State of Record Collecting 2015

RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
edited March 2015 in Strut Central
I was just at one of the Record City locations in Vegas and the clerk apologized for not having any "good records" as soon as I walked in the door. He profiled me by how old I looked and started saying how good records tended to stay in the shop longer 10 years ago.

He proceeded to tell me that he thinks we're in the middle of a vinyl bubble where all these hipsters buying $30 180 gram presses will be dumping them in a year or two (on some Comic Book / Baseball Card shit).

I've noticed people paying INSANE prices for clean common rock records... What used to be dollar bin fodder is $15-$25. Fuck... people paying $40 for Buckingham Nicks.

Just trying to wrap my head around all this shit as I start to buy records again after a 5 year hiatus.

Thoughts?



:walk_away_son:
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  Comments


  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,794 Posts
    Since I emigrated to Spain I left 20+ years of records behind, and I've gone digital. This means I'm missing out on some of the good underground dance tracks that are vinyl only and that I'm waiting for re-issue labels to digitise old music. Vinyl is still the best format, but I can't afford it in my life anymore.

    tldr version, in a Lahndun accent, [em]"vinyl's a young man's game"[/em]

    :whycry:

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    There will be a lot of 30 gram vinyl from the 'teens on the market as the people who are buying it move on, up, down and out. But that is always the way.
    My guess is, because current 180gm vinyl is expensive, and limited, in the future good titles and good pressings will hold their value.

    I'm selling lots of common rock records for good prices.
    Condition is important.
    I think we are in a classic rock bubble and the value of Rumors will come back down to earth.
    Just like Bob James 2.

    The secret is always the same.
    Buy what you like, don't worry about trends.

  • yes, ultra common stuff is now being sold at ridiculous prices that the newbie buyers seem more than happy to pay. does this mean the economy has bounced back? why is "rumors" the go to album these days for this crowd?


  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    crabmongerfunk said:
    why is "rumors" the go to album these days for this crowd?


    I would like to know.

  • there was more than one young lady searching desperately for a copy of "rumors" at the record show i was at the other week, none of dealers had a copy on hand (because of its utter commonness). somehow that record has come to epitomize all that is "hip" about record collecting.

    full disclosure: i still listen to "rumors" every few months, i think it is essential but seriously basic. i thought by the time everyone was through high school they had already digested all the "rock classics" (led zep, the doors, hendrix, stones etc.)...

    i agree that this all goes the way of sports cards, etc. in the next 12 months. 180 gram deadstock gold!!!!

  • parallaxparallax no-style-having mf'er 1,266 Posts
    crabmongerfunk said:
    180 gram deadstock gold!!!!
    -------- Thanks!

  • parallaxparallax no-style-having mf'er 1,266 Posts
    I'm part of a local facebook vinyl collecting group, and it's so weird seeing people post up incredibly common commercial shit in VG state they're so proud to have found for $5. Then there's the 10 likes and streams of comments that follow like "OMG! Where'd you find that Trooper LP?", "Sell it to meee" etc. etc.

    I'll post ill shit from time to time, and it's straight crickets other than the 1 or 2 essential heads who know the transaction.


  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,960 Posts
    Going back 20 years, like before we had the internetz, we used to have this gullible lad drink at the local and we'd wind him up about how (then, barely 10 year-old) common 80s jernts were worth money.

    He told us he'd seen Human League's "Dare" and such in his sisters collection, and we would shake our heads in mock disbelief; "Naah, no-one has that - it was never officially released etc."

    Youth would regularly bring in such "Mythical Raers" for us to faux-coo over while one of the other lads would stand behind him doing "Dickhead" signs.

    He's probably retired in Spain off the back of Iron Maiden chud now.

    WMIC

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,245 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    crabmongerfunk said:
    why is "rumors" the go to album these days for this crowd?


    I would like to know.

    I can't explain the [em]why[/em] part, but I remember about 5 years ago it seemed every girl in her mid-20s who lived in the hipsteur enclaves of Brooklyn developed an unexplained obsession for all things Stevie Nicks related. They would never stop talking about it. Girls who didn't know each other would bond over their love of that video where she's dressed as a witch or whatever. Entire wardrobes were bought based on Stevie's mid-80s sartorial stylings. It only makes sense that they're now discovering Fleetwood Mac.

    I've seen a similar thing here in Brazil, where people in their early to mid-20s are getting into records and buying what they consider to be "classic" LPs, which to them is mainly shitty early 80s brazilian rock that can be easily bought for pocket change if you're willing to look for it but, since they're not, it means they pay a premium for chud that has been gathering dust and mold for almost three decades.

  • pcmrpcmr 5,591 Posts
    i think its a winwin for stores
    they buy cheap from knowledgable and sell back to newbies
    there is a waxi thread about best normal/common records that sell out in stores
    this store owner guy was frantically telling me to hook him up with anyone with common rock
    With the vinyl revival everyone is starting out and will be excited about whats going on and think that clean all green is a grail..the musical value is wotrth 40$ but market wise its a scam
    these reissues are even more dangerous because people dont realise that you go to a spot and look for a record instead they ask do you have this and its given to them on a silver platter 27.99

  • YemskyYemsky 711 Posts
    I was thinking about starting a new thread but then decided it might as well go into this on: I am still surprised to see some very heavy hitters all of a sudden appearing out of nowhere. A few years ago a German guy with the Discogs handle "ostblock" who just posted and sold one super rarity after the other from Disco to Fiunk to Afrobeat or recently a guy going by "claudiasz" who has a lot of rubbish (Tina Turner - We Don't Need Another Hero) but also a few dozen elusive pieces like Andrew Brown ‎– Blue Monday / You Made Me Suffer for $4000, which wasn't known to be in more than three collections if I remember correctly. Are these people getting rid of their own collections?

    http://www.discogs.com/seller/ostblock/profile?sort=price,desc&limit=250
    http://www.discogs.com/seller/claudiasz/profile?sort=price,desc&limit=250


  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    crabmongerfunk said:
    why is "rumors" the go to album these days for this crowd?


    I would like to know.

    My guess is "Dreams" sounds INCREDIBLE played on vinyl. The groove is deep and warm. My uncle played it for me when I was a kid and blew my mind. A dude on soul strut who works for a speaker company demo'd a $60,000 speaker system for me.... His go to... "Dreams".

  • Well, as evidenced by a lot of the articles that folks have been posting recently, vinyl is 'back in fashion' now. You have a lot of young urban professionals with disposable income that are willing to spend it on things that up their cool quotient.

    Also, and I'm not sure about everyone else's local hoods, but the late 80s/early 90s styles are back with a fierceness in Brooklyn, and Stevie Nicks was on last season of American Horror Show.

    So basically, you got a lot of milquetoast folks with mediocre tastes who chase trends that are now into vinyl, and have no idea how much these records are worth, and the sellers are willing to price gouge them.

    That's my theory anyways.

    EDIT: and as PCMR said, people are willing to pay for convenience, in this case not spending time getting their fingers dusty.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    There will be a lot of 30 gram vinyl from the 'teens on the market as the people who are buying it move on, up, down and out. But that is always the way.
    My guess is, because current 180gm vinyl is expensive, and limited, in the future good titles and good pressings will hold their value.

    I'm selling lots of common rock records for good prices.
    Condition is important.
    I think we are in a classic rock bubble and the value of Rumors will come back down to earth.
    Just like Bob James 2.

    The secret is always the same.
    Buy what you like, don't worry about trends.

    ^pretty accurate. so now a sharp copy of a classic rock record is worth the equivalent of what a crappy jazz fusion record with a 10 second loop was worth 10-15 years ago. Things change.

    I continue to find great music I didn't know about, there's still lots of stuff that can be had at fair prices that will accrue if you know what/how to buy. However, good clean titles across all genres if priced well fucking FLY (not just classic rock) so you either gotta stop in frequently or get lucky or compete online. And there are no secrets anymore.

    Rumours for $20 is trash but some stuff is trending high for a reason. I look at a shit ton of records day in and day out, finding NM orig copies of 60s rock canon shit is not as easy as it used to be.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    oh and there is definitely a "vinyl bubble" w/r/t new pressings and RSD merch and whatever. but I tend not to sell that shit or buy it for re-sale. have some funny experiences with newbies trying to sell back currently in-print reissues of like, CCR or Joplin saying that "these sell for $30!"

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Customers are victim of supply v demand.
    Rumors like Dark Side Of The Moon and Thriller are almost impossible to keep in stock.
    Doesn't matter they sold combined 2.7 trillion copies.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    true indeed.

  • DJ_EnkiDJ_Enki 6,475 Posts
    JonnyPaycheck said:
    have some funny experiences with newbies trying to sell back currently in-print reissues of like, CCR or Joplin saying that "these sell for $30!"

    "This is one hundred and eighty fucking grams! That's the most grams you can find!"

  • ppadilhappadilha 2,245 Posts
    RAJ said:
    LaserWolf said:
    crabmongerfunk said:
    why is "rumors" the go to album these days for this crowd?


    I would like to know.

    My guess is "Dreams" sounds INCREDIBLE played on vinyl. The groove is deep and warm. My uncle played it for me when I was a kid and blew my mind. A dude on soul strut who works for a speaker company demo'd a $60,000 speaker system for me.... His go to... "Dreams".

    but did he demo the system using a [em]HOT STAMPER[/em] copy of Rumors? If he didn't, that system probably only sounded $30,000 good, not $60,000 good.

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    JonnyPaycheck said:
    w/r/t new pressings and RSD merch

    MOST of the Record Store Day shit is penultimate comic book steez. Nobody will give a rip in a few years about special pressings of common rock records with tye-dye colored vinyl. There are some exceptions like the Now Again JBs record... also thought the Diplo Florida re-ish and the Breaking Bad colored vinyl was cool.



  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Agreed on RSD.
    Anything that says "Collectors Edition" is not collectible.

    In the beginning there were some very limited pressings of in demand recordings.
    Today the pressing runs are limited to the # they think they can sell.

    Third Man records might hold their value. Almost a different market.

  • DJ_EnkiDJ_Enki 6,475 Posts
    LaserWolf said:
    Agreed on RSD.
    Anything that says "Collectors Edition" is not collectible.

    Bing bang boom. It's just so much chud, and if you really want it, you can scoop it up on eBay for cheap a few months after the fact.

  • KARLITOKARLITO 991 Posts
    Hey! I haven't been on here in years, possibly pushing a decade. I figure this is as good a thread to hop on as any. I'd say collecting is much the same as its always been with the exception being nobody cares about breaks or samples. So any records you are trying to sell need to have at least one whole song that's "good" all the way through. Also if you wanna make money selling nice clean commons in the $5 - $10 range is a good way to go!

  • RAJRAJ tenacious local 7,783 Posts
    KARLITO said:
    Hey! I haven't been on here in years, possibly pushing a decade. I figure this is as good a thread to hop on as any. I'd say collecting is much the same as its always been with the exception being nobody cares about breaks or samples. So any records you are trying to sell need to have at least one whole song that's "good" all the way through. Also if you wanna make money selling nice clean commons in the $5 - $10 range is a good way to go!

    Karlito!!??



  • KARLITOKARLITO 991 Posts
    I know! I'm alive

  • KARLITOKARLITO 991 Posts
    Let me tell ya, getting a job where you aren't in front of a 'puter all day will really cut down on forum time.

  • HorseleechHorseleech 3,830 Posts
    Is it worth pointing out that the mid 70's were 40 years ago?

    Try to find anything that old in good shape, especially something that was used/played/partied to. By stoned ass teenagers nonetheless.

    Yeah, I literally get clean Rumours in every day, but finding a clean DSOTM is not anywhere near as easy as it used to be.

  • Yemsky said:
    a guy going by "claudiasz" who has a lot of rubbish (Tina Turner - We Don't Need Another Hero) but also a few dozen elusive pieces like Andrew Brown ‎– Blue Monday / You Made Me Suffer for $4000, which wasn't known to be in more than three collections if I remember correctly. Are these people getting rid of their own collections?

    http://www.discogs.com/seller/claudiasz/profile?sort=price,desc&limit=250


    I saw this guys listings earlier today and immediately thought MAJOR SCAM ALERT.

    Find it hard to believe he has done anything other than listed a lot of high value items he doesn't own, get some low value feedback then BANG hit up a few grand and disappear. He's got serious raresoul listed at $$$$ - looks more like an eBayer that's decided on a new route. Just looking at the first page it's - yeah, right, you look legit.

    All his rares are 'Mint'... Like he has 'my proposal', Kings of Soul, etc, etc all in that condition let alone any condition at all.

  • KARLITOKARLITO 991 Posts
    Some people think discogs is mainly scammers.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    Hey Karlito!

    I have not heard of discogs scams. Crappy sellers, yes, scams, no.
    It's a good place to sell common records in the $5-10 range.
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