Bert Williams "Phrenologist Coon" 1901 Black Vaudeville 7" 78 Victor Monarch 992
$
600
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Description
Here's an extremely rare artifact from 1901: a 7" Victor Monarch 78 rpm shellac containing a recording by the renowned Black Vaudevillian Bert Williams. Judging by the partly handwritten white labels, I believe this is what we would later call a test pressing. The record plays surprisingly well. NOTE that that play surface has a fairly deep DIVOT near the start that must be result of someone's careless needle drop a century ago (see close-up photo above). Amazingly—on my turntable, anyway—this does not cause a skip, though there is a very loud pop for three rotations. It could be edited out digitally, or possibly fixed by some alchemy that I won't attempt myself. It is otherwise is quite good condition, with one light scratch that is not audible over the surface hiss. I am hesitant to grade a record this old, so please judge the by the pics above and keep the aforementioned damage in mind.
Note that I am well versed in the proper way to ship a shellac record. I used the "floating" method and have never had one damaged in transit.
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