Blues music is in part mythological; its legend involves sweltering juke joints, homemade whiskey and Faustian bargains at rural crossroads. A furniture company in a largely white Midwestern suburb is rarely evoked in these reveries, but in the late 1920s and early 1930s Paramount Records  an arm of the Wisconsin Chair Company, a manufacturer of wooden phonograph cabinets in Port Washington, Wis.  became an unlikely home for blues legends like Patton, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House and Skip James. Paramount’s blues releases  especially its “race” records with label numbers in the 12000s and 13000s  are among the most coveted records in the world.

“There are some people who would kill their own mother for the only copy of a Son House record,” Mr. Heneghan said. “And they sure as hell would kill your mother, and you.”

Mr. Tefteller, 50, is one of the world’s most prolific collectors of Paramount blues. Because these 78s are so scarce  of the thousands presumably pressed, many were lost, broken or melted down, and of the 1,356 titles said to have been issued in the 12000-13000 series, roughly one-third or more are of other genres  his collection (500 to 600, he said) is staggering in its comprehension. As Mr. Heneghan said in an e-mail message, Mr. Tefteller pursues complete runs of every Paramount blues artist he considers important. “This makes him completely insane, which alone would make me like him even if he weren’t such a nice guy,” Mr. Heneghan said.

Mr. Tefteller lives in rural Oregon but spends much of the year traversing the country for fresh stock, placing “Records Wanted” advertisements in antiques catalogs and The Farmer’s Almanac. (His Paramount 78s are not for resale.) He said he receives about a hundred calls a day, most yielding inconsequential results. “Records have a way of hiding,” he said.

These particular records, he explained, are a finite commodity. “I would doubt that there are a hundred total Charley Patton records left in the world,” he said. Other artists’ discographies are even more limited: only eight copies of various 78s by Son House (who recorded eight sides, or four records, for Paramount) and 15 copies of discs by Skip James (who recorded 18 sides) appear to remain.

Image Credit... From the collection of John Tefteller and Blues Images

Last month a batch of hand-labeled Paramount test pressings unexpectedly appeared on eBay. The seller, Patrick Cather, discovered the records (alternate takes by Blind Blake, Ma Rainey, Papa Charlie Jackson and others) at an antiques store in Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Tefteller, who uses software to place bids in the last few seconds of an auction, successfully purchased everything he was interested in.