in a basement or attic. Most show some minor to moderate wear on the covers, but the inner sleeves and discs look pristine. None of the discs I have examined show any warping. A number are double or multi-disc albums and if they came with a booklet or poster she has that, also. These have been in storage since the mid-70s.
Pink Floyd - Meddle (w/poster); DSOTM
Led Zepplin - Houses of the Holy; 4 (ZOSO)
Foghat - Foghat
Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Center of the Earth (w/booklet); The Six Wives of Henry VIII
Paul Simon - There Goes Rhymin' Simon
Grand Funk Railroad - No Time
The Allman Brothers Band - Brothers and Sisters
Duane Allman - Anthology (double album w/booklet)
J. Geils Band - Nightmares and Other Tales From the Vinyl Jungle (glue failed on cover)
Leon Russell - Leon Live (3 discs)
Van Morrison - Hard Nose the Highway
Yes - The Yes Album; Close to the Edge; Fragile (w/taped song list); Yessongs (3 discs, some cover damage)
Shawn Phillips - Faces; Contribution; Second Contribution
It's A Beautiful Day - It's Beautiful Day
The Who - Quadraphenia (double album w/booklet)
Joe Walsh - The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get
George Harrison - The Concert For Bangla Desh (Original release, 3 discs, booklet, orange box)
She also has a Wittnauer Spanish 24-Hour Language Course that consists of 4 LPs and a couple of booklets. The cover advertises it as the "First Computerized Language Method", even though it was sold in the early 70s.
I sold my turntable a number years ago and I have no intention of dipping my toes back into the vinyl world, so we are looking to sell these. Does anyone know anything about these old hard vinyl records or maybe can recommend a site where I can research the older albums? Also, how do you tell the difference between early 78rpm vinyl and shellac? I figure any disc with numbers on the run-out groove are vinyl, but I'm not assuming that a disc without numbers is automatically shellac.
Other comments, suggestions and offers are welcome.
