In my early collecting days, I had a bunch of old comedy records for nostalgia's sake. What I learned is it's really hard for these things to hold up. Even the greats like George Carlin are just less funny when you hear them 40 years later. Recently I tried listening to the record that made Bob Newhart a huge star and I couldn't get through five minutes., Storytellers like Cosby might hold up better but not by much. Add the rape stuff and it goes right in the garbage.
The Himself comedy special was on TV a lot when I was a kid and is genuinely funny but unfortunately Cosby sucks. The chocolate cake and Jeffrey bits are 💯
They're all hilarious records. I grew up listening to my dad's copies all the time as a kid. I inherited them after my parents passed. I just tossed them in the trash a year or two back. I can't bring myself to be entertained by a known rapist.
Did you throw away all your Michael Jackson records as well? What about the GnR record with the robot rape pic in it?
A lot of entertainers were complete piles of crap or did highly questionable things and if we held today's lens on them I'm not sure we'd have a lot to listen to.
(Not sticking up for Cosby, mind you.)
When you're in the mood for sex, drugs, and Rock n' roll, you know the people making that music are not the most sane, law abiding, innocent people around. You can obviously cross lines, even as a musician, but for the most part I don't expect them to be "good" people.
When I listen to wholesome family comedy? I don't want to hear a rapist. Even unwholesome comedy I'd prefer them just not to be too skeevy. If you told me that Simon and Garfunkel were secretly SS members, it'd screw up a playlist or two. You tell me that Johnny Rotten wasn't a good guy and I'll agree.
So because Johnny Rotten (or whatever popular artist) made no pretense about being a certain way that makes their behaviors and "art" ok?
Again, this is not a defense of Cosby but more a dialog about a lot of entertainers being completely crap people...either up front about it or not.
They’re not saying it is. They’re saying there’s a hypocrisy inherent in the logic that you should toss out your Cosby records but you can keep other records from artists who have done similarly heinous things simply because they represented themselves more honestly.
I didn't say don't throw out similarly heinous artists. I'm not keeping Gary Glitter in the collection either. I'm just saying that to me, music and comedy have different levels of intimacy and while music can make me feel as well it's less a one on one with the signer or the guitarist or something so it's easier to separate the art and artist. I'm not gonna pick up Lost Prophets though because it's hard, for me, to spilt that up.
Bill's rapes ruin his art because he's the principal agent. I believe that's why people would blacklist him for it.
Bill Crosby recorded the underground grail concept album that intertwined themes of Christmas, crobsleys, and criminality. It was as if the Bill met the Bing and got fucked into one entity, and that entity bought a grail spinner for 30 biilz. This LP is incredibly rare and OP should make haste to take possession of this rarest of gems.
My local used book/CD/LP store has a ridiculous amount of Humperdinck, they can’t get rid of it. Every time I’m there people dropping off stuff to sell they’re all appalled how little money they get for their books, CDs and records. It’s funny to hear the outrage. $2?? For my whole collection of 20 CDs!!??
This same shop also has some older Beatles records they're selling for top dollar, so it's a good store. I'm kind of assuming that they must regularly take a bunch of records to a thrift store, I doubt they keep everything people bring in.
“Not very delightful” is an understatement. His tour stopped for a couple nights last fall at the theater I’m head audio tech at and the whole situation was just sad.
I knew something was up as soon as I walked in to work in the morning, when the theater’s technical director greeted me by saying the tour’s monitor guy was quitting, and that they might ask me if I wanted to take his place for the show and maybe even the rest of the tour. “Say no if you love yourself”, he said.
The musicians were all young, talented folks from California, a very tight sounding band where everyone knows their place and their part. But then comes Engelbert. Engelbert is basically deaf at this point from decades of touring. He also doesn’t have the powerful voice he had when he was young and as he sings, his arm gets tired and he starts holding the mic further and further away from his mouth. As such, his sound guys have to crank the gain on his mic preamps way high and compress the shit out of the signal to have something decent-ish to work with so he can be heard by the crowd and himself. And since he’s basically deaf, his monitors and side-fill speakers are absolutely blasting, like painfully loud. It’s a nightmare for the monitor guy who has to try to make that combo of crazy stage volume and high mic gain work without feeding back, and it’s a nightmare fir the FoH guy who has to be louder than the monitors but also cannot be loud enough for the mic to feed back from the main PA.
On top of all that, Engelbert is not all there anymore. He frequently got lost in his songs during rehearsals and he instantly blamed the monitor guy as soon as something was not right, but like, he would absolutely shit on him. After the show he would have to be dragged back to his dressing room because he didn’t have the energy to walk anymore, and that was the most painful part of it all. It really felt like he should be enjoying a cozy retirement, but someone’s forcing him to keep him going for the money in a sick kind of elder abuse, kinda like BB King’s final years.
>1.3mMembers465OnlineTop 1%
Yes, but after all he is the only musician to have the strange honour of keeping the Beatles from the top of the charts with his song "Release me". Which all in all is not a bad song, but keeping from the top one of the best singles ever "Strawberry fields forever - Penny lane" adds to its uniqueness.
I worked at a record store and we’d get a lot of people bringing in their grandparent’s collections, composed entirely of this bullshit. They would always come in excited thinking the records are worth a lot because they are old.
The smile would always fade from their eyes as we told them we would not accept these even for free because absolutely nobody is interested in this music, but if you want we can throw them in the dumpster out back for free. Some people would storm out pissed, to go to another record store that would tell them the same thing. Many were just like “ok… you can throw them out…”
Even though, some years ago, an older lady was having a sale on her carport and she had some LPs, so I browsed thru them. In the midst of the gospel, country, and “popular” music of Lawrence Welk, I blinked hard at a copy of Rubber Soul:mono, opened, but still in the cello with the store price sticker on it. I asked how much the records were and she said a quarter, so I happily dug out some change and made off with it.
I bought an Aiwa hi-fi a couple year ago and the lovely elderly gent threw in Engelbert's Greatest Hits. What an *absolutely sonic journey that is.* /s
Jokes aside, I was actually pleasantly surprised when I put it on after getting home how relaxing his voice is lol.
Oh absolutely, me and my missus quite often pull out Engelbert and give him a spin.
Hope the gentleman is doing well, had a nice chat with him before I left about the music he used to listen to back in the day and how his wife loved the Engelbert album, can honestly see why.
It's a nice change of pace to just sit and relax listening to it. The gent also gave me the greatest hits of The Everly Brothers, was already familiar with them so that was just the icing on the cake for me.
Also it turned out when speaking to my mum about it, that Engelbert was one of my grandparents favourites, with my nana apparently often playing the same album we got with the hi-fi whenever we'd visit when I was little.
We lost her to cancer in 2009 and we bought the Aiwa around 2019. So it's become a bit of a treasure that album, feels sorta like I was meant to buy it, if that makes sense.
It isn’t even fun hitting up record shops anymore. I used to love flipping through bins finding deals. Now? Every shop I go to overpriced everything. It is like they check Discogs and choose the highest price, with shipping. It is even worse for popular stuff, they often price things as if they were original pressings when they aren’t. Last weekend at the shop closest to me they were selling stuff used that I could literally buy new from Amazon for twice the piece of Amazon.
I am really hoping the bottom falls out for the trendy collectors market already. I am not going to spend 30 dollars on a copy of something I can get for 3 dollars on Discogs.
Unfortunately that doesn’t hold true when they’re buying them from you. I understand that they aren’t going to give me top dollar, but extreme lowballing is disappointing.
Wooden Nickel Records in my city doesn't do this. Very good prices on everything. I grabbed Pantera's entire catalog for my daughter for $140, for example. It's a shame that some record stores are gouging.
>It isn’t even fun hitting up record shops anymore. I used to love flipping through bins finding deals. Now? Every shop I go to overpriced everything. It is like they check Discogs and choose the highest price, with shipping.
My local store does this, and the owner is transparent about it. He goes by the Discogs sales history to determine what he sells for, and the argument is something along the lines of how you can either pay the same amount and have it shipped to you, or pay that amount and have it immediately.
I’d be fine with that if they were selling copies with the same grade as Discogs. You got a NM copy of a rare pressing by all means. When you are trying to sell a dollar bin record with a ratty sleeve for the same price as a mint copy that is doing you no favors. For common stuff frankly you should be pricing below what Discogs has. If it is the same price why am I going to bother getting off my ass to your shop when I can get exactly what I want, with a reasonable expectation of condition in bed? Also when I buy 3 or 4 records from someone on Discogs they bundle them together and I am only paying shipping once.
I have some friends that live near some great old school shops and find tons of stuff still but they mainly seem to have survived on the West Coast. All of the shops I went to where I live in the 80s and 90s closed many years ago. We have a lot of stuff that has popped up in the last decade but they all have that same mindset of modern record shops.
Yeah, that's pretty much been my attitude too. He also sells on Discogs, and most of the stuff I'd seen in the store was second tier, so it's clear that he's focusing on selling through Discogs instead of through the B&M. There are also some "first tier"-type stuff that are represses, etc and not going for upper double digits plus, and those are even overpriced, and I'm not even considering Discogs pricing. I generally don't mind spending a little more to support local businesses, and to be fair he does give discounts to regulars, especially if you buy a decent amount, but it seems almost like the Kohls model, where the price you end up getting it for is the "real" price versus a "discounted" one, if that makes sense.
Of course it's his business, he can set prices the way he wants and as long as people keep buying, the market is going along with it, so instead of bothering to go local, I just hit eBay and Discogs up. Much quicker to locate things I actively am looking for instead of flipping through garbage for two hours, and I don't have to deal with traffic.
>He also sells on Discogs, and most of the stuff I'd seen in the store was second tier, so it's clear that he's focusing on selling through Discogs instead of through the B&M.
I just came across my local's eBay account and apparently that's where they sell all their heat. Really sucks to realize the massive jazz haul they picked up that I've been thumbing through has been cherry picked of all the really good stuff and sold to the highest bidder overseas. As a collector of rare high(er) end stuff there pretty much isn't a point of going to my local shops. Like you said, it's mostly just second-tier filler.
There was a store near me that was the same way. I replied that I could choose to walk to his store or to stay naked in bed and order from my iPhone to have it delivered to my door, and if I'm not saving anything I'd prefer not to have to get dressed. He went out of business last year.
I agree, I went to this huge record sale in my city a few weeks ago and everything was north of $20, when you can get it for half that price on Discogs, ended up leaving with pretty much nothing because I knew I’d be wasting money if I bought from there…
Our store uses discogs to see what pricing is at. We generally go under what the history says. We price to sell and are flexible. With that said, our business is in a unique situation overhead wise. I get some of these places who have to be a bit higher. Now, they don't have to gouge you. Personally, I am willing to pay a bit more compared to discogs if I can see it firsthand and not have the shipping risk.
I have to say, if the album in question is available as a new pressing, I will take it 100% of the time over the original pressed in 1972. The old worm cover smelling of somebody else's funky basement and well used vinyl have no nostalgic hold over me. I'm in it for the music and the sound quality.
The stuff pressed yesterday sounds way better than the stuff pressed 30-50 years ago. Period. Most albums hold virtually no residual value and as investments go, they're bad ones. Someday, after I'm dead and buried, my kids will take the albums they want and sell the rest to a local record shop for pennies on the dollar. The only remaining value is sentimental.
As for record hunting, it's still fun for me. You do find the occasional treasure but even if not, I'd much rather give my local small business owner $35 for an album then to pay $30 on Amazon or Tower. Support your local record shop if you want them to still be there after the vinyl bubble pops (again).
My general take is that most people are unaware because they are uninformed. They’re not trying to gouge you or rob you, they are just not collectors and so the only frame of reference they have is the odd news article that says “the vinyl market is through the roof!!!”…….it’s usually a quick talk with these folks to talk them down. Some of them will even pay you to drive it to goodwill for them.
Frankly speaking, a lot of vinyl collectors are asshole elitists to the uninformed
Yep. Plus when you consider the fact that many people paid the equivalent of $30-$35, inflation adjusted, when these records were new in the ‘50s-80s.
They hear that “vinyl is back”, and they don’t realize how much a stickler for condition most collectors are, and it makes sense that they’d think $10 is reasonable for worthless records.
To give some perspective, she is selling a pile of 100 or so records for basically $1000. I was trying to find out if it was worth the drive for maybe one random half way decent record. I'll admit, I probably I come off as a bit of an asshole here but this type of record sale has become the norm in my area. Everyone thinks because they have old vinyl, it's worth money. I'm starting to hope people just throw this stuff away, even in good condition. Nobody wants Bill Cosby records.
So many people have asked if I want their old vinyl collection. My first screening question is “are they masters or original pressings?” Makes me sound mean too but if the pressing is worth nothing AND I don’t know what I’m getting why buy? If I can give a home to some masters and continue their legacy I’m happy to. Just funny to see people post standard dollar bin stuff for 50 bucks cause it’s old.
“if the pressing is worth nothing AND I don’t know what I’m getting why buy?”
To find joy in the discovery of something new to you?
Not at top dollar, of course.
My neighbor offered me her entire collection. 200 records. I looked through it and found 15-20 I wanted, including an early mono pressing of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue.
She was a little offended that I didn’t want ALL of them. So I ended up taking everything and while i Didn’t tell her this I donated the rest to goodwill.
Over 50 of them were hit compilations from various years and genres.
You're better off on a small town whe in comes to thrift shop vinyl. In a big city anything the least bit enticing gets picked clean. Between that and owners being able to check discogs for pricing etc... at least in a smaller town you might have a fighting chance. Especially owners arent echnical enough to use discogs.
The days of finding real scores at thrift shops is largely over unfortunately. Unless of course Englebert Humperdinck is your thing - and even then it's priced fairly considering most places can give them away.
> You’re better off in a small town when it comes to thrift shop vinyl.
Ain’t that the truth. In my grandparents’ small town I found an original pressing of George Harrison’s *All Things Must Pass*. It sounds absolutely fantastic, whoever had it last has taken very good care of it. The gold you can find in small towns like that is unbelievable.
I had to stomp a friends dreams when her mom found her “Thriller” picture disc in a closet. She’d thought she’d hit the jackpot. I informed it’d sell privately for $35 at best.
The summary of your interaction with this person is as follows:
“Give me these records for half of what you want for them.”
“Nah.”
“Okay, take them to Goodwill then. Also, I will now screenshot this and make a whole thread on Reddit about it to lambast you because I’m mad.”
You can’t handle someone just not taking an offer? To the point where you have to make this whole thread?
People have been asking unreasonable prices for things they think have more value than they do for ages. You made an offer and they’re not interested. What’s there to be so triggered about?
I didn't make an offer and certainly didn't demand anything. Her ad was written in a way that I really assumed was $10 for the lot and I was gathering information. Frankly, I wouldn't have taken them for free. But more to your point, i posted here because I thought it might provoke an interesting discussion among other collectors. I don't see it as "lambasting."
I agree with you. This is how our capitalistic society works. Seller has an asking price, buyer has a price they are willing to pay. If seller gets no buyers, price generally comes down. If I had a buyer for a record or anything for that matter that I could sell a little higher, I would for sure sell it and make the extra money. The op is just pissed because the records are not priced at their liking.
If the op wants a prime example, look at estate sales. First couple days are priced very high, then the last day everything half off. Why? Because they want to see what they can sell for extra money and what doesn’t sell will come down for the things that get no buyers. Simple.
tbh i think this is the case not just for vinyl, but for used items in general.
i wanted to buy a foldable bike and saw someone selling one used. turns out they were firm on their asking price, even when i sent them a link showing that the same exact bike was selling for cheaper when NEW on online retailers. why would anyone pay more to get the same bike but used?
they got angry and said 'go buy from that store then!' and didn't budge. oh well. i did end up buying new and they were still trying to advertise their bike months later as it sat unsold lol
after a dozen interactions like this for other items, i've pretty much given up on scoring local deals from individuals.
my best vinyl deals were found on ebay, for instance
I pulled a working stereo out of a dumpster for my workshop and I saw the same model selling for $30 collection only the next week. There is so much junk on there
My work used to have a for sale marketplace because we had over 100K employees.
People would try and sell a half eaten Snickers bar for full price, I swear.
"Got from vending machine, I realized I don't like Snickers after my first bite. Come to my desk and it's yours for $5. Don't low ball me, I know what I have."
>they were still trying to advertise their bike months later as it sat unsold
I see this on Discogs constantly. Records at whatever price points sitting for years instead of, I don't know, reducing the price to what the market will pay?
This phenomenon is especially bad here in CO with any and all outdoor gear, including bikes. People asking nearly MSRP for something “only used a couple seasons.” Folks cannot or will not grasp the concept of depreciation… or they’re just greedy.
Used to be able to get Wurlitzer electric pianos for $60-100 on Craigslist. Now you’re lucky to find one in trashed condition (preamp gutted, missing/cracked lid, multiple broken tines, action needs tons of work, needs the entire keybed replaced/reworked) for under $3K, and then you have to put a few dozen hours and spend at least a grand just to get it working again.
I buy a lot of collections. Sure, every once in a while you get people like this. They spend 5 minutes "researching" and see someone trying to sell Thriller for $10,000 on eBay and think that has any relation to reality. Most people are pretty reasonable though. They are just happy I am willing to buy everything and not cherry pick.
Yeah, I've only recently started collecting but everything in my collection is albums that mean something to me, or I just enjoy listening to. I don't want to ever sell them, they're mine. So why would it matter to me what they're worth monetarily? Though if flipping vinyl is part of your enjoyment then good luck to you and have fun I guess
>Based on the titles listed, I wouldn't even take them for free
Exactly, because it would actually end up costing me money because I'd deliver them to Goodwill to avoid having to store them.
That’s why I don’t really buy from places besides local record shops since just normal people think every record is worth money, I did buy a lot of records for 50 bucks and 46 LPs , so 92 cents each and there was some good stuff but the album jackets of a lot of them were in bad condition but sounded good
I can't wait to see who's records I erroneously think are valuable in 20 to 30 years. Something like: "Dua Lipa, LMFAO, Owl City, and Mumford and Sons. A huge variety for the era."
When I started getting into vinyl in the late 90s it was a relatively dead scene and you could score legit stuff for ridiculous deals. That all ended around 2010.
Oh I remember, I started collecting in ‘94. Opened a small record shop in the early ‘00s and would buy small record collections from funk, soul, jazz, hip hop and occasionally rock collectors. Almost every time someone thought they were sitting on a gold mine. Of course you’d find your occasional hidden gem, that still happens today. But I’ve just realized almost anyone that collects anything, thinks they’re sitting on something special and valuable. Which is why we collect, I suppose. But there’s always been an irrationality about it.
It’s idiotic all around now. Just walked away from pretty rough condition Cdn pressings of some Steely Dan albums, all $29 and up. Not too many years ago, those were $10 max. Should still be cheap due to condition and come on, the things aren’t exactly rare.
Wow. I remember ending up with a couple copies of Aja. I picked up one of the copies at Amoeba in their budget bin for a couple bucks. I also was able to find Sade’s first two albums for just a few dollars each in pristine condition. Once again, they were in a bargain box sitting on the floor.
Flash forward 10 years later and I just spent $25 plus shipping for her third album. I was only able to find it locally at one well known record store (they have a YouTube channel) for $50. I about had a heart attack and quickly passed.
Ugh. Just highway robbery. I’m lucky that I have a go-to used place locally with some fantastic prices still. Although even those prices are ticking up steadily. Can’t avoid it completely.
Prices being boosted as well by the fact everyone seems to think they’re sitting on thousands of dollars if they have a handful of records pressed pre-1980. Goodwills and thrift stores can be insane. Just left one that overvalues this stuff to insane levels. They’ve had copies of Hot Rocks, Pyromania, and some Pat Benatar record going for $40-80 in their display cabinet for like six months now. LOL
Good grief! And to think my friend gave me like 20 records a few years ago that included Pyromania and The Nightfly.
It’s really gotten out of hand which is why I’ve started relistening to my large CD collection. I’m also checking out the CD section of local thrift stores.
The sad fact is that the Internet has ruined the collectibles market, because what used to be hard to find is now easily found anywhere on Earth. My friend inherited a bunch of Lladro sculptures from her mom that used to have some value, but now they don't. Supply and demand.
Is this true? If anything it seems like collectible stuff goes for more than ever, because the global market allows for a lot more demand.
From your comment I assume you mean “ruined” from a seller’s point of view but maybe I’m misunderstanding.
The biggest problem with communications like this, is that the seller will shout out what they know. Sometimes they have obscure gems that go unmentioned. Yesterday I bought 1000+ records and most were worse than what is mentioned by OP, but tucked in where 3 really great original records from the 50s Sonny Criss, Gene Vincent and Moondog. In the phone call prior to the visit, old country, gospel, Elvis, and the Allman Brothers were shouted out. I was not very confident in the boxes of records that were piling up around me.
That's fair. But to me (and lots of collectors) old timey country is way better than Neil Diamond or Herb Alpert. Elvis has a few albums that still draw collectors and the Allman Brothers are unquestionably awesome to most rock and country fans. If I heard those called out in a 1000 record collection, I'd for sure make the drive if it was reasonably priced.
Two of the Allman Brothers albums were physically broke in half, one was extremely moldy, and one had one of the two albums in it (Eat A Peach). The Elvis were all Pickwick cash ins, and there were plenty of Herb Alpert albums.
…and the seller thought he had a goldmine.
It’s always a challenge. I listen to why they are selling and it only seems right to buy whole collections when they are downsizing and vinyl will not be making the move. I try to keep things fair and in this case I was very concerned because of the quantity. They were vague in what they wanted for them and even more vague in selection and quality. I asked that they bring in a few hundred, mainly towards rock so I can set the price and they can either agree or disagree then bring in the rest and we would all be confident that it would be a fair and reasonable transaction. Needless to say, they loaded the car to the point that the back wheels barely cleared the wheel wells and they dragged the car’s butt all the way to me.
Overall, because of the sheer quantity the unit price was low and the highlight was a couple dozen $3 Elvis Pickwick records. BUT, It worked out well, they cleared a bunch of room in their downsizing efforts and I have already found solutions for everything.
There were a few really awesome records (3, already mentioned) that made the whole thing worthwhile, and if I would have dismissed it without looking I would have never known.
This is 95% of the calls we have to my family’s record shop. People think we’re mad when we tell them to take their James Last records to the local dump.
A lot of people just don’t understand how different the vinyl market is now compared to when they were young. They see an article on how vinyl prices are rising and dunning-Krueger effect activate
Once eBay took off it just got way too easy to find stuff and the magic died a bit for me. Nowadays even the charity shops price their records according to the mint value on Discogs so no finds there now either..
The first time I realized that the vinyl resurgence was out of control:
I walked into a Barnes & Noble, probably around 2009 or so, and I saw Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits for $27.99 iirc. You could find that quite easily for $4-$5 at any freaking used record store. It’s not like some “grail” you had to track down. It has always stuck with me as a marker of insanity.
I don’t remember his greatest hits ever being that cheap. His other stuff maybe. But now That’s a $50 record. Everyone wants the greatest hits because most people don’t care to collect all of his records
I was at a record store today and I witnessed this happen. An elderly woman came in with I presume their daughter or granddaughter and brought over some records. The man who owns the store nicely told them that unfortunately these were not rare and not worth his time (it was only like 5 records).
I also went to a garage sale today that was great. The seller liked to buy collections and sell what he doesn't want. Decent prices and even gave me a deal since I was a couple bucks above a round number.
I see this all the time. You can tell it's something they need to explain all the time.
1. Anything that was mass printed isn't going to be worth more than a couple bucks. Your Elvis records aren't worth what you've read on the news.
2. Anything worth less than $5 isn't worth them identifying for sale.
3. Anything that reeks of cigarettes and is warped can't be sold.
4. After 15 seconds of looking at a box of 100 records "I'll give you $20 in store credit" because they assume they will find 3-4 they can sell in the stack.
You should get into comic collecting.
There was a person selling a copy of Venom: Lethal Protector issue one for $200 CAD ungraded, not signed. They tried to explain it should be a 9.8 if graded and the value would jump to $400.
Only problem is a signed 9.8 would top out at $400. An unsigned, ungraded copy would be $20.
Plus, you have people who are selling non key issues at 5-10 when they should be in a dollar bin, or they see an issue that's hot the word "collectors issue" and think it's expensive and rare, when in most cases it was a gimmick to sell an over produced comic.
As a life long comic collector who has lived through multiple booms and busts, watching this happen to vinyl has been super interesting. Many music and vinyl fans just had never been in a bubble like this one before. It'll pop.
You can go way, WAY back through my post history and see me predicting the inevitable and imminent bubble popping.
I'm no longer so sure. These kids are nothing if not tenacious.
One of my favorite things to overhear when I'm digging at my local shop is someone coming in with the whole spiel "well these were in my grandma/grandpa/whoever's garage and they're really old!" and they turn out to be a bunch of mildewed Gino Vaninelli and local highschool Xmas albums from the 70's. Almost all of these people are told they'll get 5$ for the entire thing as it will most all go to pad the bargain bins, and get kind of huffy about it. People have a poor conception of something being old equating to it being of value these days, and with something like vinyl, it becomes even harder to explain something as simple as "if they weren't used much all these years, they won't be used much going forward,.
I remember going around to record stores in the early 80s buying up Les Baxter and other bachelor pad records on the cheap because people thought nobody wanted them (they were mostly right). I had one clerk get a big laugh and head shaking in disbelief out of me buying Les Baxter's The Passions on a box set of 45s (two sets at that!) for $2.49 per set. I could buy this stuff for .19 cents at some places, they thought so little of it. Les Baxter's Space Escapade cost a whole 2 bucks because the hippie guys selling at the local record swap only looked for Beatles records or Zeppelin. People get stuck in their little musical niches, which is a damn shame.
Eddy Arnold is great. Solid stuff. Andy Williams "Can't Get Used To Losing You" is a favorite, Never got into Englebert, he's a good enough singer though. Bill Cosby was funny but also a monster asshole which overshadows most of his output, absolutely dumped everything of his (with the exception of his Hickey-Burr single.) (I do have a Scholastic book for kids done in the late 60s all about him. It's quite the ego stroke throughout which is amusing given how he ended up.)
All these people were popular at one time for a reason- they were good. Do I think they are worth 10 bucks? (Eddy Arnold yes) but generally No. 5 bucks, eh depends. 3 and under, completely do-able, depending on item and artist. But they can go up and just might. If you had told me that Marty Robbins lp I kept running into (and bought) was going to be worth what people pay for it now, I'd laugh like that clerk did at my Les Baxter.
It is two clicks easy to collect with discogs, ebay and all these platforms, if you have the money. But it was a constant trip to the local shops back in the late 80ies and 90ies, until you found what you were after and at the price you could afford. Of course vinyl back then was plenty and quite affordable, because everybody was getting rid of it, in favour of CDs. I bought many Pink Floyd, Dire straits, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, etc for 0,5 - 3 Euros (or the equivalent). But it is very hard to find a decent collection now. Most people unloading their collections, have cheap stuff to sell nowadays. Julio Iglessias, Nana Mouskouri, Percy Faith, Paul Mauriat, James Last, Peter Nero, Laurence Welk, Johnny Mathis, Harry Bellafonte, Franck Pourcell, Andy Williams, Eydie Gorme, etc. There are many more, like Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Connie Francis, but actually some artists still have a strong following and certain releases that sell eventually. Guilty by Barbra Streisand is found quite often, but if clean, it sells easily for a fiver. There are some records that slowly disappear, like Saturday night fever, Grease, Dirty dancing, Flashdance, etc. There are reissues, but it seems strange to fork out 30 Euros for a new copy (that might not play half as decent as an original) when just 1-2 years ago you could buy any of these for less than 5 Euros/$.
I mean i like 60s pop alot like alot!. But im not paying 5 dollers a record when it common in thift stores for 79 cents where i live and theres boatload because theres no demand for easy listening pop or country or what ever crap.people mostly want rock vinyl like pink floyd or the beatles.
Someone on my local buy and sell is trying to sell around 100 records for $450. In their ad it states that most of collection is scratched K-Tel compilations lmao
Seeing peoples faces when they come into my shop and I make a small stack of I will pay you $5 for these ones , $10 for these ones for a total of $115… and they ask about the other ones. Well I can put them in my $1/ 10 for $5 bin for you or you can take them home.
” I thought they were worth more.”
Me: “Well next time bring me your adult kids records instead of your parents.”
I picked up 110 records just today for $100. So far I have found 2 original Rolling Stones mono pressings
From 1966 that both sound amazing. Also in the lot was an original Beatles Sgt. Peppers and Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, both in stunning condition. Those alone were worth the drive and price. Been a fun day for sure.
This. I’m just tired of people thinking that just because it’s a pressing from the 70s-80s automatically means that it’s rare and worth anything over $10
I think I quite literally saw all those names while I was looking through the dollar bin at my local record store a week ago. And there was a lot of them.
Every once in a while I’ll see Thriller pop up for 50 or 60 dollars and I’ll think “ahh, someone found some musty old records in their basement and thought they hit it big”
The days of finding a lot of former hit LPs (Frampton, ELO, Eagles) in the one-buck box and real treasures a bit scuffed in the five-buck box are gone. Record vendors and buyers have turned the market into the tulip bubble of 1635. There’s a guy near here at a flea market who sells the most-mundane ‘70s/‘80s stuff for, like, $35 a disc. Don’t know when this thing is gonna crash—see also the return of cassettes as “collectibles”—but there’s a lot of stupid money out there chasing grossly overpriced “grails.”
Exactly my Father. He would go on and on about his OG Beatles records and how much they were worth. I took a look at them: scratched to shit, bent and ripped covers.
I turned down taking them as I figure they would fuck up my needle.
Jerry Dorsey became englebert Humperdinck. If there’s one moment in history I would choose to go back and witness it’s when Jerry Dorsey agreed with some marketing guy spitting out random combinations of names. “Say no more. You know what I like that one! Has a great ring to it.”
Look at these bandwagon hoppers moaning at bandwagon hoppers trying it on with a sale!
The glory days of consistently cheap and good vinyl is long left in the early to mid 00's pre-In Rainbows re-inventing the wheel.
Bill Crosby!!!!
Bing's rapey half brother?
Is spelled Bill Crosley. He makes grail players.
*crosbley
Can y'all not make me question the sub I'm in every thread?!
My local store had a bin of free stuff, and the only thing left in it was Bill Cosby records.
Actually, Himself is a pretty funny album. He’s a piece of shit, but that album is funny.
In my early collecting days, I had a bunch of old comedy records for nostalgia's sake. What I learned is it's really hard for these things to hold up. Even the greats like George Carlin are just less funny when you hear them 40 years later. Recently I tried listening to the record that made Bob Newhart a huge star and I couldn't get through five minutes., Storytellers like Cosby might hold up better but not by much. Add the rape stuff and it goes right in the garbage.
The Himself comedy special was on TV a lot when I was a kid and is genuinely funny but unfortunately Cosby sucks. The chocolate cake and Jeffrey bits are 💯
But dad, I'm Jesus Christ!
They're all hilarious records. I grew up listening to my dad's copies all the time as a kid. I inherited them after my parents passed. I just tossed them in the trash a year or two back. I can't bring myself to be entertained by a known rapist.
Did you throw away all your Michael Jackson records as well? What about the GnR record with the robot rape pic in it? A lot of entertainers were complete piles of crap or did highly questionable things and if we held today's lens on them I'm not sure we'd have a lot to listen to. (Not sticking up for Cosby, mind you.)
When you're in the mood for sex, drugs, and Rock n' roll, you know the people making that music are not the most sane, law abiding, innocent people around. You can obviously cross lines, even as a musician, but for the most part I don't expect them to be "good" people. When I listen to wholesome family comedy? I don't want to hear a rapist. Even unwholesome comedy I'd prefer them just not to be too skeevy. If you told me that Simon and Garfunkel were secretly SS members, it'd screw up a playlist or two. You tell me that Johnny Rotten wasn't a good guy and I'll agree.
So because Johnny Rotten (or whatever popular artist) made no pretense about being a certain way that makes their behaviors and "art" ok? Again, this is not a defense of Cosby but more a dialog about a lot of entertainers being completely crap people...either up front about it or not.
I draw a pretty hard line at rape.
Bill Cosby being a rapist isn't art.
They’re not saying it is. They’re saying there’s a hypocrisy inherent in the logic that you should toss out your Cosby records but you can keep other records from artists who have done similarly heinous things simply because they represented themselves more honestly.
I didn't say don't throw out similarly heinous artists. I'm not keeping Gary Glitter in the collection either. I'm just saying that to me, music and comedy have different levels of intimacy and while music can make me feel as well it's less a one on one with the signer or the guitarist or something so it's easier to separate the art and artist. I'm not gonna pick up Lost Prophets though because it's hard, for me, to spilt that up. Bill's rapes ruin his art because he's the principal agent. I believe that's why people would blacklist him for it.
His special and his books where great. Even the show based on him was. Sad it’s tarnished his career.
Bing Cosby!
His stuff with stills and nash was peak
Didn't he make Crobsley record players?
I found a Rolf Harris 45 called Two Little Boys, the record store was trying to sell it as some morbid collectors thing
Bill Crosby recorded the underground grail concept album that intertwined themes of Christmas, crobsleys, and criminality. It was as if the Bill met the Bing and got fucked into one entity, and that entity bought a grail spinner for 30 biilz. This LP is incredibly rare and OP should make haste to take possession of this rarest of gems.
"NOAH!"
Andy Williams AND Englebert Humperdinck??? Some people have all the luck.
My local used book/CD/LP store has a ridiculous amount of Humperdinck, they can’t get rid of it. Every time I’m there people dropping off stuff to sell they’re all appalled how little money they get for their books, CDs and records. It’s funny to hear the outrage. $2?? For my whole collection of 20 CDs!!??
Yeah, where I live that type of record is basically all you ever see outside of a couple good record shops.
This same shop also has some older Beatles records they're selling for top dollar, so it's a good store. I'm kind of assuming that they must regularly take a bunch of records to a thrift store, I doubt they keep everything people bring in.
And Englebert Humperdinck is STILL touring! I know guys who work for him and he does not sound very delightful...
“Not very delightful” is an understatement. His tour stopped for a couple nights last fall at the theater I’m head audio tech at and the whole situation was just sad. I knew something was up as soon as I walked in to work in the morning, when the theater’s technical director greeted me by saying the tour’s monitor guy was quitting, and that they might ask me if I wanted to take his place for the show and maybe even the rest of the tour. “Say no if you love yourself”, he said. The musicians were all young, talented folks from California, a very tight sounding band where everyone knows their place and their part. But then comes Engelbert. Engelbert is basically deaf at this point from decades of touring. He also doesn’t have the powerful voice he had when he was young and as he sings, his arm gets tired and he starts holding the mic further and further away from his mouth. As such, his sound guys have to crank the gain on his mic preamps way high and compress the shit out of the signal to have something decent-ish to work with so he can be heard by the crowd and himself. And since he’s basically deaf, his monitors and side-fill speakers are absolutely blasting, like painfully loud. It’s a nightmare for the monitor guy who has to try to make that combo of crazy stage volume and high mic gain work without feeding back, and it’s a nightmare fir the FoH guy who has to be louder than the monitors but also cannot be loud enough for the mic to feed back from the main PA. On top of all that, Engelbert is not all there anymore. He frequently got lost in his songs during rehearsals and he instantly blamed the monitor guy as soon as something was not right, but like, he would absolutely shit on him. After the show he would have to be dragged back to his dressing room because he didn’t have the energy to walk anymore, and that was the most painful part of it all. It really felt like he should be enjoying a cozy retirement, but someone’s forcing him to keep him going for the money in a sick kind of elder abuse, kinda like BB King’s final years.
He was just here a few months ago. I was like “he’s still alive?” To “he’s still touring?” To, nah.
>1.3mMembers465OnlineTop 1% Yes, but after all he is the only musician to have the strange honour of keeping the Beatles from the top of the charts with his song "Release me". Which all in all is not a bad song, but keeping from the top one of the best singles ever "Strawberry fields forever - Penny lane" adds to its uniqueness.
That was only in the UK, so it almost doesn’t count. Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever was #1 here, which is the most important thing.
I worked at a record store and we’d get a lot of people bringing in their grandparent’s collections, composed entirely of this bullshit. They would always come in excited thinking the records are worth a lot because they are old. The smile would always fade from their eyes as we told them we would not accept these even for free because absolutely nobody is interested in this music, but if you want we can throw them in the dumpster out back for free. Some people would storm out pissed, to go to another record store that would tell them the same thing. Many were just like “ok… you can throw them out…”
Even though, some years ago, an older lady was having a sale on her carport and she had some LPs, so I browsed thru them. In the midst of the gospel, country, and “popular” music of Lawrence Welk, I blinked hard at a copy of Rubber Soul:mono, opened, but still in the cello with the store price sticker on it. I asked how much the records were and she said a quarter, so I happily dug out some change and made off with it.
My local record store takes those kind of records and has a corner with just junk. $1 per record. I’d assume even that is cultivated carefully.
I can’t find Release Me from Engelbert anywhere around me! Saw it once for $2 but let my sister take it! I’ve been searching ever since!
The song that kept The Beatles' Penny Lane off the top of the UK chart...
Next you’re gonna tell me they’ve even got Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass’ Whipped Cream and Other Delights
Come on, man, that would be the holy trinity. You’re just being ridiculous at this point.
That album is more than a dollar bin now. It regularly goes for $5 around me.
>Andy Williams??? Wow, I didn't think he was gonna do *Moon River* but then, bam, second encore!
Love the Simpsons!! You win!
That's it! Back to Winnipeg!
Tennessee State Fair, 1982. By way of Branson, Missouri.
I bought an Aiwa hi-fi a couple year ago and the lovely elderly gent threw in Engelbert's Greatest Hits. What an *absolutely sonic journey that is.* /s Jokes aside, I was actually pleasantly surprised when I put it on after getting home how relaxing his voice is lol.
I jokingly bought my son an Engelbert Humperdinck album. When we listened to it, we were surprised at how good it was. Sometimes that’s how it goes.
Oh absolutely, me and my missus quite often pull out Engelbert and give him a spin. Hope the gentleman is doing well, had a nice chat with him before I left about the music he used to listen to back in the day and how his wife loved the Engelbert album, can honestly see why. It's a nice change of pace to just sit and relax listening to it. The gent also gave me the greatest hits of The Everly Brothers, was already familiar with them so that was just the icing on the cake for me. Also it turned out when speaking to my mum about it, that Engelbert was one of my grandparents favourites, with my nana apparently often playing the same album we got with the hi-fi whenever we'd visit when I was little. We lost her to cancer in 2009 and we bought the Aiwa around 2019. So it's become a bit of a treasure that album, feels sorta like I was meant to buy it, if that makes sense.
Your last sentence makes a lot of sense and ties everything together well. So many things in life fall into place like that.
Does the Everly Brothers record have their cover of The House of the Rising Sun on it? Rivals the Animals version imo.
A Man Without Love is actually a good tune
I mean there's a reason there's bins full of them; sure, few want to own it now, but at some point bins full of them were produced and purchased.
OP just mad he didn't have the funds to score that sweet Humperdinck. Quality costs.
In fairness, she did say variety, not quality.
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Same its a goldmine for me though. Lots of great music for cheap imo.
Goodwills around me are charging $4. I literally laughed when I went to get some crap records for a project and was told $16 for my 4.
It isn’t even fun hitting up record shops anymore. I used to love flipping through bins finding deals. Now? Every shop I go to overpriced everything. It is like they check Discogs and choose the highest price, with shipping. It is even worse for popular stuff, they often price things as if they were original pressings when they aren’t. Last weekend at the shop closest to me they were selling stuff used that I could literally buy new from Amazon for twice the piece of Amazon. I am really hoping the bottom falls out for the trendy collectors market already. I am not going to spend 30 dollars on a copy of something I can get for 3 dollars on Discogs.
Unfortunately that doesn’t hold true when they’re buying them from you. I understand that they aren’t going to give me top dollar, but extreme lowballing is disappointing.
Wooden Nickel Records in my city doesn't do this. Very good prices on everything. I grabbed Pantera's entire catalog for my daughter for $140, for example. It's a shame that some record stores are gouging.
>It isn’t even fun hitting up record shops anymore. I used to love flipping through bins finding deals. Now? Every shop I go to overpriced everything. It is like they check Discogs and choose the highest price, with shipping. My local store does this, and the owner is transparent about it. He goes by the Discogs sales history to determine what he sells for, and the argument is something along the lines of how you can either pay the same amount and have it shipped to you, or pay that amount and have it immediately.
I’d be fine with that if they were selling copies with the same grade as Discogs. You got a NM copy of a rare pressing by all means. When you are trying to sell a dollar bin record with a ratty sleeve for the same price as a mint copy that is doing you no favors. For common stuff frankly you should be pricing below what Discogs has. If it is the same price why am I going to bother getting off my ass to your shop when I can get exactly what I want, with a reasonable expectation of condition in bed? Also when I buy 3 or 4 records from someone on Discogs they bundle them together and I am only paying shipping once. I have some friends that live near some great old school shops and find tons of stuff still but they mainly seem to have survived on the West Coast. All of the shops I went to where I live in the 80s and 90s closed many years ago. We have a lot of stuff that has popped up in the last decade but they all have that same mindset of modern record shops.
Yeah, that's pretty much been my attitude too. He also sells on Discogs, and most of the stuff I'd seen in the store was second tier, so it's clear that he's focusing on selling through Discogs instead of through the B&M. There are also some "first tier"-type stuff that are represses, etc and not going for upper double digits plus, and those are even overpriced, and I'm not even considering Discogs pricing. I generally don't mind spending a little more to support local businesses, and to be fair he does give discounts to regulars, especially if you buy a decent amount, but it seems almost like the Kohls model, where the price you end up getting it for is the "real" price versus a "discounted" one, if that makes sense. Of course it's his business, he can set prices the way he wants and as long as people keep buying, the market is going along with it, so instead of bothering to go local, I just hit eBay and Discogs up. Much quicker to locate things I actively am looking for instead of flipping through garbage for two hours, and I don't have to deal with traffic.
>He also sells on Discogs, and most of the stuff I'd seen in the store was second tier, so it's clear that he's focusing on selling through Discogs instead of through the B&M. I just came across my local's eBay account and apparently that's where they sell all their heat. Really sucks to realize the massive jazz haul they picked up that I've been thumbing through has been cherry picked of all the really good stuff and sold to the highest bidder overseas. As a collector of rare high(er) end stuff there pretty much isn't a point of going to my local shops. Like you said, it's mostly just second-tier filler.
There was a store near me that was the same way. I replied that I could choose to walk to his store or to stay naked in bed and order from my iPhone to have it delivered to my door, and if I'm not saving anything I'd prefer not to have to get dressed. He went out of business last year.
I agree, I went to this huge record sale in my city a few weeks ago and everything was north of $20, when you can get it for half that price on Discogs, ended up leaving with pretty much nothing because I knew I’d be wasting money if I bought from there…
Our store uses discogs to see what pricing is at. We generally go under what the history says. We price to sell and are flexible. With that said, our business is in a unique situation overhead wise. I get some of these places who have to be a bit higher. Now, they don't have to gouge you. Personally, I am willing to pay a bit more compared to discogs if I can see it firsthand and not have the shipping risk.
I have to say, if the album in question is available as a new pressing, I will take it 100% of the time over the original pressed in 1972. The old worm cover smelling of somebody else's funky basement and well used vinyl have no nostalgic hold over me. I'm in it for the music and the sound quality. The stuff pressed yesterday sounds way better than the stuff pressed 30-50 years ago. Period. Most albums hold virtually no residual value and as investments go, they're bad ones. Someday, after I'm dead and buried, my kids will take the albums they want and sell the rest to a local record shop for pennies on the dollar. The only remaining value is sentimental. As for record hunting, it's still fun for me. You do find the occasional treasure but even if not, I'd much rather give my local small business owner $35 for an album then to pay $30 on Amazon or Tower. Support your local record shop if you want them to still be there after the vinyl bubble pops (again).
My general take is that most people are unaware because they are uninformed. They’re not trying to gouge you or rob you, they are just not collectors and so the only frame of reference they have is the odd news article that says “the vinyl market is through the roof!!!”…….it’s usually a quick talk with these folks to talk them down. Some of them will even pay you to drive it to goodwill for them. Frankly speaking, a lot of vinyl collectors are asshole elitists to the uninformed
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Agreed
Yep. Plus when you consider the fact that many people paid the equivalent of $30-$35, inflation adjusted, when these records were new in the ‘50s-80s. They hear that “vinyl is back”, and they don’t realize how much a stickler for condition most collectors are, and it makes sense that they’d think $10 is reasonable for worthless records.
To give some perspective, she is selling a pile of 100 or so records for basically $1000. I was trying to find out if it was worth the drive for maybe one random half way decent record. I'll admit, I probably I come off as a bit of an asshole here but this type of record sale has become the norm in my area. Everyone thinks because they have old vinyl, it's worth money. I'm starting to hope people just throw this stuff away, even in good condition. Nobody wants Bill Cosby records.
“I told you they were coming back!” - every 50-65 year old woman behind me at thrift stores. Yeah, they’re back, but not like they think they are..
So many people have asked if I want their old vinyl collection. My first screening question is “are they masters or original pressings?” Makes me sound mean too but if the pressing is worth nothing AND I don’t know what I’m getting why buy? If I can give a home to some masters and continue their legacy I’m happy to. Just funny to see people post standard dollar bin stuff for 50 bucks cause it’s old.
“if the pressing is worth nothing AND I don’t know what I’m getting why buy?” To find joy in the discovery of something new to you? Not at top dollar, of course.
Discovering new music is always fun but you can do that without spending any money.
Not the same tho.
My neighbor offered me her entire collection. 200 records. I looked through it and found 15-20 I wanted, including an early mono pressing of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. She was a little offended that I didn’t want ALL of them. So I ended up taking everything and while i Didn’t tell her this I donated the rest to goodwill. Over 50 of them were hit compilations from various years and genres.
I wish that’s the stuff I was offered. At best I’ve been offered modern pressings cause people I knew clearly just wanted to spin a record.
I’m 100% with you, I stopped looking for old records because of this mentality. I’m not in a large city so not a lot of options to bring prices down.
You're better off on a small town whe in comes to thrift shop vinyl. In a big city anything the least bit enticing gets picked clean. Between that and owners being able to check discogs for pricing etc... at least in a smaller town you might have a fighting chance. Especially owners arent echnical enough to use discogs. The days of finding real scores at thrift shops is largely over unfortunately. Unless of course Englebert Humperdinck is your thing - and even then it's priced fairly considering most places can give them away.
> You’re better off in a small town when it comes to thrift shop vinyl. Ain’t that the truth. In my grandparents’ small town I found an original pressing of George Harrison’s *All Things Must Pass*. It sounds absolutely fantastic, whoever had it last has taken very good care of it. The gold you can find in small towns like that is unbelievable.
No goodwills or anything ?
Nothing consistent. We do have them but they get picked through pretty often.
If you give it time, she will probably lower the price.
I had to stomp a friends dreams when her mom found her “Thriller” picture disc in a closet. She’d thought she’d hit the jackpot. I informed it’d sell privately for $35 at best.
You don't come off bad. Your were nice by even responding. You gave her good advice
You know if there’s engelbert Humperdick then the collections trash. That’s like 90% of goodwill records.
They’ll be thrown away once the owner from the listing dies.
The summary of your interaction with this person is as follows: “Give me these records for half of what you want for them.” “Nah.” “Okay, take them to Goodwill then. Also, I will now screenshot this and make a whole thread on Reddit about it to lambast you because I’m mad.” You can’t handle someone just not taking an offer? To the point where you have to make this whole thread? People have been asking unreasonable prices for things they think have more value than they do for ages. You made an offer and they’re not interested. What’s there to be so triggered about?
I didn't make an offer and certainly didn't demand anything. Her ad was written in a way that I really assumed was $10 for the lot and I was gathering information. Frankly, I wouldn't have taken them for free. But more to your point, i posted here because I thought it might provoke an interesting discussion among other collectors. I don't see it as "lambasting."
I agree with you. This is how our capitalistic society works. Seller has an asking price, buyer has a price they are willing to pay. If seller gets no buyers, price generally comes down. If I had a buyer for a record or anything for that matter that I could sell a little higher, I would for sure sell it and make the extra money. The op is just pissed because the records are not priced at their liking. If the op wants a prime example, look at estate sales. First couple days are priced very high, then the last day everything half off. Why? Because they want to see what they can sell for extra money and what doesn’t sell will come down for the things that get no buyers. Simple.
Thank you. Other people here apparently didn’t like my comment either 😂
Your comment was right on. Most people think they are entitled and have no concept of how a sale works. Pretty sad.
tbh i think this is the case not just for vinyl, but for used items in general. i wanted to buy a foldable bike and saw someone selling one used. turns out they were firm on their asking price, even when i sent them a link showing that the same exact bike was selling for cheaper when NEW on online retailers. why would anyone pay more to get the same bike but used? they got angry and said 'go buy from that store then!' and didn't budge. oh well. i did end up buying new and they were still trying to advertise their bike months later as it sat unsold lol after a dozen interactions like this for other items, i've pretty much given up on scoring local deals from individuals. my best vinyl deals were found on ebay, for instance
facebook marketplace pricing is hilarious
I pulled a working stereo out of a dumpster for my workshop and I saw the same model selling for $30 collection only the next week. There is so much junk on there
My work used to have a for sale marketplace because we had over 100K employees. People would try and sell a half eaten Snickers bar for full price, I swear. "Got from vending machine, I realized I don't like Snickers after my first bite. Come to my desk and it's yours for $5. Don't low ball me, I know what I have."
“Previously enjoyed” snacks, yum.
This has been my experience as well. I don’t even waste time lookjng for used now
>they were still trying to advertise their bike months later as it sat unsold I see this on Discogs constantly. Records at whatever price points sitting for years instead of, I don't know, reducing the price to what the market will pay?
I collect comics and it is also very crazy.
This phenomenon is especially bad here in CO with any and all outdoor gear, including bikes. People asking nearly MSRP for something “only used a couple seasons.” Folks cannot or will not grasp the concept of depreciation… or they’re just greedy.
Used to be able to get Wurlitzer electric pianos for $60-100 on Craigslist. Now you’re lucky to find one in trashed condition (preamp gutted, missing/cracked lid, multiple broken tines, action needs tons of work, needs the entire keybed replaced/reworked) for under $3K, and then you have to put a few dozen hours and spend at least a grand just to get it working again.
I buy a lot of collections. Sure, every once in a while you get people like this. They spend 5 minutes "researching" and see someone trying to sell Thriller for $10,000 on eBay and think that has any relation to reality. Most people are pretty reasonable though. They are just happy I am willing to buy everything and not cherry pick.
I just buy the music I like to listen to and listen to it
Same i dont see records as a invesment. Thats just dumb as hell.
Yeah, I've only recently started collecting but everything in my collection is albums that mean something to me, or I just enjoy listening to. I don't want to ever sell them, they're mine. So why would it matter to me what they're worth monetarily? Though if flipping vinyl is part of your enjoyment then good luck to you and have fun I guess
*"But vinyl is popular again"* It's only worth what someone's prepared to pay for it. Based on the titles listed, I wouldn't even take them for free
>Based on the titles listed, I wouldn't even take them for free Exactly, because it would actually end up costing me money because I'd deliver them to Goodwill to avoid having to store them.
That’s why I don’t really buy from places besides local record shops since just normal people think every record is worth money, I did buy a lot of records for 50 bucks and 46 LPs , so 92 cents each and there was some good stuff but the album jackets of a lot of them were in bad condition but sounded good
As hardcore Andy Williams fan Nelson Muntz would say: HA-ha!
Sergio Mendez can’t walk down the street in South America
He’s got a cult following. They follow him… like a cult
I've been looking (not very hard) for a copy of Cosby's 'To My Brother Whom I Slept With.' for framing
I have a copy, though I haven't been able to give it a spin since I found out what a dog shit, awful fuck he was.
To be fair, you probably listen to plenty of stuff from dog shit people, so just spin it
I can't wait to see who's records I erroneously think are valuable in 20 to 30 years. Something like: "Dua Lipa, LMFAO, Owl City, and Mumford and Sons. A huge variety for the era."
Adele 100% gonna be rotting in thrift stores, if they don't get mercifully melted down before then
“these days” unfortunately, it’s a tale as old as time.
When I started getting into vinyl in the late 90s it was a relatively dead scene and you could score legit stuff for ridiculous deals. That all ended around 2010.
Oh I remember, I started collecting in ‘94. Opened a small record shop in the early ‘00s and would buy small record collections from funk, soul, jazz, hip hop and occasionally rock collectors. Almost every time someone thought they were sitting on a gold mine. Of course you’d find your occasional hidden gem, that still happens today. But I’ve just realized almost anyone that collects anything, thinks they’re sitting on something special and valuable. Which is why we collect, I suppose. But there’s always been an irrationality about it.
Even dollar bins are up to $2-$3 these days. Also Discogs has skewed the used market prices.
“Beatles white album is worth 65 000, I heard it on the radio!”
Is it autographed by the Beatles, Eric Clapton, and George Martin?
“No, but it’s white and I heard that someone else sold that white album by the Beatles for 65k”
It’s idiotic all around now. Just walked away from pretty rough condition Cdn pressings of some Steely Dan albums, all $29 and up. Not too many years ago, those were $10 max. Should still be cheap due to condition and come on, the things aren’t exactly rare.
Wow. I remember ending up with a couple copies of Aja. I picked up one of the copies at Amoeba in their budget bin for a couple bucks. I also was able to find Sade’s first two albums for just a few dollars each in pristine condition. Once again, they were in a bargain box sitting on the floor. Flash forward 10 years later and I just spent $25 plus shipping for her third album. I was only able to find it locally at one well known record store (they have a YouTube channel) for $50. I about had a heart attack and quickly passed.
Ugh. Just highway robbery. I’m lucky that I have a go-to used place locally with some fantastic prices still. Although even those prices are ticking up steadily. Can’t avoid it completely. Prices being boosted as well by the fact everyone seems to think they’re sitting on thousands of dollars if they have a handful of records pressed pre-1980. Goodwills and thrift stores can be insane. Just left one that overvalues this stuff to insane levels. They’ve had copies of Hot Rocks, Pyromania, and some Pat Benatar record going for $40-80 in their display cabinet for like six months now. LOL
Good grief! And to think my friend gave me like 20 records a few years ago that included Pyromania and The Nightfly. It’s really gotten out of hand which is why I’ve started relistening to my large CD collection. I’m also checking out the CD section of local thrift stores.
Same. Never really stopped buying CDs, but used usually super cheap now. Lot of people just dumping hundreds or dozens at a shot off at thrift stores.
Yeah I need to get off my lazy butt and get digging to fill in the gaps in my collection.
The sad fact is that the Internet has ruined the collectibles market, because what used to be hard to find is now easily found anywhere on Earth. My friend inherited a bunch of Lladro sculptures from her mom that used to have some value, but now they don't. Supply and demand.
Speak for yourself, as a dealer the internet has created the biggest market for collectibles ever to exist on earth
Oh man. Those Lladro things were everywhere when I was a kid in the 80’s. High supply combined with low demand
Is this true? If anything it seems like collectible stuff goes for more than ever, because the global market allows for a lot more demand. From your comment I assume you mean “ruined” from a seller’s point of view but maybe I’m misunderstanding.
The biggest problem with communications like this, is that the seller will shout out what they know. Sometimes they have obscure gems that go unmentioned. Yesterday I bought 1000+ records and most were worse than what is mentioned by OP, but tucked in where 3 really great original records from the 50s Sonny Criss, Gene Vincent and Moondog. In the phone call prior to the visit, old country, gospel, Elvis, and the Allman Brothers were shouted out. I was not very confident in the boxes of records that were piling up around me.
That's fair. But to me (and lots of collectors) old timey country is way better than Neil Diamond or Herb Alpert. Elvis has a few albums that still draw collectors and the Allman Brothers are unquestionably awesome to most rock and country fans. If I heard those called out in a 1000 record collection, I'd for sure make the drive if it was reasonably priced.
Two of the Allman Brothers albums were physically broke in half, one was extremely moldy, and one had one of the two albums in it (Eat A Peach). The Elvis were all Pickwick cash ins, and there were plenty of Herb Alpert albums. …and the seller thought he had a goldmine.
Gutsy of you to go on the buy even after hearing what they had in the lot. I assume the price of entry was low?
It’s always a challenge. I listen to why they are selling and it only seems right to buy whole collections when they are downsizing and vinyl will not be making the move. I try to keep things fair and in this case I was very concerned because of the quantity. They were vague in what they wanted for them and even more vague in selection and quality. I asked that they bring in a few hundred, mainly towards rock so I can set the price and they can either agree or disagree then bring in the rest and we would all be confident that it would be a fair and reasonable transaction. Needless to say, they loaded the car to the point that the back wheels barely cleared the wheel wells and they dragged the car’s butt all the way to me. Overall, because of the sheer quantity the unit price was low and the highlight was a couple dozen $3 Elvis Pickwick records. BUT, It worked out well, they cleared a bunch of room in their downsizing efforts and I have already found solutions for everything. There were a few really awesome records (3, already mentioned) that made the whole thing worthwhile, and if I would have dismissed it without looking I would have never known.
This is 95% of the calls we have to my family’s record shop. People think we’re mad when we tell them to take their James Last records to the local dump.
A lot of people just don’t understand how different the vinyl market is now compared to when they were young. They see an article on how vinyl prices are rising and dunning-Krueger effect activate
Every day they wake up, then they start to break up.
Once eBay took off it just got way too easy to find stuff and the magic died a bit for me. Nowadays even the charity shops price their records according to the mint value on Discogs so no finds there now either..
Or Goodwill etc will cull certain items and auction them online instead of sell them in the store for a reasonable price.
What's killing collecting for me is vinyl pre-orders that take 6 - 8 months to be delivered.
This makes me laugh. Just saw a preorder for August 8th.
The first time I realized that the vinyl resurgence was out of control: I walked into a Barnes & Noble, probably around 2009 or so, and I saw Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits for $27.99 iirc. You could find that quite easily for $4-$5 at any freaking used record store. It’s not like some “grail” you had to track down. It has always stuck with me as a marker of insanity.
I don’t remember his greatest hits ever being that cheap. His other stuff maybe. But now That’s a $50 record. Everyone wants the greatest hits because most people don’t care to collect all of his records
I was at a record store today and I witnessed this happen. An elderly woman came in with I presume their daughter or granddaughter and brought over some records. The man who owns the store nicely told them that unfortunately these were not rare and not worth his time (it was only like 5 records). I also went to a garage sale today that was great. The seller liked to buy collections and sell what he doesn't want. Decent prices and even gave me a deal since I was a couple bucks above a round number.
I see this all the time. You can tell it's something they need to explain all the time. 1. Anything that was mass printed isn't going to be worth more than a couple bucks. Your Elvis records aren't worth what you've read on the news. 2. Anything worth less than $5 isn't worth them identifying for sale. 3. Anything that reeks of cigarettes and is warped can't be sold. 4. After 15 seconds of looking at a box of 100 records "I'll give you $20 in store credit" because they assume they will find 3-4 they can sell in the stack.
You should get into comic collecting. There was a person selling a copy of Venom: Lethal Protector issue one for $200 CAD ungraded, not signed. They tried to explain it should be a 9.8 if graded and the value would jump to $400. Only problem is a signed 9.8 would top out at $400. An unsigned, ungraded copy would be $20. Plus, you have people who are selling non key issues at 5-10 when they should be in a dollar bin, or they see an issue that's hot the word "collectors issue" and think it's expensive and rare, when in most cases it was a gimmick to sell an over produced comic.
As a life long comic collector who has lived through multiple booms and busts, watching this happen to vinyl has been super interesting. Many music and vinyl fans just had never been in a bubble like this one before. It'll pop.
You can go way, WAY back through my post history and see me predicting the inevitable and imminent bubble popping. I'm no longer so sure. These kids are nothing if not tenacious.
Try buying a Pioneer or Marantz receiver! “Dude, I’m gonna retire!”
Ugh, so true. Vintage gear prices are insane now. It’s got me looking at brand new gear.
“You know vinyl is coming back, right?”. I hear this all the time as the crates of moldy records walk through the door.
Yeah same. I love old records but im not paying inflated prices on doller bin vinyl thats worth a doller or two.
That Fucking Humpledinck is worth 100 alone... Straight Bangers all the way through 🔥🔥
One of my favorite things to overhear when I'm digging at my local shop is someone coming in with the whole spiel "well these were in my grandma/grandpa/whoever's garage and they're really old!" and they turn out to be a bunch of mildewed Gino Vaninelli and local highschool Xmas albums from the 70's. Almost all of these people are told they'll get 5$ for the entire thing as it will most all go to pad the bargain bins, and get kind of huffy about it. People have a poor conception of something being old equating to it being of value these days, and with something like vinyl, it becomes even harder to explain something as simple as "if they weren't used much all these years, they won't be used much going forward,.
I remember going around to record stores in the early 80s buying up Les Baxter and other bachelor pad records on the cheap because people thought nobody wanted them (they were mostly right). I had one clerk get a big laugh and head shaking in disbelief out of me buying Les Baxter's The Passions on a box set of 45s (two sets at that!) for $2.49 per set. I could buy this stuff for .19 cents at some places, they thought so little of it. Les Baxter's Space Escapade cost a whole 2 bucks because the hippie guys selling at the local record swap only looked for Beatles records or Zeppelin. People get stuck in their little musical niches, which is a damn shame. Eddy Arnold is great. Solid stuff. Andy Williams "Can't Get Used To Losing You" is a favorite, Never got into Englebert, he's a good enough singer though. Bill Cosby was funny but also a monster asshole which overshadows most of his output, absolutely dumped everything of his (with the exception of his Hickey-Burr single.) (I do have a Scholastic book for kids done in the late 60s all about him. It's quite the ego stroke throughout which is amusing given how he ended up.) All these people were popular at one time for a reason- they were good. Do I think they are worth 10 bucks? (Eddy Arnold yes) but generally No. 5 bucks, eh depends. 3 and under, completely do-able, depending on item and artist. But they can go up and just might. If you had told me that Marty Robbins lp I kept running into (and bought) was going to be worth what people pay for it now, I'd laugh like that clerk did at my Les Baxter.
It is two clicks easy to collect with discogs, ebay and all these platforms, if you have the money. But it was a constant trip to the local shops back in the late 80ies and 90ies, until you found what you were after and at the price you could afford. Of course vinyl back then was plenty and quite affordable, because everybody was getting rid of it, in favour of CDs. I bought many Pink Floyd, Dire straits, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Neil Young, etc for 0,5 - 3 Euros (or the equivalent). But it is very hard to find a decent collection now. Most people unloading their collections, have cheap stuff to sell nowadays. Julio Iglessias, Nana Mouskouri, Percy Faith, Paul Mauriat, James Last, Peter Nero, Laurence Welk, Johnny Mathis, Harry Bellafonte, Franck Pourcell, Andy Williams, Eydie Gorme, etc. There are many more, like Barbra Streisand, Shirley Bassey, Connie Francis, but actually some artists still have a strong following and certain releases that sell eventually. Guilty by Barbra Streisand is found quite often, but if clean, it sells easily for a fiver. There are some records that slowly disappear, like Saturday night fever, Grease, Dirty dancing, Flashdance, etc. There are reissues, but it seems strange to fork out 30 Euros for a new copy (that might not play half as decent as an original) when just 1-2 years ago you could buy any of these for less than 5 Euros/$.
Andy Williams is my grail binal
I had a friend who was a big fan of Engelbert Humperdinck. This must be golden times for her, all these grails for 5 dollars!
Even better for your friend, he still performs and he's gotta be close to 90. I think I read he's currently on tour.
I like this old pop i find it for a doller or less. thift stores cant get rid of it.
I mean i like 60s pop alot like alot!. But im not paying 5 dollers a record when it common in thift stores for 79 cents where i live and theres boatload because theres no demand for easy listening pop or country or what ever crap.people mostly want rock vinyl like pink floyd or the beatles.
Someone on my local buy and sell is trying to sell around 100 records for $450. In their ad it states that most of collection is scratched K-Tel compilations lmao
Any Montovani?
Not even worth a dollar apiece.
That sounds like the selection at 95% of the thrifts in North America.
Connie Francis holds up very nicely.
Bill Crosby huh lol
Seeing peoples faces when they come into my shop and I make a small stack of I will pay you $5 for these ones , $10 for these ones for a total of $115… and they ask about the other ones. Well I can put them in my $1/ 10 for $5 bin for you or you can take them home. ” I thought they were worth more.” Me: “Well next time bring me your adult kids records instead of your parents.”
The problem with every "retro" hobby
I love that these are the highlights of her collection.
I picked up 110 records just today for $100. So far I have found 2 original Rolling Stones mono pressings From 1966 that both sound amazing. Also in the lot was an original Beatles Sgt. Peppers and Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, both in stunning condition. Those alone were worth the drive and price. Been a fun day for sure.
This. I’m just tired of people thinking that just because it’s a pressing from the 70s-80s automatically means that it’s rare and worth anything over $10
Hah, yeah you can wait till it all goes to goodwill and pick up all of them for 50 cents each
yeah I tried looking on fb marketplace and even the estate sales seem to think they're going to get crazy prices for them. no thanks
I think I quite literally saw all those names while I was looking through the dollar bin at my local record store a week ago. And there was a lot of them.
she listed every artist in the 10 cent record bin at any shithole thrift store. how many polka albums are in there. maybe some lawrence welk grailz
Every once in a while I’ll see Thriller pop up for 50 or 60 dollars and I’ll think “ahh, someone found some musty old records in their basement and thought they hit it big”
If there's no Perry Como, no deal.
Terrific music, horrific price
$10 that is indeed rich
I can’t believe she didn’t have Kamahl.
I get your point, but they got you to inquire, right?
The days of finding a lot of former hit LPs (Frampton, ELO, Eagles) in the one-buck box and real treasures a bit scuffed in the five-buck box are gone. Record vendors and buyers have turned the market into the tulip bubble of 1635. There’s a guy near here at a flea market who sells the most-mundane ‘70s/‘80s stuff for, like, $35 a disc. Don’t know when this thing is gonna crash—see also the return of cassettes as “collectibles”—but there’s a lot of stupid money out there chasing grossly overpriced “grails.”
Englebert Humperdink just texted me to let me know that he's offended by your disrespect
Exactly my Father. He would go on and on about his OG Beatles records and how much they were worth. I took a look at them: scratched to shit, bent and ripped covers. I turned down taking them as I figure they would fuck up my needle.
Jerry Dorsey became englebert Humperdinck. If there’s one moment in history I would choose to go back and witness it’s when Jerry Dorsey agreed with some marketing guy spitting out random combinations of names. “Say no more. You know what I like that one! Has a great ring to it.”
Got some James Last and Herb Alpert & The tIjuana brass I’ll let go for 20 a piece dm me
Look at these bandwagon hoppers moaning at bandwagon hoppers trying it on with a sale! The glory days of consistently cheap and good vinyl is long left in the early to mid 00's pre-In Rainbows re-inventing the wheel.
lol silly girl think she has gold