The Worst Pricing You've Seen at a Record Store

Record Rama, Pittsburgh, PA - everything. Absolutely everything. Assuming the owner would actually sell you the item (sometimes, he wouldn't, thus missing the point of A STORE.)

That store is not missed, at all.

 

Well, it's the Beatles!!

 

There's nothing new here. Dynamite Records in Northampton, MA was pricing original Beatles and Stones LPs at $20 each back in the early 00s despite the generally trashed condition. On the other hand, you could pick up Neil Young records for around $3 each.

 

Things were better before Discogs. I picked up more than one record I sold for more than $100 out of Dynamite's $2/$10 for 10 bins.

 

Personally I’m not a fan of Discogs for buying. Ive had terrible luck there. Just today I made a purchase and had it cancelled because they didn’t have the record. One seller, when I purchased a test pressing, sent me the regular copy then took almost a month to refund me after he got his record back. Thats the third time Ive had something cancelled because they didn’t have it and Ive only done/tried to do 5-6 transactions total on there. Nope, I’m over that place for buying.

And today I was back at the Big Chicken Barn because mentioning it made me want to go again. I did score some nice records for a buck each, including a CCR and Jim Croce. Saw a Gene Simmons solo album for $30, some Beatles 45’s for $10 each and lots of other overpriced vinyl.

 

I always say:
"Things are priced to sell or priced to keep!"

 

Recently visited a collector’s store with records, comics, baseball cards, etc. They had The Beatles ‘Abbey Road’ on US Apple in roughly VG- condition for $200. But it was on sale for 20% off! It was also sitting on the floor with other over priced poor condition LP’s by the front door where it was easily bumped by people’s shoes. It’s probably still there if anyone wants to go and get it.

 

So a $200 record is a doormatt WT?
Mad Management Incorporated!

 

Heh, well not a doormat per se, but placing an item you’d like to sell for $200 on the floor and by the door seemed odd. But, asking $200 for a worn copy of Abbey Road is odd too.

 

But it's the Beatles!!! The name alone is worth $120!!!

 

Lol. I love (hate) it when I see dealers at a record show trying to sell LPs that they're asking $50+ for, and they don't even have them in a protective sleeve.

 

Yes or post them to someone in a .50 cent document mailer.

 

any used gold CD (DCC or mofi) - minimum $50+

regardless of condition or title.

 

There is a shop near me that does this, but their gold discs start at $200 or so...that was a couple years ago, probably still sitting there unsold. They have a lot of vinyl too, but most of it is in terrible condition so I wouldn't buy it at any price.

 

Eighty percent of all records eventually end up in either the $1 bin at the record store, or the 4 for a $1 deal at the charity thrift. You just have to have patience. Ten percent make it to the $3 bins and the other ten percent are forever overpriced.

I almost always buy my records at yard sales, when people call me to sell or give me their collection, thrift shops and the $1 bins of records shops. It always makes me chuckle when I get a common classic rock album at a charity thrift with a $30 sticker on it. I imagine that yet another person thought they had a goldmine with a crate of records and eventually just dumped them at Helping Hands Thrift Store when no one would buy them for those crazy prices.

I do very well at Record shows as well. Sure there are all other flippers with the high dollar prices, but I just walk on by and dig through the $1 bins. It also often works to pull out a few records near closing time and making an offer at a much lower than sticker price.

 

Iam not a dealer but I would include a percentage for the $50-$100 records that actually sell for what they are worth every day of the week!

 

In a way I can understand overpricing on perfect and rare records. There are people who simply do not care much about pricing and simply want the rarest and the best (or often what perceived to be the best). Paying $150 for sealed "America - Homecoming" is fine for them, even if $3 bins are brimming with them. So there should be a market for those folks )).
But what I can never get are trashed common records priced like new collectibles. And yet.... It is all supply and demand.

 

This trick is getting old. I've seen prices at just above twice the real cost and then 50% off. How dumb do dealers think people are?

 

They know their customer well.

 

They have customs.

 

I've always thought it isn't worth looking at those floor stacks at record fairs. I now think differently because I found a first US pressing of David Bowie's first album. It had a $250 price tag on it. And in good shape! The way it was thrown on the floor, though, made me realize that price was super negotiable. I paid $100.

 

Okay, 0.1% for those.

 

Perfect and rare are few and far between.

 

If you are buying something like that as an investment or because you have lots of disposable income and just like having something that is rare I get it. If you are collecting to listen I don't get it at all.

 

I did not understand your point. People should not listen to their collections?
For example I have a decent copy of Gift "Blue Apple". It is a collectable for sure - and yet other releases no real match for 1st press. So what should I do, becides ripping?