It also eliminates the middleman, for a small fee, thus the buyer and seller get the best value.
From this standpoint ebay is a good thing.
absolutly WURD...
TRUE, but this model is hardly sustainable. As supplies dwindle, how many of these LPs are going to be resold on eBay? Maybe some of them (eventually), but by then the interest in those pieces will be gone.
Music moves so fast, no kid you ask knows who Horace Tapscott is. Good luck finding someone who will care about Combo Xingu in 20 years.
Currently, what eBay has done is infuse vinyl with new value, and in many cases, inflate the value on records that used to sell for far less b/c a smaller consumer public were aware of certain titles, thereby reducing demand even if supply was already low. Moreover, it's also created a new form of collector/dealer like Funkyou! who road trips, not for himself, but to blow up whatever warehouses or collections he can then flip onto eBay. In that process, he's putting in professional time to find LP stashes that previously were discovered through amateur effort but he's also helping to inflate value on what he sells (i.e. like Anthony Pearson, his records routinely sell more than what other eBay sellers would get). In essence, this new eBay savvy dealer is a double threat to lower prices b/c 1) he's taking more records out of circulation for the rest of us non-pros, thereby decreasing supply and 2) drawing attention to what he sells, thereby increasing demand.
This phenomenon has been going on absolutely forever. The history of high prices / low supply is not a eBay era thing, believe me... Ask Daniel Williams ( for years now one of the most heavy collectors of this kind of stuff in L.A. ). He will tell you how difficult it was to buy a soul, funk or jazz record in the early 90's in L.A.
Serious... like 20 to 30 Japanese buyers used to show up to Pasadena. You could not buy a record. Donald Byrd Spaces and Places was so in demand that you could not get a copy. It would sell fast to Japanese for $60 at 4 in the morning.
The market for this stuff is straight soft compared to what it once was.
In 1996 and 1997 I used to sell dozens of copies of Debra Laws Very Special for $20. Dozens. So many people are like stunned that this record sells on eBay for $20. They think it is like a peice of shit because it is from the 80's or something.
All the eBay did was make apparent to people who were in the dark that a wide variety of records are worth good money.
There were always dealers getting heavy prices and getting all the records. Mustafa is an absolute legend. no doubt. That dude was personally responsible for exporting hundreds of thousands of records. He was moving serious boxes.
The only thing that is different now is that the Japanese don't come around anymore and all y'all computer weiners can see how much money people are making and what the good items are.
I get prices not because I am driving the market up or whatever it is your saying... I get prices because I have 8000 collectors on my mailing list and have relationships with these people that have gone on as long as 10 years.
Ancient soul dealers were getting $25 for Candi Stanton Wild Horses Run Free back in '91 anyway.
Yes, us computer weiners have it both ways (as you and others have pointed out).
This is what drives the reissue, bootleg, and downloads market. The quick fix.
Good to hear you weigh in with some perspective, but I think the End Game will be sonner than later. How many kids even know (or care) who Debra Laws, Fonda Rae, or Candi Staton is?
pps: ME 20 YEARS FROM NOW: "EHHH SONNY, SEE, I TOLD YOU THESE PROMO CDs WERE GOING TO BE RAER!"
dont laugh dude do some investigation into this business called " southland cd " it will blow your mind what certain stevie ray vaughn promo cd actually changes hands for ( $100 - $250 ).
the prices of rare cd's will equal that of used records within the next 10 years provided that they are stable objects and still work. no doubt, so many people only know cd's. that is an interesting market for sure.
pps: ME 20 YEARS FROM NOW: "EHHH SONNY, SEE, I TOLD YOU THESE PROMO CDs WERE GOING TO BE RAER!"
dont laugh dude do some investigation into this business called " southland cd " it will blow your mind what certain stevie ray vaughn promo cd actually changes hands for ( $100 - $250 ).
the prices of rare cd's will equal that of used records within the next 10 years provided that they are stable objects and still work. no doubt, so many people only know cd's. that is an interesting market for sure.
Yes, that is why I am friends with these doodz. They are hardheaded vultures that make most diggers look like a fairy princesses. These dudes scare me, but who else is going to tip me off on those $50 Governator I mean Conan the Barbarian OST CDs?
PS: If anyone wants to sell me their copy of K-Dee - Ass, Cash, or Grass I will gladly pay you anywhere from $20-$60 based on condition. Thanks!
in 20 years records will be a soft market. all these young video game muthafuggers dont care about yer she bop be lu bop bullshit. fuk a 45. shit is ancient. my friend collects avant gaurd 20 century classical on 78 and it's dope... but he is the only one. i personally think this thread is kind of insulting to jason and me. so funk you bought all the good records? yea so did alex and mustapha and disc jj and shit. you just didnt realize it was happening... thats all.
Really good post ODub! i've thought about many of these points before. Not necessarily of Ebay but of the fact that there will be fewer and fewer "discoveries" and "finds". It seems to me that once a rare or high-demand record is discovered by someone who knows its worth, it will achieve market value and exchange hands around that price. My primary worry is that point exactly.
Are there a finite number of mega-collections (i.e. warehouse finds) out there, dwindling to nothing as we speak?
I do not buy mega-collections so i wouldn't know but on a smaller scale, YES[/b] . Because supply is limited.
This is one of the reasons why I have the urge to drop cash on cheap records even though I am broke cuz I know that 5 years from now, when I do have steady income, it'll be harder to find good deals. But then again.....if someone asked me whether I get more satisfaction listening to a $100 record that I copped for 50cents or a record I bought on ebay for $40, I'd say the satisfation is the same.
2 years ago, when I was buying more on Ebay than "out in the field", I was excited as hell to get my Nite-liters record for 20bucks. Just cuz I wanted to listen to that music at that moment in time and sometimes it's worth every penny coppin' something off Ebay even though you may find it 2 years from now in the field.[/b]
My conclusion (for now) on a personal level is that Ebay gives the consumer the option to listen to the music you want to listen to at that particular time. Cuz even though there are MILLIONS of records, there are those select few that hits the spot every time. and ebay and high-end dealers give you that option to purchase something that you REALLY want AT THAT TIME. And I think that's important to the consumer.
Not disrispecfellatin' dood, chillz. Sorry if I am rubbing you the wrong way AP (no ayoyo).
AP, I think most of us are "JUST SAYIN'," putting our 02 cents in the game and peppering each post with a whole lotta "in my opinion." You and other heavies bring some real foresight/hindsight into the mix.
I brought your name up (and Jason's too) b/c I respect both of ya'lls hustle. I also should NOT compare the two of you since you've been doing this shit since pre-Internet whereas Jason is post and I would expect there to be some differences. For example, and it'd be interesting to ask Jason this: would he be doing what he's doing as a dealer if NOT for eBay? I'd assume you (AP) see eBay as a boon for business but it's not like you needed it to hustle records since you were clearly doing it before.
And for the rest of you: understand that I'm not wringing my hands in despair about eBay. Like many, I'm a little ambivalent about its pros and cons but hell, I now have a lot of albums via eBay that I likely would not have if not for eBay.
But personally - and this is why I raised this question to begin with - I do think eBay has done more that simply expand the market (not that there's anything wrong with expanding the market). It has, I theorize (and again, I'm open to getting smacked down as wrong on this), changed the behavior of how people collect and deal in records. I'm talking paradigm shift. And maybe it hasn't been that - I appreciated AP's breakdown since I know he knows a shit load more about the game from that level than I do.
For example, it's already been well talked about how eBay has transformed brick/mortar stores - and RARELY for the better. Anecdotally, I hear many stories of how relatively ignorant amateur sellers now expect top dollar for shit records simply b/c they presume that there must be a market for them via eBay.
To correct what your assumption was Anthony, I'm not at all complaining that you can't get raers for a dollar. I'm asking - just asking - if one of the net effects of eBay hasn't been a constricting of the circulation of records, a shrinking size of the overall pot. More and more records are removed from the traditional distribution routes. And yes, eBay has created new distribution channels in its place, arguably far more long-range than could have existed before. But I wonder if there hasn't also been a hoarding mentality that's been created - and no, I'm not directing this at AP or Jason - that's at least temporarily been manifested...that has shrunk the total pool of what would have been available otherwise if not for eBay.
Along those lines, I would say record store bins, yes, have suffered due to eBay. I know first hand of a few stores who have cut the amount of stock that reaches the floor by half, maybe more, with anything that has "online value" being put up for grabs online. But not every store competes with eBay by trying to charge "eBay prices." Some go the other route, and have actually dropped prices on collectible records to encourage people to buy from them instead of online. These are the stores I tend to frequent and do well in.
Am I the only one here to be (pretty) fed up by Ebay buying?? Am I the only one to think that grabbing records is not just compiling stuff in your basement?
I mean, I buy records on ebay for maybe two years. In the beginning, you're thrilled by the large amount of records you could find with this way, but gradually I was just not excited at all to receive records through my mailbox.
It's hard to explain cause it should be all about good music or not, but I must admit I largely prefer (to have and play) records I found on a dusty crate in a flea market than funkier stuff I bought for 50$ on ebay.
Cause if it's just all about music and DJing, why spending so many times to pick OG? grab your MP3s on emule or soulseek and load your final scratch with it!
For me Ebay is killing the myth of some records and the pleasure of collecting. I'm not in the game since a long time, but I imagine that finding an indian copy of Burman Shalimar OST back in the 80s/90s by trading with an indian guy was the shit! Now i see a copy every weeks on the bay, and I'm no longer give a fuck about it.
If it's all about collecting rare, I don't think it's really exciting to grab it sitting on your sofa in front of your I-Mac.
Just imagine Indiana Jones grabbing the Holy Grail through auction on ebay..
Music moves so fast, no kid you ask knows who Horace Tapscott is. Good luck finding someone who will care about Combo Xingu in 20 years.
Not entirely true. We're all collecting shit that was collected before our time. It will continue to be passed on. Kids are still collecting the shit. 15 year old Timmy wants Skull Snaps and shit. Many, many funk records are cheaper now than in the early-mid 90s. So prices aren't always going up due to ebay.
Too much overanalyzing. This shit is really simple. Fuck warehouses and dead stock. Collections resurface. People die. People stop collecting. People's wives force them to lighten the load. Not all of these people know what to ask for their records, so cheap supply becomes available. Not everyone wants to sell on ebay.
A lot of this is nice theory but isn't how it actually works...
I don't buy on Ebay as much as I used to (Johmbolaya's point on impulse buying well taken), but I do think that Ebay has put some records into circulation that might not have been accessible otherwise (and not necessarily big ticket items). One of the records I plan on blogging this week is an obscure (but not terribly expensive/in demand)New Orleans 45. I had a rinked copy for years and was only able to score a mint copy via Ebay. It's just not the kind of record that ANY store North of the Carolinas is going to have and not the kind of thing most dealers I know would bring to a show (unless it was in a mountain of unsorted crap). I think Ebay will reach a tipping point where most of these amateur - bought a container of records at an estate sale/auction types are out of the game (especially since vinyl is perilously close to being a "collector only" format). Things will settle down a little bit but nothing drastic.
If you don't, then the price doesn't go up. It's the reason we have threads on here saying "is this dope?" with a link to ebay. You have people on here that don't know what UPP is (yesterday), yet probobly own Placebo and 100% Pure Poison because they went to "breakbeats.com" or some shit.
Everytime a cover of an lp is posted...anytime someone starts a thread that says "Price check" it's fucking up the game for people with experience. I'm not even mad at it, but it's the problem. I don't care if someone posts "breakbeat rare" on ebay. 100's of people do. You still need to know the deal. Syl Johnson was $50 back before Ebay showed up (back when records were cheap) because it was known enough to be still a valueable record. Shit like 1619 badass band used to be found for $1 at any given record show....
I'll tell you this. 10 or 12 years ago you'd look around at a record show and maybe see one or two other people diggin'...now? You got tons of kids with portables looking for anything they see posted on digging sites. Again, I'm not complaining more than I'm sharing what I've seen from my perspective.
dont laugh dude do some investigation into this business called " southland cd " it will blow your mind what certain stevie ray vaughn promo cd actually changes hands for ( $100 - $250 ).
the prices of rare cd's will equal that of used records within the next 10 years provided that they are stable objects and still work. no doubt, so many people only know cd's. that is an interesting market for sure.
Definitely. (not directed to AP specifically) Are y'all ready for the micro press CD revolution? You thought "private press" was big now, how about selling ORIGINAL cdr promos? Or electronic/free jazz stuff.... there's tens of thousands of tiny labels out there just waiting to be "discovered" and their STRICTLY LIMITED 100-copies-to-the-world releases trumped up as hot shit. In 20 years they will be amazed anybody cares, just as artists from the 60s and 70s are amazed anybody remembers. This is already happening, it's just not stable.
1st of all, I love ebay and it allows me to get raers without spending time. Without it, I don't think I would have bought many records the last couple years. Its also dope to even have a lot of these raers available to buy. Before I would either have to get lucky in the town, or go through a bunch of work finding people to trade with.
What AP sayin about records changin prices is absolutely true. "Places and Spaces" used to really sell for 50 dollars! I sold a shitload of Debra Laws and other generic records to Japan for 20+ (which at the time seemed like a lot of loot). I would run into Japanese dudes damn near once a month and let them go thru my collection. I sold a lot of shit I regret now, but at the time I THOUGHT I was gettin over. Lol Look at how the hip hop records lost tremendous value. I'm sure in the next year "modern soul" will slow down and it will be some other shit.
Look at how the hip hop records lost tremendous value. I'm sure in the next year "modern soul" will slow down and it will be some other shit.
Have hip-hop records as a whole really lost value, though? To me it seems as if the market ahs just reconfigured and people are chasing different hip-hop records than they were previously. Sure, most of the Native Tongues or Hiero 12"s that people used to be able to get ~$30 for online are now dirt cheap, but old school and "random rap" have been steadily appreciating.
Look at how the hip hop records lost tremendous value. I'm sure in the next year "modern soul" will slow down and it will be some other shit.
Have hip-hop records as a whole really lost value, though? To me it seems as if the market ahs just reconfigured and people are chasing different hip-hop records than they were previously. Sure, most of the Native Tongues or Hiero 12"s that people used to be able to get ~$30 for online are now dirt cheap, but old school and "random rap" have been steadily appreciating.
Pretty much anything early-mid 90s has depreciated. Also late 80s stuff.
What irks me so much about it is that there are some really great records that people just aren't after any more. They'd rather spend ten times the amount on some absolutely dreadful random rap record. Like the private press craze, I hope at some point people go back to buying music that's good, not just rare.
i used to sell multiple copies of pee wee's dance for $15 each.
shit... even TLC were in demand ( whatever that means ).
hey oliver, nothing personal at all. you know i have respect for you.
i just get all fussy at 11 at night when i read my name up in this thread.
my feeling is that records are being sold it public now ( eBay ) and no longer in private.
people can peep and comment all day long ( no problem ).
everyone knows everyones business.
for the record eBay has not been a boon for my business. the cost of selling records and processing records is too high. i wish i could do more set sale business. by the time i am done paying eBay, Paypal, Marketworks, employees, operational expenses, dealing with returns and the occasional chargeback bullshit not only am I exhauseted but taxed.
it used to take 5 hours to sell 1000 records. now it takes 5 weeks.
oh how i long for the days of big sales out of the back of my truck at 6 in the morning.
eBay killed that, that's for sure. everyone grips and the Japanese and Europeans don't even bother to come by anymore.
What irks me so much about it is that there are some really great records that people just aren't after any more. They'd rather spend ten times the amount on some absolutely dreadful random rap record. Like the private press craze, I hope at some point people go back to buying music that's good, not just rare.
I agree.
If your Juice Crew collection isn't right, you really don't need to be chasing all this "random rap," but I think there's always gonna be people approaching record collecting with a baseball card collector mentality.
I love to sell on Ebay because I don't have to know shit. All I have to do is spell the title correctly, write a short description, put up a picture and know how to grade. I don't even use a reserve. Just put it up for 7 days at $9.99 and vultures come. All the sudden some turd ass record sells for a few bills. It's great.
Currency values affect ebay crazily. I used to buy more on eBay, but I can't compete with the pound, euro, or yen. It's like bargain shopping for the international record set. It's like why I used to go to Italy just to buy my Frette sheets back when the dollar killed the lire. It was like I was getting some Bed Bath and Beyond prices for top quality 350-count egyptian cotton royalty. Now when I sell on ebay, literally 90% of my sales are oversees...especially for the high priced joints. That wasn't always the case. It's just cheaper for them now.
What irks me so much about it is that there are some really great records that people just aren't after any more. They'd rather spend ten times the amount on some absolutely dreadful random rap record. Like the private press craze, I hope at some point people go back to buying music that's good, not just rare.
I agree.
If your Juice Crew collection isn't right, you really don't need to be chasing all this "random rap," but I think there's always gonna be people approaching record collecting with a baseball card collector mentality.
Since it's a newer genre and thus a less established market, things won't settle down until collectors are more familiar with what's on these more obscure singles and there's a more univeral acceptance of which records are actually of good quality. But JP I'm suprised you're wanting to see this happen anytime soon! I'm loving selling copies of something like Sudden Def for $200...it gives a dealer/collector the opportunity to actually keep some good records and still make a little living selling the somewhat mediocre rarities.
It's like why I used to go to Italy just to buy my Frette sheets back when the dollar killed the lire. It was like I was getting some Bed Bath and Beyond prices for top quality 350-count egyptian cotton royalty.
What irks me so much about it is that there are some really great records that people just aren't after any more. They'd rather spend ten times the amount on some absolutely dreadful random rap record. Like the private press craze, I hope at some point people go back to buying music that's good, not just rare.
I agree.
If your Juice Crew collection isn't right, you really don't need to be chasing all this "random rap," but I think there's always gonna be people approaching record collecting with a baseball card collector mentality.
Since it's a newer genre and thus a less established market, things won't settle down until collectors are more familiar with what's on these more obscure singles and there's a more univeral acceptance of which records are actually of good quality. But JP I'm suprised you're wanting to see this happen anytime soon! I'm loving selling copies of something like Sudden Def for $200...it gives a dealer/collector the opportunity to actually keep some good records and still make a little living selling the somewhat mediocre rarities.
Eh, I would rather that the prices even out, I'd give up the $$$ random rap if I could get more on the great titles that are not as rare.
Ebay is something that's never going to go away. It's entrenched as part of the buy/sell cycle, love it or hate it. Stores sell on ebay because people won't pay a reasonable price, and people buy on ebay because the stores don't get the records they feel are important. So both parties complain, but don't complain when they're the one getting over!
One new phenomena it's created is the "record dealer" who doesn't know anything about records. I run into these doofuses all the time canvasing the thrift store thinking they're hot shit and talking down to me. They think of themself as professional but are really comic. I had a convo with one of them recently about how he won't sell to anybody online because they argue about "every little scratch". Well, how do you grade? I ask. "Oh, I don't grade". So he buys from thrift stores, prices them from ebay, then sells at an antique mall. Record shows have become basically meaningless thanks to these guys, who hoard anything for their little hobby.
It's also totally infuriating because what a record is "worth" has been defined as Ebay price, which is really "what's the maximum this record can be sold for on this given day." If two guys get in a battle over 1 LP that hardly defines the price of that album. I won't get into it too much, but how much a record goes for more than anything else depends on who happens to be watching it, whether they have $ to spend, if their searches hit on the search terms in the auction, the exchange rate, tides, phases of the moon, etc. etc.
There are pro's to ebay tho. One thing people miss when they rip on ebay is it has a leveling effect on price. If a previously unknown record sells for $300, you can be guaranteed every dealer and collector checks their closet for it. Next week there might be 3 copies of something nobody would bother with before. This isn't shrinking the pool, it's expanding it. Same with hip-hop. Eventually the market got saturated and prices hit bottom. Hip-hop's the cheapest it's been in years right now.
Comments
TRUE, but this model is hardly sustainable. As supplies dwindle, how many of these LPs are going to be resold on eBay? Maybe some of them (eventually), but by then the interest in those pieces will be gone.
Music moves so fast, no kid you ask knows who Horace Tapscott is. Good luck finding someone who will care about Combo Xingu in 20 years.
This phenomenon has been going on absolutely forever. The history of high prices / low supply is not a eBay era thing, believe me... Ask Daniel Williams ( for years now one of the most heavy collectors of this kind of stuff in L.A. ). He will tell you how difficult it was to buy a soul, funk or jazz record in the early 90's in L.A.
Serious... like 20 to 30 Japanese buyers used to show up to Pasadena. You could not buy a record. Donald Byrd Spaces and Places was so in demand that you could not get a copy. It would sell fast to Japanese for $60 at 4 in the morning.
The market for this stuff is straight soft compared to what it once was.
In 1996 and 1997 I used to sell dozens of copies of Debra Laws Very Special for $20. Dozens. So many people are like stunned that this record sells on eBay for $20. They think it is like a peice of shit because it is from the 80's or something.
All the eBay did was make apparent to people who were in the dark that a wide variety of records are worth good money.
There were always dealers getting heavy prices and getting all the records. Mustafa is an absolute legend. no doubt. That dude was personally responsible for exporting hundreds of thousands of records. He was moving serious boxes.
The only thing that is different now is that the Japanese don't come around anymore and
all y'all computer weiners can see how much money people are making and what the good items are.
I get prices not because I am driving the market up or whatever it is your saying... I get prices because I have 8000 collectors on my mailing list and have relationships with these people that have gone on as long as 10 years.
Ancient soul dealers were getting $25 for Candi Stanton Wild Horses Run Free back in '91 anyway.
ap
This is what drives the reissue, bootleg, and downloads market. The quick fix.
Good to hear you weigh in with some perspective, but I think the End Game will be sonner than later. How many kids even know (or care) who Debra Laws, Fonda Rae, or Candi Staton is?
No diss, just saying.
dont laugh dude do some investigation into this business called " southland cd " it will blow your mind what certain stevie ray vaughn promo cd actually changes hands for ( $100 - $250 ).
the prices of rare cd's will equal that of used records within the next 10 years provided that they are stable objects and still work. no doubt, so many people only know cd's. that is an interesting market for sure.
Yes, that is why I am friends with these doodz. They are hardheaded vultures that make most diggers look like a fairy princesses. These dudes scare me, but who else is going to tip me off on those $50 Governator I mean Conan the Barbarian OST CDs?
PS: If anyone wants to sell me their copy of K-Dee - Ass, Cash, or Grass I will gladly pay you anywhere from $20-$60 based on condition. Thanks!
I do not buy mega-collections so i wouldn't know but on a smaller scale, YES[/b] . Because supply is limited.
This is one of the reasons why I have the urge to drop cash on cheap records even though I am broke cuz I know that 5 years from now, when I do have steady income, it'll be harder to find good deals. But then again.....if someone asked me whether I get more satisfaction listening to a $100 record that I copped for 50cents or a record I bought on ebay for $40, I'd say the satisfation is the same.
2 years ago, when I was buying more on Ebay than "out in the field", I was excited as hell to get my Nite-liters record for 20bucks. Just cuz I wanted to listen to that music at that moment in time and sometimes it's worth every penny coppin' something off Ebay even though you may find it 2 years from now in the field.[/b]
My conclusion (for now) on a personal level is that Ebay gives the consumer the option to listen to the music you want to listen to at that particular time. Cuz even though there are MILLIONS of records, there are those select few that hits the spot every time. and ebay and high-end dealers give you that option to purchase something that you REALLY want AT THAT TIME. And I think that's important to the consumer.
AP, I think most of us are "JUST SAYIN'," putting our 02 cents in the game and peppering each post with a whole lotta "in my opinion." You and other heavies bring some real foresight/hindsight into the mix.
No, no I have not bought any future raerz.
dood... i do not know what you are talking about.
i was sweating oliver for bringing mine and jasons name up. not you.
i got no beef with you dood.
shit i got no beef with oliver.
only dude i got beef with is paypal chargeback registered mail itlay man.
im a send you some new agez and shit.
pied pipper for 6 billz and shit.
peace out.
ap
JEAH! (virtual handshake/pound) Check your PM.
I brought your name up (and Jason's too) b/c I respect both of ya'lls hustle. I also should NOT compare the two of you since you've been doing this shit since pre-Internet whereas Jason is post and I would expect there to be some differences. For example, and it'd be interesting to ask Jason this: would he be doing what he's doing as a dealer if NOT for eBay? I'd assume you (AP) see eBay as a boon for business but it's not like you needed it to hustle records since you were clearly doing it before.
And for the rest of you: understand that I'm not wringing my hands in despair about eBay. Like many, I'm a little ambivalent about its pros and cons but hell, I now have a lot of albums via eBay that I likely would not have if not for eBay.
But personally - and this is why I raised this question to begin with - I do think eBay has done more that simply expand the market (not that there's anything wrong with expanding the market). It has, I theorize (and again, I'm open to getting smacked down as wrong on this), changed the behavior of how people collect and deal in records. I'm talking paradigm shift. And maybe it hasn't been that - I appreciated AP's breakdown since I know he knows a shit load more about the game from that level than I do.
For example, it's already been well talked about how eBay has transformed brick/mortar stores - and RARELY for the better. Anecdotally, I hear many stories of how relatively ignorant amateur sellers now expect top dollar for shit records simply b/c they presume that there must be a market for them via eBay.
To correct what your assumption was Anthony, I'm not at all complaining that you can't get raers for a dollar. I'm asking - just asking - if one of the net effects of eBay hasn't been a constricting of the circulation of records, a shrinking size of the overall pot. More and more records are removed from the traditional distribution routes. And yes, eBay has created new distribution channels in its place, arguably far more long-range than could have existed before. But I wonder if there hasn't also been a hoarding mentality that's been created - and no, I'm not directing this at AP or Jason - that's at least temporarily been manifested...that has shrunk the total pool of what would have been available otherwise if not for eBay.
Am I the only one to think that grabbing records is not just compiling stuff in your basement?
I mean, I buy records on ebay for maybe two years. In the beginning, you're thrilled by the large amount of records you could find with this way, but gradually I was just not excited at all to receive records through my mailbox.
It's hard to explain cause it should be all about good music or not, but I must admit I largely prefer (to have and play) records I found on a dusty crate in a flea market than funkier stuff I bought for 50$ on ebay.
Cause if it's just all about music and DJing, why spending so many times to pick OG? grab your MP3s on emule or soulseek and load your final scratch with it!
For me Ebay is killing the myth of some records and the pleasure of collecting. I'm not in the game since a long time, but I imagine that finding an indian copy of Burman Shalimar OST back in the 80s/90s by trading with an indian guy was the shit! Now i see a copy every weeks on the bay, and I'm no longer give a fuck about it.
If it's all about collecting rare, I don't think it's really exciting to grab it sitting on your sofa in front of your I-Mac.
Just imagine Indiana Jones grabbing the Holy Grail through auction on ebay..
Not entirely true. We're all collecting shit that was collected before our time. It will continue to be passed on. Kids are still collecting the shit. 15 year old Timmy wants Skull Snaps and shit. Many, many funk records are cheaper now than in the early-mid 90s. So prices aren't always going up due to ebay.
Too much overanalyzing. This shit is really simple. Fuck warehouses and dead stock. Collections resurface. People die. People stop collecting. People's wives force them to lighten the load. Not all of these people know what to ask for their records, so cheap supply becomes available. Not everyone wants to sell on ebay.
A lot of this is nice theory but isn't how it actually works...
I think Ebay will reach a tipping point where most of these amateur - bought a container of records at an estate sale/auction types are out of the game (especially since vinyl is perilously close to being a "collector only" format). Things will settle down a little bit but nothing drastic.
A record goes for money because people know
1) It's rare
2) What's on it
If you don't, then the price doesn't go up. It's the reason we have threads on here saying "is this dope?" with a link to ebay. You have people on here that don't know what UPP is (yesterday), yet probobly own Placebo and 100% Pure Poison because they went to "breakbeats.com" or some shit.
Everytime a cover of an lp is posted...anytime someone starts a thread that says "Price check" it's fucking up the game for people with experience. I'm not even mad at it, but it's the problem. I don't care if someone posts "breakbeat rare" on ebay. 100's of people do. You still need to know the deal. Syl Johnson was $50 back before Ebay showed up (back when records were cheap) because it was known enough to be still a valueable record. Shit like 1619 badass band used to be found for $1 at any given record show....
I'll tell you this. 10 or 12 years ago you'd look around at a record show and maybe see one or two other people diggin'...now? You got tons of kids with portables looking for anything they see posted on digging sites. Again, I'm not complaining more than I'm sharing what I've seen from my perspective.
Definitely. (not directed to AP specifically) Are y'all ready for the micro press CD revolution? You thought "private press" was big now, how about selling ORIGINAL cdr promos? Or electronic/free jazz stuff.... there's tens of thousands of tiny labels out there just waiting to be "discovered" and their STRICTLY LIMITED 100-copies-to-the-world releases trumped up as hot shit. In 20 years they will be amazed anybody cares, just as artists from the 60s and 70s are amazed anybody remembers. This is already happening, it's just not stable.
What AP sayin about records changin prices is absolutely true. "Places and Spaces" used to really sell for 50 dollars! I sold a shitload of Debra Laws and other generic records to Japan for 20+ (which at the time seemed like a lot of loot). I would run into Japanese dudes damn near once a month and let them go thru my collection. I sold a lot of shit I regret now, but at the time I THOUGHT I was gettin over. Lol Look at how the hip hop records lost tremendous value. I'm sure in the next year "modern soul" will slow down and it will be some other shit.
Have hip-hop records as a whole really lost value, though? To me it seems as if the market ahs just reconfigured and people are chasing different hip-hop records than they were previously. Sure, most of the Native Tongues or Hiero 12"s that people used to be able to get ~$30 for online are now dirt cheap, but old school and "random rap" have been steadily appreciating.
Pretty much anything early-mid 90s has depreciated. Also late 80s stuff.
What irks me so much about it is that there are some really great records that people just aren't after any more. They'd rather spend ten times the amount on some absolutely dreadful random rap record. Like the private press craze, I hope at some point people go back to buying music that's good, not just rare.
i used to sell multiple copies of pee wee's dance for $15 each.
shit... even TLC were in demand ( whatever that means ).
hey oliver, nothing personal at all. you know i have respect for you.
i just get all fussy at 11 at night when i read my name up in this thread.
my feeling is that records are being sold it public now ( eBay ) and no longer in private.
people can peep and comment all day long ( no problem ).
everyone knows everyones business.
for the record eBay has not been a boon for my business. the cost of selling records and processing records is too high. i wish i could do more set sale business. by the time i am done paying eBay, Paypal, Marketworks, employees, operational expenses, dealing with returns and the occasional chargeback bullshit not only am I exhauseted but taxed.
it used to take 5 hours to sell 1000 records. now it takes 5 weeks.
oh how i long for the days of big sales out of the back of my truck at 6 in the morning.
eBay killed that, that's for sure. everyone grips and the Japanese and Europeans don't even bother to come by anymore.
ap
I agree.
If your Juice Crew collection isn't right, you really don't need to be chasing all this "random rap," but I think there's always gonna be people approaching record collecting with a baseball card collector mentality.
Since it's a newer genre and thus a less established market, things won't settle down until collectors are more familiar with what's on these more obscure singles and there's a more univeral acceptance of which records are actually of good quality. But JP I'm suprised you're wanting to see this happen anytime soon! I'm loving selling copies of something like Sudden Def for $200...it gives a dealer/collector the opportunity to actually keep some good records and still make a little living selling the somewhat mediocre rarities.
I'm feeling this.
Eh, I would rather that the prices even out, I'd give up the $$$ random rap if I could get more on the great titles that are not as rare.
And don't
Eh. I see that, but at the same time I would like to sell records that are actually good. Makes for less akward moments:
"Man, I been looking for this record forever!"
"
"It's SO dope!"
"Um... yeah, really uh... dope."
"OMFG HIP HOP CLASSIC!"
"
One new phenomena it's created is the "record dealer" who doesn't know anything about records. I run into these doofuses all the time canvasing the thrift store thinking they're hot shit and talking down to me. They think of themself as professional but are really comic. I had a convo with one of them recently about how he won't sell to anybody online because they argue about "every little scratch". Well, how do you grade? I ask. "Oh, I don't grade". So he buys from thrift stores, prices them from ebay, then sells at an antique mall. Record shows have become basically meaningless thanks to these guys, who hoard anything for their little hobby.
It's also totally infuriating because what a record is "worth" has been defined as Ebay price, which is really "what's the maximum this record can be sold for on this given day." If two guys get in a battle over 1 LP that hardly defines the price of that album. I won't get into it too much, but how much a record goes for more than anything else depends on who happens to be watching it, whether they have $ to spend, if their searches hit on the search terms in the auction, the exchange rate, tides, phases of the moon, etc. etc.
There are pro's to ebay tho. One thing people miss when they rip on ebay is it has a leveling effect on price. If a previously unknown record sells for $300, you can be guaranteed every dealer and collector checks their closet for it. Next week there might be 3 copies of something nobody would bother with before. This isn't shrinking the pool, it's expanding it. Same with hip-hop. Eventually the market got saturated and prices hit bottom. Hip-hop's the cheapest it's been in years right now.