[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtg9mOfFP0g[/youtube]
My latest haul of flea market 78s turned up twenty records on the French Pathe label, with all but one in its original sleeve. On them are Jim (James Reese) Europe (with the 369th Hell Fighters Band), Bennie Krueger, and a few other jazz producers from when the genre was still in its extreme infancy. I got them for less than $1/per. If you don't know who James Europe and the Hell Fighters were, it's absolutely worth nadining them.
Grasswipe Judy would probably give up her red wagon to throw these on Ebay. So far, for pure listening pleasure I've enjoyed "Palesteena" by Krueger the best out of the group.
Pathe records were created using a vertical cutting process, which put the music at the bottom of the "V" in the record, rather than on the sides of the "V". Edison and a few others also did this, but they were the exception to the rule. When I play vertical cut records, I have to switch the jumpers on my stylus to play the up the up-and-down undulations coming from the stylus, rather than the typical side-to-side found on lateral cut recordings. Pathe also used a very unusual stylus, which I do not have, but they still play well enough on my setup. The record sleeve gives a hint at the unusual stylus Pathe employed:
Here is what a Pathe sapphire ball looks like when compared to a regular stylus tip. They were huge:
