The Records Thread

fat_fleet said:
Looking at records in terms of value and collecting as an investment strategy would be pretty disappointing for almost anyone. There are way better places to put your money. Chances are very poor for most people to have anything in their collection that's worth more than a few bucks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you do occasionally see some early pressings of early Pink Floyd and Zep going for megabucks on ebay, but most are like royal commemorative memorabilia - as soon as people realised there was some value in them, the quantities increased and everyone collected them, so the values drop. I enjoy keeping an eye on what crops up though, and though I'm no great Floyd fan (and certainly not of this era of their works), this current one is pretty interesting: Pink Floyd vinyl

Okay, this one's the last I'll post up for now and probably jewel of my collection. I didn't set out to buy this as an investment and wouldn't ever sell, but it's pretty rare. Haven't seen any copies for sale in the UK since buying (think I got it imported from Germany). From what I can tell, it now goes for around $600-700 in the US. Love this boxset - 11 LPs of tour only albums and rarities:

20160127_225132.jpg


20160127_224943.jpg
 
Last edited:
I lived with a mate of mine for a year and, while drinking loads of wine, I got him into record collecting. He'd never really listened to music on vinyl before. He's now completely obsessed and got loads of rare and interesting stuff.

One of his really rare ones is Mad Season.
 


---------- Update ----------



---------- Update ----------



---------- Update ----------



---------- Update ----------



---------- Update ----------







And more... :)
 
I've got a Rush picture disc you'd think was worth some money, but it's listed on eBay for only $25.

Rush.jpg
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
And more... :)
Click to expand...

Hey Obi-Wan.. great records! Our collections seem like they'd overlap quite a bit. I like your Coltrane and Mingus records.. I just got that Let My Children Hear Music a couple months back along with Cumbia and Jazz Fusion, I'm not a huge Mingus fan, but my wife likes him. I've been personally going after electric Miles for a couple years now, trying to get really nice pressings of all the late 60s and 70s stuff. There's still a lot I don't have because I'm really picky about sleeve condition, ringwear etc. but I've got an ace On The Corner, In a Silent Way, and Big Fun all in the past couple years.

It's been getting alot harder to find really clean copies of stuff from that era.
 
Yeah, nice collection Obi. Mingus is my favourite of the jazzers - seems to hit the sweet spot for me in terms of balancing melody and experimentation. Ah Um and Black Saint... are two beauts.

So, how do the collectors on here feel about original copies vs the reissues? Originals in good condition can get pretty pricey, especially once you start chasing albums from a bit further back. Like with Mingus or Miles - you can get a nice new reissue on heavy vinyl for £15-20, but you're probably talking £50+ for the originals.

For all intents and purposes you're getting the same product and in some ways the audio quality of the new copy may well be better, but do folks feel like they're missing out on something if they pick up a new copy? I dunno, like some sense of the history of the product or something gets lost that's worth paying 2-3 times the amount for?
 
I have lots of LPs and a nice Phillips turntable with an Audio Technica Nude Shibata cartridge. But I haven't bought vinyl in a LONG time.
 
robgreen said:
Yeah, nice collection Obi. Mingus is my favourite of the jazzers - seems to hit the sweet spot for me in terms of balancing melody and experimentation. Ah Um and Black Saint... are two beauts.

So, how do the collectors on here feel about original copies vs the reissues? Originals in good condition can get pretty pricey, especially once you start chasing albums from a bit further back. Like with Mingus or Miles - you can get a nice new reissue on heavy vinyl for £15-20, but you're probably talking £50+ for the originals.

For all intents and purposes you're getting the same product and in some ways the audio quality of the new copy may well be better, but do folks feel like they're missing out on something if they pick up a new copy? I dunno, like some sense of the history of the product or something gets lost that's worth paying 2-3 times the amount for?
Click to expand...

Good question. I think that quest for authenticity is part of thinking like a collector, and I really didn't until 4-5 years ago. I'm sure I've mentioned I started buying records as a little boy when they were still the dominant format, and just always sought out the vinyl pressing of whatever I wanted over the tape, CD or whatnot.. so for most of my life I didn't really consider myself a "collector" any more than someone with a lot of DVDs would consider themselves a 'DVD collector' and chase original DVD runs.

But since coming to terms with being a "collector", it's kind of weird but I have started chasing earlier pressings. For years my copy of The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was a reissue on the Carthage folk label I had bought when I was 18.. but after a mishap in our last apartment where my dog put a significant scratch on one side, my wife got me a minty 70s Elektra pressing off ebay for my birthday with the "butterfly label", which made it my most collectable ISB record, since my others are early 80s pressings with the red Elektra label.

I similarly replaced a 70s Columbia pressing of Sweetheart of the Rodeo with a clean "360 2-Eye" label version that I found at a flea market, enabling me to give the old one away. Lately I've been on a mission to replace my Warner Bros "street label" stuff with the older "olive label" pressings. Weird, since I didn't think this way at all up to a few years ago.

But I've haven't paid 50 quid for an album yet.. that's still a little blue for my blood. I think 30 USD is about as high as I've gone so far, and not that often. The butterfly label ISB my wife bought on ebay for me was under 20 USD, I'm pretty sure.
 
Obi-Wan zenabI said:
Click to expand...

One of the things I love about the Dead records is all the mystique to their cover art.. the hidden messages, "Ugly Rumours" etc.

And Aoxomoxoa probably has one of the most scrutinized covers ever.. from the hidden "We Ate The Acid" on the front, to the iconic "group shot" on the back. Here's a great blog on who actually appears in that shot:
Grateful Dead Guide: Who's Who In The Aoxomoxoa Photo

One of them is NOT Courtney Love, as is popularly speculated.. but Vince Guaraldi of the famed Vince Guaraldi trio is in the photo (in the back next to the horse).
 
Autographs.jpg

A couple of mine. I have tons of records. My brother worked at a record store for years. He has thousands of albums and thousands of CDs.
 
robgreen said:
Yeah, you do occasionally see some early pressings of early Pink Floyd and Zep going for megabucks on ebay, but most are like royal commemorative memorabilia - as soon as people realised there was some value in them, the quantities increased and everyone collected them, so the values drop. I enjoy keeping an eye on what crops up though, and though I'm no great Floyd fan (and certainly not of this era of their works), this current one is pretty interesting: Pink Floyd vinyl

Okay, this one's the last I'll post up for now and probably jewel of my collection. I didn't set out to buy this as an investment and wouldn't ever sell, but it's pretty rare. Haven't seen any copies for sale in the UK since buying (think I got it imported from Germany). From what I can tell, it now goes for around $600-700 in the US. Love this boxset - 11 LPs of tour only albums and rarities:

20160127_225132.jpg


20160127_224943.jpg
Click to expand...

Just noticed it doesn't look like the photos showed up last time, so I've just re-edited the post. Dunno if anyone else is interested or not, y'all got largely older tastes than me so far it seems :rolleyes:
 
Ha, I did notice those pictures never got posted but I was out n about at the time and forgot to mention it later. :)
Nice box!
 
fat_fleet said:
Good question. I think that quest for authenticity is part of thinking like a collector, and I really didn't until 4-5 years ago. I'm sure I've mentioned I started buying records as a little boy when they were still the dominant format, and just always sought out the vinyl pressing of whatever I wanted over the tape, CD or whatnot.. so for most of my life I didn't really consider myself a "collector" any more than someone with a lot of DVDs would consider themselves a 'DVD collector' and chase original DVD runs.

But since coming to terms with being a "collector", it's kind of weird but I have started chasing earlier pressings. For years my copy of The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter was a reissue on the Carthage folk label I had bought when I was 18.. but after a mishap in our last apartment where my dog put a significant scratch on one side, my wife got me a minty 70s Elektra pressing off ebay for my birthday with the "butterfly label", which made it my most collectable ISB record, since my others are early 80s pressings with the red Elektra label.

I similarly replaced a 70s Columbia pressing of Sweetheart of the Rodeo with a clean "360 2-Eye" label version that I found at a flea market, enabling me to give the old one away. Lately I've been on a mission to replace my Warner Bros "street label" stuff with the older "olive label" pressings. Weird, since I didn't think this way at all up to a few years ago.

But I've haven't paid 50 quid for an album yet.. that's still a little blue for my blood. I think 30 USD is about as high as I've gone so far, and not that often. The butterfly label ISB my wife bought on ebay for me was under 20 USD, I'm pretty sure.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think I'm more music fan than collector too, and so with limited resources to indulge my music buying tastes then there has to be a balancing. As I said above, my tastes are a bit more contemporary than some, so often I'm buying vinyl for new releases, in which case it's a moot point. New vinyl is undergoing a real renaissance at the moment with the quality of the vinyl itself having generally improved over the last decade. More often than not getting a 320 mp3 download code with new records is a real bonus too - being able to rip new records to my ipod for listening to on the move is the best of both worlds.

Of the older records I do buy, most of my tastes are recent enough to be able to find originals in good condition at an affordable price. There are more mint New Order and Talking Heads LPs floating round than Sweetheart of the Rodeo etc. so in those cases I guess I can afford and prefer the originals. New Order in particular were guilty of some real poor quality remastering jobs in the 00s, so it's a bit of a gamble buying any of their reissues anyway.

Fifty quid for one record is generally too rich for my pocket too - I'm pretty surprised original ISB was so affordable to be honest.
 
fat_fleet said:
Ha, I did notice those pictures never got posted but I was out n about at the time and forgot to mention it later. :)
Nice box!
Click to expand...

Gah, I think I was still logged in to dropbox when I posted, so they initially showed up for me at time of posting even though it wasn't the public link.
 
Here's one of my more photogenic recent-ish records.. Not sure how into avant doom drone you are, Rob, but Alter is the 2006 collab between Boris and Sunn O)). Fantastic record through and through, though definitely not for folks who think *my* music runs long. :D

It's a triple clear 180g with 14-page booklet which annoyingly doesn't fit into a record bag.

7cKteYeM


iviajnGw


AvlWqS13

Liner notes by Kim Thayil

9liI0sX2


S2VB4gg9


CwJXFIhh


jbe8Vo1P


WTh6A2Nu


Great album though. I'll bet you'd really like The Sinking Belle, Rob.
 
robgreen said:
I'm pretty surprised original ISB was so affordable to be honest.
Click to expand...

Depends on what you mean by "original".. None of my ISBs are first pressings.. the oldest pressing is probably the 'butterfly' label Hangman's that I was talking about before, and also I have an oldish pressing of 'U', but it's pretty dilapidated and not their best work, so it didn't make this family shot..

Ybbf3AQk


My '5000 Spirits' and 'Wee Tam' were 5 bux a pop when I bought them 20 years ago. Both 80s pressings I think.
IrROqhyp
 
Last edited:
I don't know about rarity or value but I have this single and the 12' EP version
dpiny0.jpgdp7.jpg
I have a couple of thou LPs and a few more than that in CDs PLUS a couple of hundred Compact Cassettes.
I've been buying since the early 70s & haven't stopped unless a format dried up or went away.
I bought these new release LPs in the last 12 months dacc III.jpgnew c.jpg along with the usual op shop etc hauls.
I'm not into the coloured stuff but the pre-order copy of Incantations came with band autographs and on white plastic disc.
 
rayc said:
I don't know about rarity or value but I have this single and the 12' EP version
View attachment 95981View attachment 95980
I have a couple of thou LPs and a few more than that in CDs PLUS a couple of hundred Compact Cassettes.
I've been buying since the early 70s & haven't stopped unless a format dried up or went away.
I bought these new release LPs in the last 12 months View attachment 95983View attachment 95982 along with the usual op shop etc hauls.
I'm not into the coloured stuff but the pre-order copy of Incantations came with band autographs and on white plastic disc.
Click to expand...
I love that you've coded the file names ray... :laughings:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top