record finds

so as i continued to try and sort out my new garage, i made a discovery the other day. buried in a box of old records my father in law had given me some time ago i found these very tiny ones. they are smaller than a 45 and have grooves on only one side. on the non-grooved side are patent dates from the very early 1900's. i'm assuming they are little 78's, but so far i haven't had the courage to play one. but i just thought they were so odd i wanted to share them. they are clearly before my time.

but even as i was sorting through my own records, and organizing the few 45's i do own, i was impressed by this deep history of recorded music cataloged not only in our own memories, and in the music itself, but also in the beautiful paper labels that adorn these old recordings. today as with the cover art it has mostly vanished into the digital matrix. these 3 look to be from about 1918, which means that my wife's 95 year old grandfather probably listened to them as a toddler. i'll have to see if i can turn them into mp3 for him before he's gone.

if you want to learn more about these tiny recordings there is a great website archiving the entire line. check it out here. i'm still amazed that after all this time, it is still possible to see something new pop out at you in a stack of wax.