The one record you regret trading or selling over the years
djtopcat
Seattle WA The 206 312 Posts
Every serious record collector I'm sure has a story of a record they had at one time, that either they did not know the value of at the time,or traded,sold and now regret the decision. It could be something that skyrocketed in value, or just something obscure that you'll probably never be able to replace.
I have a few regrets, but my biggest was when I walked into a local junk store in Bothell WA about 17 years ago with thousands of estate sale records and bought one two dollar near mint soul/funk record that caught my eye. The truly sad and embarrassing part is at first I thought it was an entirely different famous disco band with the same name. It had a drawing of some dudes sitting in a cup. I knew it was early 70's and probably had some cool samples so I bought it. I took it home and gave it a listen, but just wasn't that wowed. At this time I still naively thought it was the disco band, maybe their first album. This was before discogs,popsike and blogs and I didn't see it listed on Ebay.
Anyway long story short one of my fellow record digger buddies at the time who knew exactly what it was immediately offered up a stack of trades for it. That should of been a clue I guess, but I just thought it was an early record by the disco group. The trade stack included Lyn Christopher,JB's,7-Eleven 45,and a handful of rock breaks which I was more interested in back then, so I figured it was a fair trade and poof it was gone.
A few months later I'm chatting with another fellow hardcore record digger and I mentioned I traded this person a cool early 70's soul/funk record that had some dudes sitting in a cup on the cover, and I said something about not being a big fan of their later disco hits like "you sexy thing" but I did like "everyone's a winner" He looks at me like I'm retarded and says "Hot Chocolate?" and I said yeah it was cool but I got some cool breaks in trade.
He said "Dude that is not the disco group, that is a monster rarity from Cleveland by this guy named Lou Ragland it goes for serious loot, holy grail funk rarity!"
Well that news sucked, and it sucked even more when I found out it was being sold for thousands of dollars and that was 17 years ago!
Nobody likes being taken, my pride was hurt but a deal is a deal and I agreed to it, so I have to live with it. I kind of was hoping this friend would throw in some more vinyl I was looking for to make the deal more even, but he never did, that's just the way he operates, and this is why I'll probably never sell him another record out of my collection. I found out he sold or traded it to some guy in England, and must have found another copy because last time I visited his pad he had the record framed on his wall!
I think of all the school loans,bills I could of paid selling that record now. Maybe the value has gone down since dunno, but either way that's my biggest regret. I have to constantly tell myself I only paid a few bucks for it. It doesn't help :( Try to top that one.
http://www.popsike.com/HOT-CHOCOLATE-LP-Rare-FUNK-CO-CO-Label-LOU-RAGLAND/130426220315.html
I have a few regrets, but my biggest was when I walked into a local junk store in Bothell WA about 17 years ago with thousands of estate sale records and bought one two dollar near mint soul/funk record that caught my eye. The truly sad and embarrassing part is at first I thought it was an entirely different famous disco band with the same name. It had a drawing of some dudes sitting in a cup. I knew it was early 70's and probably had some cool samples so I bought it. I took it home and gave it a listen, but just wasn't that wowed. At this time I still naively thought it was the disco band, maybe their first album. This was before discogs,popsike and blogs and I didn't see it listed on Ebay.
Anyway long story short one of my fellow record digger buddies at the time who knew exactly what it was immediately offered up a stack of trades for it. That should of been a clue I guess, but I just thought it was an early record by the disco group. The trade stack included Lyn Christopher,JB's,7-Eleven 45,and a handful of rock breaks which I was more interested in back then, so I figured it was a fair trade and poof it was gone.
A few months later I'm chatting with another fellow hardcore record digger and I mentioned I traded this person a cool early 70's soul/funk record that had some dudes sitting in a cup on the cover, and I said something about not being a big fan of their later disco hits like "you sexy thing" but I did like "everyone's a winner" He looks at me like I'm retarded and says "Hot Chocolate?" and I said yeah it was cool but I got some cool breaks in trade.
He said "Dude that is not the disco group, that is a monster rarity from Cleveland by this guy named Lou Ragland it goes for serious loot, holy grail funk rarity!"
Well that news sucked, and it sucked even more when I found out it was being sold for thousands of dollars and that was 17 years ago!
Nobody likes being taken, my pride was hurt but a deal is a deal and I agreed to it, so I have to live with it. I kind of was hoping this friend would throw in some more vinyl I was looking for to make the deal more even, but he never did, that's just the way he operates, and this is why I'll probably never sell him another record out of my collection. I found out he sold or traded it to some guy in England, and must have found another copy because last time I visited his pad he had the record framed on his wall!
I think of all the school loans,bills I could of paid selling that record now. Maybe the value has gone down since dunno, but either way that's my biggest regret. I have to constantly tell myself I only paid a few bucks for it. It doesn't help :( Try to top that one.
http://www.popsike.com/HOT-CHOCOLATE-LP-Rare-FUNK-CO-CO-Label-LOU-RAGLAND/130426220315.html
Comments
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then again, that was pre-popsike times and by your own admission weren't feeling it and got brakes, yo! that you probably dug a lot more. it's easy to look back and see all the moves...
On a somewhat lighter note a funnier trade with him was my sealed Power of Zeus promo for a Gemini mixer that broke and ended up in the trash a week later. I actually can laugh about that one now though haha :D
This is a few years before the Luv 'N' Haight reissue that turned people onto it in a big way, before then hardly known to folks (even inside Brazil it was not well known to collectors or musicians). I got a good price for them both, but nothing like what they go for nowadays for one in great shape...
Think I'd better track it down on Youtube to be reappraised.
i regret trading some very nice african records for pennies in store credit when i was a kid
i wish i had not sold this one either http://record.ticro.com/record/jacket/Q00000136.jpg
but its not as bad as a major grail
I hope I never become one of the eccentric record collector weirdoes that plan on taking some of their records straight to the grave lol
I remember another one now, not quite as pricey as the Hot Chocolate, but went to the same guy of course.
Gus Poole-Soul Revolution- found a near mint copy at a mostly hip hop record shop in Phoenix, maybe 2001.
http://www.popsike.com/GUS-POOLE-Soul-Revolution-NOVASONIC-LP-SEALED-private-funk-jazz/231432533670.html
That was actually the reason why I sold it, but I still regret it.
I flipped it a very cynically a few years after Margaret Kilgallen passed and did pretty well on it...now i want it back.
I miss all of the Mo Wax stuff that i have sold over the years.
Even the terrible Unkle stuff, but for only the Futura artwork.
same here bought and sold..can we geta hiss free reissue
Andrew Wartts did a remastered re-issue. I have no idea if it actually sounds better.
You can buy it here: http://www.gospelstorytellers.com/
Yeah it's not a very rare lp, it was on Atco I think.
I used to see at record shows back in the early 2000's for 20-40 a lot
I'll have to listen to it on Youtube too to refresh my memory. I may even have a copy in my collection, when you cross the 12k record barrier you start to forget what you even have lol
I found it for $2 in 2006 and used it as payment for web site services. I'm not a HUGE fan of the record to where I would pay its going rate, but years later as I archive alot of music featured on here, it has a lot of sentimental value. Especially because Monty was a huge part of this site....
Thankfully, there's this:
Oh man that must of been hard to part with.
[strong]STARK REALITY - ACTING, THINKING, FEELING (6XLP + 7" BOX SET)[/strong]
[em]Acting, Thinking, Feeling marks the first time that psychedelic jazz ensemble The Stark Reality's Discovers Hoagy Carmichael's Music Shop album has been reissued in full (the 2003 Stones Throw Records anthology Now only contained half of the original album's music). The anthology also contains the band’s out-of-print Roller Coaster Ride (first issued as 1969 on Now-Again in 2003), and a series of recently discovered, previously-unreleased tracks in a 6 LP + Bonus 7" "complete works" box set.[/em]
me too. I was a HEAVY Mo'Wax collector in the late 90s and into the 00s & had friends at the label who passed me incredible things (being on the MW mailing list, even though it was after the A&M acquisition, was a pretty incredible situation to find myself in). I ended up selling a load of MW stuff over the years (never the things I'd been given, but other things I'd found on my travels) including picture discs and Japanese rarities. I got the book last year and looking through it brought some major pangs of regret...
Sort of related: I picked up the first Poets of Rhythm LP on Soulciety when it dropped and loved it, but was broke when I got offered 4 or 5 times what I paid for it and ended up selling it a year or 2 afterwards. Not a massively rare record or anything, but I always felt that it was stupid to sell something I liked so much. Oddly coincidental, the record shop I bought the Poets... LP from also did reissues including Hot Chocolate (the funk band)
I actually sold my whole collection in about '06 to go live overseas and those next few years were the best of my life, so I'll never regret selling for that experience. I would love to have some of those back, especially the promo hip hop LP's, but 2 following closely behind the Archie would be Gil Scott-Heron 'Winter in America' and Ahmad Jamal 'Awakening' that I just can not seem to find anywhere
hey, thanks, crabmongerfunk, will bear this in mind and might holler at it soon. Short of trades (and cash - just sorted the new tax year investments) right now. Would love to find this clean in the field again, as I did with my old copy (and Winter, what a pleasant day that was) but it's a distant dream where I'm currently at.
Oh wow.. I've already got the Now 2LP but might opt for the 3CD of Acting, Thinking, Feeling... way cheaper.
My worst experience by far was having a bunch of records stolen.... then a bunch were listed on ebay by someone I knew who had pulled them at our local dig, wtf.
I started selling records in the 80s, needless to say in todays popsike dollars I have lost a fortune.
But most of the time I sold records for a better price than I paid, and I set the price.
Yes, I have miss priced many records, but hey, can't get mad at someone one for having more knowledge than me.
OP: When you made the trade for a whole bunch of records that you wanted, that would have cost you hundreds of dollars on ebay, did you go back to the junk store and give them some more money? Or were you laughing about how you ripped them off?
The guy you did the trade with gave you what you wanted. He may have sold the copy you traded, but only if he had a back up. He is not in the business of selling records, he is in the business of sharing his collection with the world, djing, mix tapes, production... Or I got the wrong guy.
I think you got the wrong guy buddy lol He sells and buys, and is a record fanatic. Probably owns one of the largest rare soul/funk collections in the PNW.
See this is where we differ in opinion though. The junk store I bought the lp from didn't give two shits about the value, as all the records were the same price $2!
They were selling, I was coaxed into trading, big difference. A real "friend" would say "hey man that's a crazy rare soul lp, what do you want for it?"
He didn't tell me that, he just said he'd like to have it, and I'm a nice guy. He offered up some break records in trade, and when I found out he sent it to England I returned them.
Sorry I don't deceive my friends like that, and the poster who said "he wasn't your friend" was correct because his actions proved it. I recently asked him if he could please help me locate a local Christian rock record of a band my mom knew in the early 70's called Wilson McKinley. I had no clue it was that sought after, but not on the level of H.C. Let's just say I'm not holding my breath for him to come through. Lol Anybody here have an OG Hot Chocolate?
If you approached it as; I'm just doing the trade because he's my friend and it's a $2 record, then you were ripped off.
But dude gave you a few hundred dollars worth of trade (Lyn Christopher,JB's,7-Eleven 45,and a handful of rock breaks) that should have been a clue.
Maybe I am miss reading, but it sounds like you walked away from that trade thinking you had traded a shitty $2 record for a few hundred dollars worth of records you wanted.
Did you feel guilty for taking advantage of your friend?
I don't think you should have.
The record had no value to you. The stuff you got was stuff you wanted.
Your "friend" was happy. You were happy.
Then your knowledge increased and got sellers remorse.
But the record did not wow you. Only reason for wanting it back was for more profit.
That your friend didn't share his knowledge is kinda whack.
But begrudging his profit is kinda whack too.
He still has a copy, and one of the largest rare soul/funk collections in the PNW.
People who care more about profit than records don't have large personal collections of raerers.
Like this record I left in a box when I moved sealed fml
I've made so many record mistakes in my life I can't count em.
That's why I forget em and move on.
Plus you thought, friend, found out "friend". That'll stick in the craw.