1 Comment for Names/labels of vinyl records from the 1930s or 40s?

• 1. Robert E  |  November 27th, 2010 at 2:01 am

  Well, first of all, your question is flawed; they didn’t start using vinyl to make records until after World War II, the late ’40s. Until then, records were made of shellac. So artists from the ’30s and ’40s would have recorded 78 rpm records on shellac, not vinyl.

  (Shellac was hard and brittle, such that when 78s were mailed to radio stations, they would often crack in shipping. But rather than wait for replacements – which might arrive cracked as well – stations would just play the cracked, or “broken” record anyway. That’s where the phrase “sounds like a broken record” comes from.)

  As for ‘valuable’ 78s…oftentimes in record collecting, it isn’t the famous artists whose records become ‘valuable’, it is the rare ones. Some of the most valuable 78s would be by Elvis Presley, because he started to become popular just as 78s were disappearing and 45s were becoming popular, so that there were relatively few Elvis 78s sold. But that is into the ’50s anyway.

  Popular artists from the 30s and 40s (can’t say how valuable their 78s would be) are bandleaders like Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie; and the singers who sang with those bands, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Helen Ward, Peggy Lee, Martha Tilton.

  Hope that helps.

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