My May 27, 2025 auction: Rock & Roll 45's and 78's!
Michael Kasino documentary on John Tefteller: The Sherlock Of Shellac
New York Times
article on
John Tefteller
John buys the World's Rarest 45 rpm record!!
John buys the World's Rarest 78 rpm record!!
John finds another "lost" Paramount 78 rpm record!!
My Museum-Quality Pre-War Blues 78's. TRULY the Rarest Records on Earth!
My Museum-Quality Pre-War Blues 78 Sleeves, Colored 78's and Museum-Quality 45's.
I want to BUY your rare records!!
John's 2023 Blues Calendar is STILL SHIPPING! This is OUR LAST CALENDAR!!
Volume 20! With a FREE CD, Restored using the FANTASTIC method heard in American Epic!
SOUNDS LIKE YOU'RE IN THE ROOM WITH THEM AS THEY PERFORM!
Plus the Newly Discovered Edith North Johnson Paramount!
THIS 25-Track CD is the BEST-SOUNDING SONGS WE'VE EVER HAD!
With songs from Funny Paper Smith, Irene Scruggs,
Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and MORE!
Frog Records: The Very Best Vintage Jazz & Blues Remastered To CD's
WARNING! Faked Sun 45's are appearing on eBay
In the last couple months, several ABSOLUTELY FAKE Sun 45's have been sold on eBay and the fakers have now figured out how to fake "pushmarks"!
Yet another reason to not buy Rare Records on eBay or be extremely careful if you do!
Just recently an eBay auction closed with a supposedly Mint Sun 185 45 rpm by Blues singer Jimmy DeBerry. The photo clearly showed "pushmarks" on the label and the seller claimed to have owned the record for over 25 years. The lucky "winner" of this auction (who paid over $4,500.00 for the record) has now called to tell me that the record was as fake as can be and has filed for a refund with the seller.
Another long time collector wrote me to say that this same seller also offered Sun 209 by Elvis and a Sun 198 by Howard Serratt that also appear to have been faked!
"Pushmarks" have, until now, been a foolproof way of knowing for sure which Sun 45's of the early numbers are authentic originals and which are 1970's or later manufactured bootlegs, reproductions or fakes. Since I don't want to give the "fakers" information to further outsmart us, I am not going to describe them in great detail...but any advanced collector of original Sun 45's knows what I am talking about.
Now that the fakers have figured out how to put fake pushmarks into the labels, I WOULD STRONGLY CAUTION MY CUSTOMERS TO COMPLETELY AVOID BUYING ANY SO CALLED ORIGINAL SUN RECORDS FROM EBAY SELLERS--UNLESS YOU HAVE TOTAL CONFIDENCE IN THE SELLER!
In the case of the Sun 185, not only were the pushmarks faked, but someone went to a great deal of trouble to try and "buff out" the "issued 1973" in the trailoff, which was put there by Henry Mariano in 1973 when he made some really nice looking reproductions.
I have an original Sun 185 and have turned down alot of money for it. This latest debacle is going to make it VERY HARD FOR ANYONE TO SELL ORIGINAL SUN 45'S unless they have been verified as originals by a known expert.
As the prices for original Sun records and others of great value continue to escalate, more of this kind of nonsense will undoubtedly occur. Of course, customers of John Tefteller's World's Rarest Records will be totally protected against this kind of fraud as we always ONLY sell originals and are total experts in how to tell originals from fakes. But eBay buyers BEWARE!
John Tefteller
1-7-10