BIDDEFORD, Maine — A 120-year-old wax-covered cylinder containing the earliest known recording of a black vocal group in the United States was sold at auction Saturday.
Discovered in a private collection in Portland, Maine, the 1893 recording of “Mama’s Black Baby Boy” by the New York-based Unique Quartet was one of only two copies known to exist and sold for $1,100. The other is in the Library of Congress.
A second Unique Quartet song, “Who Broke the Lock (on the Henhouse Door)?” from 1896, sold at the same auction for $1,900. The same buyer purchased both recordings, which predate vinyl records.
The recordings were so rare that auctioneers at Saco River Auction Co. had no idea how much they might fetch. An appraiser had suggested they were each worth $25,000 or more.
The wax was so fragile that auctioneers didn’t dare try to play them.
Robert Darden, who is working to save black gospel music by digitizing existing vinyl recordings through the Black Music Restoration Project, said all pre-digital black sacred music is at risk.
“As a country, we just don’t have a very good track record of recognizing, preserving and celebrating this music, this art form,” Darden said.