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A Monumental Sales of a Korean 78rpm Record in an Auction!!
A couple of hours ago, there was a sensational auction result of a Korean 78rpm record - on Japanese Yahoo auction page. The record in question is Nitto 2249, recorded in August 1926, and issued September of the year. It contains two sides by Korean soprano, Yoon Shimdeok (Korean ; 윤심덕, 1897 ~ 1926). The A side contains a song called "The Praise of Death" (Korean ; "사의 찬미, Saui Chaanmi"), and the B side contains "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" , the famous Easter Hymn written by Charles Wesley. The final price of this record was 5,213,111 Yen (or $42,000), no other Korean 78rpm record had ever reached this price so far. Here is the background story of this record. Some people out there might find this boring, but I think some of them might find the story quite fascinating.
The singer, Yoon, was one of the earliest Korean female singer trained in Western operatic voice, but after several personal crisis and depression, she committed suicide with her lover, playwright Kim Woojin (Korean; 김우진), by jumping off from the ferryboat in the ocean, on August 4th, 1926. Her suicide created a national sensation at that time, and there were a couple of TV dramas and two films based on her life and death ever since.
Just before her suicide, between July and August 1926, she recorded 32 sides for Japanese Nitto Record company, most of which consisted of some operatic arias (Traviata, Aida, etc.) and few songs (including a couple of Stephen Foster songs and few Christian hymns). All of them were issued after her death, between October 1926 and February 1927. Most of them, however, apparently had dismal sales, judging by their current near non-existent status. Out of those 32 sides, there are only 4 sides of her known to exist, with two sides coming from the only known copy.
Her biggest sales, however, was a song called "The Praise of Death" (Korean ; "사의 찬미 Saui Chaanmi"), an adaptation of Ion Ivanovici's "Waves of Danube Waltz", with consistent themes of death in the lyrics. The lyricist is not credited on the label, but judging from few newspaper articles of the period and a couple of publicity materials, it is most likely Yoon herself who wrote the lyrics. Because of her sensational suicide and the public's interest on her new recordings, this record had a huge sale at that time, probably about 50,000 or 60,000 copies - no other Korean records at that time had a sales close to that number.
However, in the turmoils of Korean war and other catastrophic events that plagued the Korean modern history, almost all of the copies of this record literally disappeared. Also, another possible factor of the record's extinction is the pressing quality of the original record. Although relatively well-recorded, Nitto Records of the late 1920s employed a sort of laminated pressing, with a exceedingly bad quality paper lamination base that were notoriously prone to moisture swelling. By the 1960s, this record was completely banished from the sight. When a radio drama series based on Yoon's life was produced in the late 1960s, the producers searched everywhere for this record, but they could not find a copy of it, as a result, they only had to play an acoustic recording of "Waves of Danube Waltz" in the program (I have a tape of this episode)
The first copy of this record that ever turned up in modern record collecting world was found in a dumpster in the late 1970s. It was a very rough, worn copy, with several skips and many other blemishes which rendered the record almost completely unlistenable. Nevertheless, the record was "transferred" (i.e. the record was played on a Victor Credenza and recorded with a microphone and dubbed on a reel tape), and reissued privately on a LP album. The record was later sold to a record/phonograph collector, who donated his entire collection of records to a Christian sect, and no one has ever seen this copy (and the rest of collection) since 1997.
The second copy of this record was discovered from a personal collection of a college professor, and later purchased by the Musicology department of Seoul National University (for a "hefty sum") in the early 1980s. It was transferred to a DAT tape, but this was the time that no one in Korea knew anything about the correct playing stylus, so the record was played with an LP stylus, with terrible surface noise coming out as a result. Without careful handling, this record was later smashed by a careless librarian (who mistook it for an ordinary LP record), and is now in 4 pieces....
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The third copy, discovered by a demolition worker in an attic of a house around 1987, was purchased by Dr. Bae Yeon-Hyung, the head of The Korean 78rpm Archive Project (http://www.78archive.co.kr/v2/index.php), in 1989 for about $3,500. This is a copy that was first transferred with "right" equipment and has been reissued numerous times in CDs and other modern media. The copy is overall in a good condition (I would say "G" in record grading terms, or 7 out of 10 in grading scales), and plays quite nicely with 3.5mil TE stylus, except for two greyed blasting spot with Yoon's high notes. I had a privilege of transferring this copy digitally by myself. It also holds the record of being one of the most longest Korean 10-inch recording (4 minutes 49 seconds at 76rpm). The performance, compared with its legendary status, is not so great in its musical quality. It seems Yoon's musical training (3 years or so) was not sufficient enough to give her steady notes, and her voice, overall, sounds very nervous. Of course, you cannot judge her voice from this sole rather dim example, but until ANY copy of her other records will turn up, her reputation should only be judged by this record. The other known two sides of Yoon, containing "The First Nowell" and "Sea of Galilee", has never transferred or even shown to the public, although I personally had a privilege of seeing and holding the record (the owner refused to play the record for me, unfortunately).
The fourth copy, turned in Japan Yahoo auction site in 2006, was in a mint condition. It was purchased by a scholar/collector for about $8,200. Sadly, this individual is one of the most notoriously obstinate person when it comes to sharing his collection to the world, and so far there was no transfer of this record ever shared to the collecting world or to any serious researchers.
This copy, which appears slightly less clean than Dr. Bae's copy, was listed in a Japanese record seller's Yahoo auction page with the minimum bid of 3,000 yen (roughly $25) in the morning of July 14th. Apparently the seller was not aware of its legendary status. Words got around, and the price quickly rose to 100,000 yen (roughly $920) in less than 24 hours. By the end of the week (in the morning of July 20th), it already reached to 1.2 million yen (roughly $10,000), and final price was 5.2 million yen! I think I know who got the copy of this record, but I will keep my mouth shut until everything gets clear and the record is shipped to the buyer. For me, this is WAY TOO EXPENSIVE - it is simply not worth THAT much amount of money, even with its legendary rarity.
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