Record and Tape Collecting

the deliberate, systematic collection of sound recordings, especially phonograph records of music, literature, or documentary material with artistic, historical, or scientific value.

The collecting of sound recordings, one of the most common forms of collecting, was particularly popular in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, when the large-scale production of long-playing records began. In the late 1960’s organizations and clubs of record collectors were formed at places of employment and at educational, cultural, and scientific institutions in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Alma-Ata, Riga, Gorky, Kazan, and other Soviet cities. Most collections consist of recordings of classical, folk, and popular music. Famous Soviet record collectors include the academicians P. S. Aleksandrov, A. N. Tikhonov, B. M. Pontecorvo, G. N. Flerov, and B. N. Gnedenko. Among the earliest collectors are N. E. Peshkov, Iu. B. Perepelkin, A. L. Bel’kov, G. E. Shilov, B. D. Vladimirskii, and Iu. A. Saltanov.