Alex Steinweiss memorably called the record covers that existing in 1938 “tombstones”. You can easily see why by looking at the last two of these RCA Victor sets.
I thank http://shellackophile.blogspot.com for explaining to me the dates on RCA 78 rpm sets. The earliest of these is AM 23 – Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. It dates to 1928. There is a richness to the detail – the all cloth cover, the individual holders which have a pattern in the paper, that seems like the 1920s. I collect any cover of Scheherazade that I can find – I have around 300 of them. As for 78 rpm sets that are not by Steinweiss, I collect anything that I like, either for the design or for historical reasons.
AM269 dates to 1935, and is my second oldest cover. The green one is the original. The white one is a reissue. These are also Stokowski conducting the Phildadelphia Orchestra, but I don’t know if they are the same recording.
Finally, DM 509 from 1938. This is a different recording, Antal Dorati conducting the London Philharmonic. I misnamed the caption on the record, sadly. The front cover is identical, but the spine is in a different font from the AM 269 one. RCA packaging was very spare on all of these – no names on the covers or spines, no numbers on the cover, nothing on the inner spaces. Perhaps they came with booklets that I am missing.
Collecting Record Covers 