They've Got Those Old, Hard-to-Find Blues

JOHN HENEGHAN tugged a large shellac disc from its brown paper sleeve, placed it on a turntable and gently nudged a needle into place. Behind him, in the corner of his East Village apartment, sat 16 wooden crates, each filled with meticulously cataloged 78-r.p.m. records. The coarse, crackling voice of the blues singer Charley Patton, performing High Water Everywhere Part 1, his startling account of the 1927 Mississippi River flood, rose from the speakers, raw and unruly. The record is worth about $8,000. Mr. Heneghan, 41, is part of a small but fervent community of record collectors who for decades have hunted, compulsively and competitively, for 78s: the extraordinarily fragile 10-inch discs, introduced near the turn of the 20th century and made predominantly of shellac, that contain one two- to three-minute performance per side. At a time when music fans expect songs to be delivered instantaneously (and often at zero cost) online, scouring the globe for a rare record and paying thousands of dollars for it might seem ludicrous. (A rarer Patton record could command $15,000 to $20,000.)

But according to some, the rare-record business is booming, despite the recession and the devaluation of music as a physical product. Prices have been rising at a phenomenal rate, as people take money out of the stock market and out of different real estate investments and look for a place to put it, said John Tefteller, a collector who makes his living dealing in rare records. He noted a particular spike last fall, when the economy first faltered.

Others, like Mark Berresford, who edits VJMs Jazz & Blues Mart, the oldest blues and jazz magazine still in print, are more cautious about looking to rare records for financial stability. If one is considering collecting rare 78s solely as an investment, one should seek professional advice as to what should be purchased and from whom, Mr. Berresford wrote in an e-mail message.

By any standard 78s are unwieldy, impractical and unstable. By the mid-1950s they had been mostly replaced by 33 1/3 r.p.m. long-playing albums and 45 r.p.m. singles. Collectors of 78s are enticed in part by the thrill of the quest, which they consider unmatched by a mouse click.

Im not proud of the fact that I have to chase these records down like a maniac, said Mr. Heneghan, who supports himself by working as a video technician. (He also performs in an old-time duo, Eden and Johns East River String Band.) Before he became friendly with other collectors, he said, he felt sleazy and weird.

I knew I was doing it because I liked it, but its strange when you cant relate to one single other person, he said. You obviously start to question like, is there something wrong with me?