That Robert Johnson box set & a shitload of Billie Holliday, I think I own at least 3 box sets of Billie's music . I've been wanting to get something from the Carter Family after seeing a documentary on them on T.V., but I don't know where to start .

To the person asking about 1800s recordings. Edison invented a gramophone that played wax cylinders in 1876 or 77, but the first playable ones did not come on the market until 1892ish. Someone called Emile Berliner invented the flat playing disc in 1888, but again commercially available discs with recorded music did not come on to the market until 1899 and were of very poor quality. Quality discs came on in the 1902-03 period. The first artists to be signed to a recording deal were Dame Nellie Melba, Enrico Caruso and Russian singer Fyodor Chialipin in 1903-04. Melbas discs sold at a premium a guinea each (21/- or $5 US at the time
All of this is from a book about the history of EMI in Great Britain.

Still at the start of the Michael Jackson song History from the 1995 album, you can hear "This is the Edison phonograph" surely that must be 1800s and Mary had a little lamb which also dates from the 1890s.
Also you can find in Museums large wooden boxes called Harmoniums which had a large brass wheel with dots in it that played music. These were wildly popular in the 1885-1895 period and often more discs were made for each machine.

But essentially finding a pre 1900 recording on the market is very unlikely, even pre 1914 ones are very scarce, just due to the technology.
Electric microphones were used from 1925 onwards and a lot of 20s jazz and blues were recorded with those.

tane1976 said:

OK cool.