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It’s my intent to conduct over a period of years an informal population study of 500 primary and important sheet music publications during the ‘first epoch’ years of 1768-1887. I will be in process over the coming months of selecting the 500 items which will be listed inside of 65 collecting genres. These will not be considered to be the 500 most valuable or significant but will number among the most sought after music publications in all fields of collection for popular American music, singularly published. They will not include broadsides published without music or pieces published only in periodicals or almanacs. They will include non-pictorially illustrated printings in addition to music issued with black and white lithographed title pages and pictorial title pages printed in colors.
I don’t believe any study to determine actual rarity has ever been done, apart from the Star Spangled Banner. It will require input from collectors, information from libraries and archives and visitations to certain archives to do on-site research. I’m hoping it will shed light on what is suspected to be great rarity among many prominent items. It may also allow for a basic ranking of holdings in ‘first epoch’ American music. It’s been believed for a long while that a number of critical first or very early editions of important songs and music lithos exist in ‘single digit’ rarity, with less than 10 copies known to exist. |
Transformation Polka, by Thomas Baker
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