Some Highlights Of My Collecting Journey

I was first introduced to picture records when I was an early teen (60's). My folks had a Victor upright phonograph and there lay a stack of black shellac records of various labels beside the machine. One curious record in the pile stuck out like a sore thumb, a Vogue Picture Record, Blue Skies(left)/Rhapsody in Blue Pt2(right)[Vogue R726]. The graphics were wonderful, other than that I knew nothing about them or the company that produced them.

In 1972 my grandfather passed away. My dad inherited 3 Edison cylinder phonographs that my grandfather had stashed away. I find it strange now that I never heard my grandfather talk about them (an Amberola 30, a Standard and a Fireside). The Standard had a frozen main bearing and the Amberola and Fireside hadn't been played in ages. Along with the phonographs were a suitcase full of cylinder records. My dad wasn't interested in the player or records, so I was given them and that started me on this voyage.

The repairs I needed for the Edison Standard led me to a phonograph collector Ed Curry (who later wrote the first book on the Vogue Picture Records). I started to learn about phonographs and the records that played on them. A few years later I found a phonograph collector (Ken Cheatham) who collected Vogue Records. He gave me a copy of a record research article on the company. I thought the graphics were stunning and started collecting them. In about a year I had most of the Vogue records, except for the prototypes and rare records. At that time, I didn't know about the Mercury or other "special" records the company made. About that time I came across a book, "Picture Records of the World" and this was a great reference. This book showed my budding Vogue collection was now a drop in the bucket of what companies produced around the World.

I was in a local record shop and the lady proprietor (J & S Needles) and I talked for a while about picture records. She said she had a box of children's picture records (33) for sale. I ended up buying the whole lot. This was my first adventure into these small children's picture records. I was hooked and started collecting records again since my Vogue collection was about at its end. Somewhere around 1997 I saw a program on TV about a collector back East sharing his collection of 10,000 picture records. WOW!!!

Over the years, I have slowly picked up picture records here and there. The internet was a great boon to my collecting, especially eBay (I started in '97)! Then around 2007 I met someone who wrote a comprehensive book on vintage children's 78rpm records (Peter Muldavin). It was nice to talk to someone who appreciated these records as much as I did. I have been surprised that they still don't go for much money (except some rarer ones).

Well, I have thought about this for years, but have finally decided to make a web site to share the graphics on these children's 78rpm picture records. See if you don't agree that they are pretty cool!

Where To From Here?

I believe I will have 8 or 9 pages of companies that produced these children's picture records from the 20's to the early 50's. I am grouping the records into short series so that they will load quickly over the internet. This site has grown from 2 pages in January to 13 pages in September! This site shows some of the records produced by several companies: Bible Storytime, Castle Records, Durium, Eckart, Emerson, H-O Oatmeal, Kiddie Record/Rekord, Lionel, Look n Listen, Magic Talking Book, Mattel, Menorah, Musette, Nic, Pat Kiddy Records, Phonodisc, Pictorial, Picturtone, Pix, Playola, Playsong, Playtime Series, RCA Victor, Record Guild of America (RGA): P, T(1010), S(2010), C(3010), G(4010), M(5010), E(6010), C(7010), N(101), F(301), and Picture Play Series, Red Raven, Spalding, Talkie-Jecktor, Talking Book Corporation, Toy Toon, Visitone, Voco and the Vogue Picture Record Company.

I am teasing you and pressuring myself to keep adding to this site. I will be adding companies (and records) over time so check back periodically. I may add a blog and other related topics and features that may be of general interest to other collectors. And who am I? My name is Chris Nokes. (Also I am looking for Nic and Emerson picture records, if you have any for sale... email me!!!)

(3/27/2020) I am happy to bring to you fabulous children's picture record graphics from several 1950's Japanese Companies!! See Foreign: JAPAN. Also I have added some British Trusound records (there are only 4 of this series that are children's picture records, of which I only have one) See Foreign: England. New French records have been added by company Discoflex Baby (Album 1 and 2) See Foreign: France.

If you collect 78rpm Children's picture records, I'd like to hear from you, email me! Or if you want to let me know that you enjoyed the site, email me!(below)

RECORD MENU NAVIGATION->Tap/hover on the company to drop down the series and tap/click on (series); Tap/hover outside the menu to make it retract; Tap/click on the white arrows to the right/left of the record image to move to the next/previous image. Also older browers may not display this site correctly.

If you can contribute to support this effort...

Your help is greatly appreciated!!