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Bob Porter's History of Collecting


When it was introduced by engineers at Columbia Records in 1948, the long playing record was a 10" LP. The reason for that was that a 78 rpm album held four discs and eight songs. The LPs were pressed on vinyl, a considerably quieter surface than the shellac used to press 78s. The actual grooves were smaller (microgroove) and required a special stylus to play them. The speed was 33 1/3 rpm, a speed common for radio transcription recordings but not for those intended for home use. There were few phonographs capable of playing the new records but Columbia soon packaged a player and three LPs for a special price in order to create interest in the new product. And surprisingly, Columbia did not pursue a patent of the LP. The idea was to get other labels to participate to ensure the success of the format. Decca and Mercury were manufacturing LPs before the end of the year.

Until this point virtually all the innovations regarding records had come from RCA. It would be 1950 before RCA launched a line of LPs and the reason for that was their own introduction of the 45 rpm disc in the spring of 1949. The initial releases on 45 rpm were reissues of older Victor titles and they were pressed on colored vinyl, coded to indicate the type of music. RCA would use 45 rpm for Extended Play albums, which contained four songs, as well as singles. Within a few short years the 45 had become the dominant configuration for singles. This was hastened considerably by the Juke Box industry, which was able to double the number of records on each machine by switching from 78 to 45.

The LP had to undergo a few changes before it settled into its popular 12" format in 1956. There were lines of 12" LPs in the early years but they were few and far between and were never very popular with distributors. There were challenges from a 7" LP that was short-lived at the time but was revived in the 1960s (for Juke Box Stereo albums rather than public consumption). In the jazz field, 12" LPs gained a popularity because of the ability to contain live concert performances such as Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert or Norman Granz' Jazz at the Philharmonic productions. 12" LPs were also used for spoken word albums, many of which were played back at 16 rpm.

Broadway shows, Hollywood cast albums and classical works were also a part of the 12" success story. On the other hand, there were few blues albums being recorded in the early years of the format, R&B albums tended to be compilations of singles and gospel labels were still selling 78s into the 1960s. For jazz, 1956 was the year that the great independent labels began to build those remarkable catalogs of 12" LPs many of which were continually in-print over the next thirty years.

Argo, Atlantic, Bethlehem, Blue Note, Contemporary/Good Time Jazz, Emarcy, Fantasy, GNP Crescendo, Pacific Jazz, Prestige, Riverside, Roost, Roulette, Savoy, Vee Jay and Verve would be the major players over the next few years. Labels such as ABC, Modern and King produced jazz LPs as a part of a general product line. Other jazz labels such as Dawn, Mode, Debut and Jazz West began with a great deal of promise but couldn't sustain themselves. The big labels, Capitol, Columbia, Decca and RCA Victor integrated a certain amount of jazz into the mix of major artists and big stars from all fields that made up their release schedules.

Stereo came into play about the same time although it was a few years before stereo LPs were released on a regular basis. There had been attempts at creating stereo in the 1930s but it was the binaural process developed by Emory Cook in the early 1950s which was used by Atlantic and Fantasy on selected projects. Binaural required two separate tone arms to play the LPs and it quickly proved to be impractical in the marketplace. Yet when the binaural recordings were later re-mastered, it gave us true stereo recordings of a 1952 Wilbur DeParis album and a 1955 Lennie Tristano live date. By 1960, stereo records were issued simultaneously with their monaural counterparts but labels developed stereo lines independently of each other and there wasn't a fixed date when they all appeared. Stereo LPs were priced a dollar higher than their mono counterparts.

The dual system of inventory needed to keep up with both mono and stereo LPs was not something that wholesalers enjoyed. It was 1967 when Columbia Records decreed that it would no longer press monaural LPs that the next change took place. The entire industry, pressured by wholesalers, followed suit and mono became as obsolete as 78 rpm very quickly. Retailers in turn insisted that "stereo" had to appear on every album and that led to the "electronically reprocessed" fake stereo of the late 1960s. It was at this stage that jazz LPs suffered a steep decline in sales. When the mono portion of an album's sales disappeared, it never was recovered. Wholesalers returned thousands of LPs in mono that were no longer saleable.

The list price of most jazz labels, which had been at $4.98 since the 1950s, began to rise. Prestige moved to a $5.98 for most new projects in 1971 and that was only the beginning. The price of vinyl soared, sparked by the Arab oil boycotts of 1973 and 1979. This, in turn, led to continual price escalations and new competition in the form of tape cassettes. Cassettes had been around for a while and at one point co-existed with 8 Track as a tape configuration. 8 Track fell away as audio improvement came to cassette and cassettes were used in automobiles. By the end of the 1970s, $8.98 was the standard list price for LPs and cassettes.

Cassettes gradually increased its share of the market during the 1970s & 80s in almost all the pop categories of music. Jazz was among the holdout areas for LP yet the decline in quality of LP pressings was a source of continual annoyance to collectors. There had been a consolidation of pressing facilities and those owned by the major labels were more concerned with the cost of a pressing than the quality. It was in the late 1970s that Japanese pressings began to appear with regularity in the USA. Reissue series of Riverside and Blue Note led the way and it quickly became obvious that the quality of the Japanese pressings were at least equal to the finest American audiophile pressings. They became the standard by which anything else was judged for the remainder of the LP era.

The LP era lasted well into the late 1980s before CD became the norm. There has been plenty of debate about the audio superiority of digital recording vs. analog. One thing is certain: digital recording will always sound better on CD. If an analog recording is being digitally re-mastered, the engineer better know how to do it. There has been an enormous amount of mediocre re-mastering foisted upon the marketplace. On the other hand, the work of Rudy Van Gelder in his RVG series for Blue Note (and now Prestige) has been exemplary and the Japanese engineers continue to lead the rest of the world in quality.

Yet there are many jazz collectors who still prefer LP. Now that jazz LP reissues have begun to resurface again, it is worthwhile acknowledging the collector market for LP that has never gone away. Collectable LPs are usually those from the first edition (in their original covers) in the best possible condition. Mono records are more desirable than stereo and minor flaws can subtract substantially from the overall value. The auction market for collectable LPs can be quite volatile with the value of an LP fluctuating more like a share of common stock than having the fixed value of other antiques. Among the most desirable jazz collectables are albums on Blue Note (Lexington Avenue address on the label, flat edge and deep groove) or Prestige (yellow label, New York address, flat edge and deep groove) as well as those short-lived labels from the 1950s. 10" LPs on certain labels are highly desirable. The original cover art, such as the line drawings of David Stone Martin or the photography of Herman Leonard, is often as important as the music.

Limited editions have exceptional value in some (but not all) cases. Autographed albums generally do not increase the value of an album unless the autograph itself is rare. A Charlie Parker autograph would be meaningful; a Sol Yaged autograph would not. Colored vinyl was used on the first pressings of many companies in California but not in the rest of the country. In general, second pressings and reissues have little collector value although certain reissue series are desirable in complete sets. Mosaic Records reissues with their complete packages in limited editions are highly prized.

Original albums on European or Japanese labels that did not get American distribution can often command high prices. International editions of American albums can have some value on a European label but significantly more on a Japanese label. In large measure, the great albums by the great artists are not especially valuable unless they are first edition. They are the ones that everyone owns rather than the obscure album by a talented musician with a cult following that was pressed in small quantities. In the collecting world, in many, if not all, cases it is NOT about the music.

The return of LPs to the marketplace is a more recent development. Improved mastering and pressing quality will provide exceptional listening especially on high end equipment. While things will never return to the halcyon days of the 1950s & 60s, you will have cover art in a more viewable form and liner notes that are liner notes rather than booklets. The albums won't be in 10" form, they will be stereo or perhaps monaural depending on how it was originally recorded and will certainly not be "electronically reprocessed".

Bob Porter (Bob Porter has been running LP auctions since 1973. They are viewable on line at http://www.jazzetc.net or available, free, in hard copy from Jazz Etc, P.O. Box 393, Bergenfield NJ 07621.)