Most valuable Frank Sinatra records.

Perhaps not the most valuable, but I would imagine that a near mint copy of the two 10" LP version of Wee Small Hours would be pretty darn desirable.

Come to think of it, I've never seen one in real life.

 

The rarest Sinatra LP is "Sings The Select Harold Arlen" on Capitol. While I have never seen a US copy it was also issued in Australia and Canada.

The Dutch pressing of "Great Songs From Great Britain" has a different cover.

The Japanese pressing of "Sings The Select Rodgers and Hart" has a different cover.

"Sinatra In Mexico" on Capitol is very rare.

"Everybody Loves Somebody" LP from Japan is very rare.

"World Tour" LP from Japan issued to commemorate Sinatra's 62 world tour is very rare...contains a few cuts from "Great Songs From Britain".

 

I wasn't crazy about the first album but I love the second one they did...

 

Yes, but at least in my country they were initially sitting on the shelves gathering dust for a long time. SATURN here in Cologne had lots of the leather trunks which wouldn't sell for the original price tag (then DM 499 = roughly $ 310). Less than year or so after the release they started downpricing them until they were gone. IIRC the last ones sold for sth. like DM 299 ($ 185).

Arne

 

Don't forget that in 1996/97 FS was still alive but not performing anymore. The "Duets" and 80th-birthday hype was over and tons of product out there. I remember all the individual Capitol and Reprise CDs were suddenly priced at 6.99.

It was not until his death and probably Robbie Williams' "Swing When You're Winning" album that people began to take notice again.

 

^^^ Robbie who?

 

Robbie the reindeer

Was Robbie the first to "record/sing" with Frank Sinatra after Franks death?

 

IMO those two statements cancel each other out.

 

No. Williams' album Swing When You're Winning was released in 2001. After Sinatra's death in 1998, at least two posthumous faux duets were released on earlier albums by other artists: Paul Anka's A Body of Work in 1998 ("My Way") and Celine Dion's A Decade of Song in 1999 ("All the Way").

Am I the only one who finds it ludicrous that Robbie Williams was in any way responsible for enhancing Frank Sinatra's popularity? Certainly not in the US. (Surely, it was the other way around!)

 

Those are what they went for on Ebay, for real.

The Capitol Years set is sealed.
I guess there were 2 desparate people who were in a bidding war for that copy of ITWSH.

That fancy issue of AMAHM has a numbered card on the back cover which FS autographed, my copy doesn't have it but it's a white label promo with two Budwiser stickers on the cover....nifty.

I'm looking for that Gunga Din promo single which 200 were pressed in 1968 and ticked that it wasn't in the suitcase. If you never heard it, the single proved that Sinatra had a warped sence of humor.

 

It's not music and had no place in the suitcase. If you have heard it, you have to wonder: What was he thinking?

 

The typesetting fonts on the right side (which showed the contents) were from CBS Pitman, NJ - the only area where Pitman type, for the most part, was on Warner/Reprise product by this point (c.1969).

Anyone for the infamous "Mama Will Bark" duet with Dagmar from 1951 - especially on 45 RPM? (As which I happen to have it.)

 

It has to be payback from the "On The Road To Mandalay" fiasco in the UK.
The thing is hysterical. Sinatra reading Kipling's poem to the first five minutes of the (Peter Sellers film) "The Party" with bugles and gun shots. They should have put it on there as a hidden track.

 

Surely the 78RPM which was recorded 73 years ago this Friday must count for some big bucks. That is Mr. S's first official (non demo) recording with Harry James "From the Bottom of My Heart"/"Melancholy Mood" on Brunswick.

 

I have the 45 and a 78 promo.
It's bad but not as horrid as Bim Bam Baby, Feet Of Clay, or Tennesee Newsboy (Sinatra goes rockabilly)

 

Plus, none of these 78's on Columbia are considered among his rarer material in 2012.

 

http://www.popsike.com/HARRY-JAMES-78-BRUNSWICK-8443-RARE-FRANK-SINATRA-1939/4726750232.html

 

Not too rare but scarce since they issued post 1951 when Sinatra's career was on the skids and the songs that Mitch Miller had him song were atrocous and did poor sales wise.

Here's a few collectables from the Columbia era:

$154
The only 78 set I'm missing.

$132

$65
Another that should have been on the Reprise box even it was spoken word.

 

I've never seen the "Gunga Din" record before the picture you posted earlier in this thread. What's with the w7 label? That catalog # (0493) is from 1966. Was this not actually pressed at all until two years later? Two (at least) small runs? A fake?

 

I do believe he had something to do with it. Robbie already had success with the boy band " Take That" but after a falling out with other members , he left , struggled for a bit then had great success with three solo albums the latter called " Sing When You're Winning" after massive success he released the swing album , notice the play on words for the title " Swing When You're Winning" it wasn't as if he needed the fame or the money, but it got him to the Albert Hall

One needs to remember we in England aren't all familiar with " The Great American Song Book" It's not so easily accessible here. When I was growing up there were fewer TV channels, so if off sick from school I would find myself lay on the sofa watching an old black and white movie, normally a musical with Fred Astaire , Gene Kelly etc,and I think this help introduce me to this genre of music. My Dad had Bing Crosby records but I would never have played them , not cool, I always classed it as " Old People's Music" because it had that old sound. Robbie Williams releasing " Swing When You're Winning" made it cool again, the younger generation who bought this album maybe wouldn't have even heard these songs before, and with Robbie releasing the Albert Hall DVD could have possibly whetted their appetite to find out more about the original release.

Just my thoughts.

 

Here's some pics of Bob's 78RPM. What is interesting is that it has an Aussie Catalogue Number with the USA one in brackets. BUT on the matrix it is hand scribed with the USA number only. I should have photographed that as well.

So I'm wondering if the experts can confirm if it's valuable, especially as it may have either been pressed in USA and labelled locally, or pressed locally from imported metal. I have NO IDEA what they did in 1939 - even if they had an actual pressing plant in Australia then. Even the early Beatles all came to Oz from the UK until they gradually pressed locally. But as it's over 70 years old (and actually in very good nick, if a little dusty) it must be a rarity? Anyone agree? Steve? I'd love to tell old Bob he's sitting on a fortune

 

Marino & Furfero's price guide states it was a white label promo (with that catalog no.); "300 were pressed and given away to friends."

In his book about Warner Music, EXPLODING, Stan Cornyn relates how Sinatra became determined to put out the gag record shortly after "Stangers in the Night" (1966). Over Mo Ostin's objections, copies were sent to radio stations. Frank relented and called off the release only when the reaction came back from radio: "Worst piece of crap...embarrassing...going to hurt his image." (That was my reaction when I heard it on a b**tleg CD. )

 

That's the second of the two Parlophone records I listed. "Every Day of My Life" was Sinatra's LAST recording with Harry James (November 8, 1939), and its Columbia 78 is much more common (and less valuable) than the first (Brunswick) record pictured of "From the Bottom of My Heart." [A 20-year-old price guide indicates it was worth only $8 vs. $500 for the Brunswick issue.]

I suspect your friend Bob is sitting on something of mainly sentimental value to Sinatra nuts.

 

Thanks again. I'll break it to him softly...