American Premium Record Guide 1900-1965: Identification and Value Guide (5th ed) [Paperback]

Les Docks (Author), L.R. Docks (Author)

Book Description

Series: 5th ed | Publication Date: February 1997

This is the ultimate collector's guide to vintage records covering more than 7,500 artists from all music genres, including big band, blues, jazz, country/western and rock, 1900 to 1965. This comprehensive identification and value guide features more than 30,000 record values, including listings for 78s, 45s and LPs. This guide is very easy to use with discographies categorised by label, catalogue number and value. Features completely updated and expanded text with more than 7,500 recording artists featured.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Krause Pubns Inc; 5th edition (February 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896891240
• ISBN-13: 978-0896891241
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Antiques & Collectibles > Records

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Warning Not a complete guide!!, August 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: American Premium Record Guide 1900-1965: Identification and Value Guide (5th ed) (Paperback)

This book starts with a contradictory disclaimer that says essentially:"We do but we dont, we will but we wont, we have but we havent etc..." This book contains a sampling of artists, not all artists. It claims some International content but I have yet to find it. Its only redeeming quality is the excellent label references and pictures that can date your records to the year (this too is incomplete though). I bought the book simply to confirm the date and artists other titles(basic collector info). This book is useless for that purpose unless you share the specific tastes of the author.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good additional guide for 78s and obscure titles, December 26, 2006

By 

D. Stern "documentary fan" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Premium Record Guide, 1900-1965: Identification & Value Guide to 78s, 45s, & LPs (Paperback)

If you collect records by well-known artists or mainstream recordings from the 1960s-1990s,
this probably isn't the guide for you.

But, if you have 78s or obscure labels or titles, this is a great
addition to your record guides. When I was collecting more
intensely a few years back, I found that I ended up using about 6 different guides,
and subscribed to Goldmine magazine, a tabloid out of Iola, Wisconsin. Out of all of these guides together,
I could usually find out what I wanted to know about the records I was collecting.

When it came to 78s, though, this was the book that I always turned to for
information. I didn't always agree with what I saw listed as the value ( of course, I thought my records were worth more. Just look at all the guides till you find a price you like! ) but there
is a lot of good info here. It's worth looking at just to see the record labels
in the front of the book. I found that I could search through stacks of records while hunting armed with the knowledge of what were labels to zero in on for Blues, Jazz and the like, and if I could get the records
cheaply enough, it was often worth the gamble to buy them and listen to unfamiliar artists once I got home.

If you just want a price guide for mainstream music, there are better guides, like:
Jerry Osborne's Official Price Guide to Records,
Goldmine has good guides on 45s and records in general, and if you collect Doo-Wop try "Doo-Wop, the forgotten third of Rock 'n Roll" by Dr. Anthony J. Gribin & Dr. Matthew M. Schiff, and Warman's has guides just on Elvis and the Beatles (two separate books.)

The Official Price Guide to Records has 13 pages on the Beatles compared to a handful of entries in les Docks' book. But, on the other hand, I found a price for a 45 by the 1950s R&B group, the "Go-boys," featuring Dudley Callicutt, in Les' book and nothing in the other guides.

It's all a matter of what you're looking for. And if you have an artist's name, there's an index in the back.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Provides something necessary to the record buying public, November 12, 2007

By 

Matthew Mcclellan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Premium Record Guide 1900-1965: Identification and Value Guide (5th ed) (Paperback)

This book has a lot of holes and should be considered a supplemental guide to the more thorough price guides out there like Rockin' Records. What I really enjoy about this book is how it indirectly communicates to the masses how small the percentage of 78's out there have any value in the marketplace.

Typical flea-market hunters will come across large assortments of 78's over years of hunting but will find very little of any value. They will open up this guide and look up their records and not find them or find that they have little to no value. It's refreshing to have a guide that will humble the amateur collector and not give them false hopes about the values of their records. Selling 78's in most markets is next to impossible. Most dealers are relegated to selling them online, which is not a profitable venture unless the records are established collectables. This book helps delineate such records.

It's hardly worth looking through the 45/EP/LP section with the other guides out there. The separation by genre is kind of unnecessary in my opinion. Also, it's true this book has little to say about international records. Russian and Chinese records are collectible but they are beyond the scope of this book. I can't really evaluate the high-end prices in this guide because I'm undereducated on the subject. Use auction results to help.

I would only recommend buying this guide to those who have access to either a real large quality 78 collection (hot jazz, pre-war blues, rockabilly perhaps) or a desire to understand the patterns of 78 values. You will NOT turn your grandma's collection or your garage sale find into cash using this guide (99 times out of 100). Consider this a supplemental guide for 78's only.