Sons of the Pioneers RCA Victor 78 rpm circa 1950's
The picture is an original promotional picture that Roy Rogers used to hand out at his shows. This one was from the Pacific Northwest Exhibition (PNE) in British Columbia, Canada. I got it there from him in 1969 when my uncle brought me to see Roy's cowboy show.
Years before I started working at the (now defunct) book & record store, I used to visit there as often as I could. On one occasion I met the man who was running the bookstore at that time. During our conversation I had asked about 78 rpm records, he said that he had many upstairs but no one goes up there without his consent. That seemed to be that....until one day he approaches with a proposition, I go through his mess of 78's, straighten it up so that he could present his collection to buyers and I get a deal on any 78's that I might want...except I was to give him all of the SUN label records. I accepted with the understanding that if he was selling any of his SUN records that I would have a chance at them once he had them appraised. Well, I found several and he never offered one back....he just sold them off.
I used to spend hours in a dusty/musty dark room (upstairs of the record store, before & during the time i worked there) going through thousands trying to guess which one is worth the effort... you have to, there was literally thousands waiting to be discarded. I just can't process the thought of what didn't get saved!
