Becoming a Collector
I started collecting when I was a young child. I collected stamps, coins and all kinds of rare antique items, all those collections came and went lasting only for a few years; but in the case of my record collecting, it was something completely different.
My fascination with records, particularly 78s, began before my elementary school years. I spent hours in front of an enormous Stereo that my father bought used in the 60s, listening to old family records. We didn’t have many at that time, as they were already an obsolete media replaced by vinyl in both single and LP formats.
When I moved to the US in the late 80s, it seemed that records in general were becoming obsolete so I got into the new format known as CD, however, when my first radio show aired on “Radio Suave” in Miami in the early 90s, record companies were still providing me with LP and 45 promos, until they switched completely to CDs in 1992.
I was always drawn to records and I tried to get my hands on what was available any time I could. I learned to search thrift stores, garage sales, attics and forgotten family boxes abandoned in friend’s garages or storage units. Then one day it happened. At one of my several odd jobs during my early years in US, I was cleaning the apartment of a woman who was moving to an assisted living facility. Her husband had been a radio DJ in the 1940s and she kept a small collection of promotional 78s that belonged to him. I told her about my obsession with collecting 78s, so as she was moving out, after asking her children if any of them cared about the records, she decided to give them to me. To my surprise, I found my first Vogue Picture Record in that pile of 78s. I didn’t have any idea of what a Vogue Picture Record was back then, and it actually shocked me to see a 78 with different beautiful and colorful period drawings on each side of the record, pressed in a material very different from the standard shellac of the time.
Years later, with access to the Internet and searching for some 78s for my ever-growing collection, I learned about the Vogue Picture Records, the company behind them and the very short period they were on the market. My fascination grew even more, and I got hooked on, not only getting a full collection of these spectacular records, but to also researching what really happened to them and their creator, Tom Saffady.
The result of my research and collection is presented in this book, which is not intended to be an authority on Vogue Picture Records, but only a guide to my own discoveries, showing everything I have learned and collected over the years.
I hope that those who read this and share the same passion for these records, will enjoy the stories told in the following pages as well as the images of these records, most of which are photographs of my personal collection, unless otherwise noted.
