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Love messages from the 1950s discovered on records

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

A woman made a surprising discovery after buying a jazz album for three US dollars (just under three euros) in a second-hand store in Minneapolis. Inside the sleeve, she found two small records from the 1950s containing love messages between a man and a woman.

When it comes to love, it was not uncommon - especially in the past - for letters to be written back and forth. And sometimes, as in this case, the vows of love were even recorded on records. One of the things that made this possible was a device called the Voice-O-Graph, which became a popular attraction in the USA from the 1940s onwards.

Records were recorded in a machine
Anyone could enter such a Voice-O-Graph and make their own recordings - greetings or even singing. All without the presence of a sound engineer. The end result was scratched onto a record with a diameter of six inches (just under 16 centimeters, picture below) using a simple phonographic direct-cut process. These records were then often sent by post.

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

These records from Voice-O-Graph were even provided with a label which, in addition to the company name, also contained a danger warning that the sound carrier, which was to be played at 78 RPM (revolutions per minute, note), was "flammable".

Mann was in the air force in the 1950s
Angelina Palumbo found just such recordings in the inner sleeve of the jazz record she bought. She had tried to find the addresses of the couple who had sent such records to each other in 1954. However, she has not yet succeeded, says Palumbo. According to the address on the envelope, the man was serving in the US Air Force at the time of the recording.

The recordings were sent by post.

(Bild: kameraOne (Screenshot))

"I couldn't find any contact information. I tried looking for them on Facebook, but I couldn't find anyone I could contact because I don't know if their family (the couple, ed.) still lives in Minnesota, (...) I hope this story reaches the right people," Palumbo said.

"That's how they communicated back then"
"This was before voicemail and social media. That's how they communicated (back then). I think maybe they were clearing out a house and stuffing the records into this album," Palumbo believes. They probably just didn't know that the couple's very personal recordings had been inadvertently put into the cover of the jazz record.

Incidentally, there was also such a Voice-O-Graph machine in Vienna from the late 1950s. It was located at Burggasse 60 in the seventh district.