Second hand vinyl - are prices for classic rock going up, down or flatlining?

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by back2vinyl, May 27, 2018.

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  1. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    But would you agree that almost all grading from sellers and shops (if they even do that) is visually graded? Visual grading is really just an educated guess. Under and over grading is unavoidable it that case. I've put too many pristine looking records on the turntable that had significant surface noise and I've put too many records on the turntable with significant scratches and a milky appearance that played without even a single random crackle. It is so impractical to judge an auditory article using a visual measurement.
     
  2. Old Zorki II

    Old Zorki II Storm Watcher

    Location:
    near Tampa, FL
    Actually, it is impractical to playgrade every single record (at least for professional shop). Why bother with $10 records?
    And yes, sometimes visually pristine record sounds bad and beat up pretty decent, but those are often exceptions.
    I recently got record which seller graded it G+ (I bought it cheap). It looked horrific, all scratched - but played well with almost no clicks. Sound was VG+ or better. So I paid $30 for probably $100-$150 condition - but only as a listener, will have hard time selling it as VG+, if it ever comes to this.
    So no one bothers to playgrade cheap records, and for very expensive - often also not, as potential buyers are collectors who never listen to record, but who judge by looks )))).
    My local shop (again, I use it as example - they are great shop, famous, with long history) playgrade I think everything over $50.

    I spot playgrade records right in a store, and when bought online and overgraded I ship it back. Now overseas sellers are a different story, as shipping back can be impractical for all but very expensive stuff. But it is subject for another topic....
     
    Giorgio likes this.
  3. riverrat

    riverrat Senior Member

    Location:
    Oregon
    I often wonder this myself. Original pressings of Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Floyd bring good prices today if they are in nice shape. But will this continue to be the case? Are these bands timeless, or simply of their time?
     
  4. Christian Hill

    Christian Hill It's all in the mind

    Location:
    Boston
    It's from 2017 but seems pertinent:

    Can’t help falling in price: why Elvis memorabilia is plummeting in value

    Take the Good Rockin’ Tonight EP. In 1998, the Rare Record Guide listed it for £125 but – according to online record database Discogs – over the past 10 years it has fetched a median price of £13.50. The singer’s You’ll Never Walk Alone LP was worth £400 in the 2012 Rare Record Guide, but is valued at £150 in the 2018 edition. These are indicative of a general trend. “If you try to sell any Elvis record that could easily have sold for £15-£20 each in the 1980s today, you can hardly give them away,” says Red, who runs an online Elvis vinyl store.

    [​IMG]


    Why is this? It’s depressingly apt that John Duffie, the first collector I wanted to ask that question to, has passed away. The Elvis Shop London – the UK’s only Elvis store – closed its doors recently due to “simply not making any kind of profit”. Europe’s last Elvis music store, the Elvis Corner Store in Utrecht now opens just one day a week. The truth is, with many Elvis fans and collectors well into their 70s and 80s, as each year goes by, more are lost. This then floods the market with their wares.
     
    uzn007 likes this.
  5. Mikewest

    Mikewest Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    All these rock fans will die out too , I’m a Bowie fan, the fans like me will die and their siblings will take over the interest but in lesser numbers. They of course will never have seen Bowie and as the years go by the interest will dwindle , that’s exactly what’s happened with Elvis, maybe The Beatles will be next , who knows , it’s like Russian roulette, do you keep or sell now. Now only vinyl is worth anything as CDs are dirt cheap, even I have noticed that Bowie Bootleg CDs have certainly gone done while Vinyls prices still soar!
    ( at the moment ) .
     
  6. Chrome_Head

    Chrome_Head Planetary Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA.
    Seems like I'm seeing 2nd hand vinyl prices (mainly rock stuff is what I look at) creeping higher and higher, both in stores and on Discogs.
     
    black sheriff, Gavaxeman and uzn007 like this.
  7. Gavaxeman

    Gavaxeman Take me back to dear old Blighty...

    Location:
    West Midlands U.K.
    I would definitely say good condition second hand classic rock vinyl has gone up substantially over the last 10 years ...

    also quality 80’s vinyl that I could pick up in bargain bins for £3 has moved up as well, more around a tenner now ...
     
    black sheriff and Chrome_Head like this.
  8. erikdavid5000

    erikdavid5000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Discogs is usually reasonable in my experience since copies for sale usually run the gamut from cheap as dirt to Uber expensive. Stores have jumped the shark by and large. Just insane prices and entire boxes full of “Tusk” on the floor at $20+ per copy.
     
  9. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    Prices for used vinyl (60's through 80's rock and pop) are still on the rise in my area. Stuff I was seeing for $6 a year ago is going between $8 and $10. One shop in particular has marked out prices and replaced it with a higher price...with a Sharpie written on the outer bag. I actually looked over a clean Kiss Alive II album, and was interested until I saw the price...$50! What the crap is going on?

    What's even more weird...there was a dude standing next to me and snagged it when I put it back.
     
    erikdavid5000 likes this.
  10. Doghouse Riley

    Doghouse Riley Forum Resident

    Location:
    North West England
    There's a great variance in prices., I've two vinyl jukeboxes and I've been buying records for them from time to time over the last decade or so.

    Prices have risen in that time. At one tine I was paying around £3.00 for used and £5.00 for mint copies from the "Collectables" series.
    But the biggest increase has been in the cost of shipping frnm the USA to the UK. It now often doubles or trebles the cost of the record.

    I also find there's more variety and better prices on Discogs rather than on eBay.

    A lot depends on the rarety of the record. One that didn't sell well on releasecan be vastly more expensive than those which were million sellers


    These were the purchases I made on Discogs over the last month or so. There's quite a big disparity in the prices, all these had shipping on top.


    The Blossoms - Good Good Lovin' (7", Single, Promo) £12

    The Honey Bees - One Wonderful Night (7", Single) £12

    The Duprees - Have You Heard / Love Eyes (7", Single) £1.60

    The Cookies - Will Power / I Want A Boy For My Birthday (7", Single) £2.50
     
  11. dkurtis

    dkurtis sonoftheFather

    US Discog prices have dramatically increased when the majority of the listed records are in Europe. High international shipping costs are a license to increase domestic prices by that same margin. We will no longer order records from European sellers, and US sellers know that.
     
    eddiel and ODShowtime like this.
  12. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    He can purchase it frehley.
     
    black sheriff likes this.
  13. radickeyfan

    radickeyfan Forum Resident

    Up , Up and away .....
     
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  14. MrSka57

    MrSka57 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse, New York
    Worn copy of Rumours - $15
    Really worn copy of Carole King's Tapestry - $20
     
    Fender Relic likes this.
  15. Fender Relic

    Fender Relic Forum Resident

    Location:
    PennsylBama
    Rumours is a wild card around here, anywhere from $1 at the thrifts to $20+ at brick and mortar record stores. Reasonably priced at most other places in the $4-10 range. Tapestry is more towards $1-5.
     
    MrSka57 likes this.
  16. dkurtis

    dkurtis sonoftheFather

    Increasing Discogs prices are going to drive buyers back to Ebay.
     
  17. Strat-Mangler

    Strat-Mangler Personal Survival Daily Record-Breaker

    Location:
    Toronto
    Where are you getting any of this nonsense from?
     
  18. dkurtis

    dkurtis sonoftheFather

    As a seller and buyer. I spend a great deal of time studying the marketplace in the genres I have interest. I state my observations and you can do with them as you wish.
     
  19. ODShowtime

    ODShowtime jaded faded

    Location:
    Tampa
    I'm seeing the big names like Zeppelin and the Dead go up in price locally. It used to be record buyer heaven around here but I'm not seeing much these days. I hope the pipeline didn't get messed up with the all the 2020 fun times.
     
  20. vinylbeat

    vinylbeat Forum Resident

    Are the prices just going up at the retail level? Are stores, dealers and resellers actually paying more these days when purchasing records from collectors and private individuals?
     
    MrSka57 likes this.
  21. MrSka57

    MrSka57 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Syracuse, New York
    No. It's buy (way) low and sell (more way) high here. Making up for virus losses I suppose.
     
  22. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Go to a used store and write down the Fleetwood Macs at 15 ringed out, common U2 albums at $20, etc.. Over and over they get sold when you come back a week later to see if they are there. Yes, Elvis has left the building cept the mint or high end. Too many teens are getting into the vinyl thing for it to go down much.
     
  23. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    When I buy a collection I check condition, count up the common rock albums I can sell for $4. I count how many records there might be that are worth $10 or more. I look for any thing that is worth a lot more than that. And I count how many are either in poor condition or have no demand. More often than not there are few if any albums worth s10 or more. Remember more than 80% of all records are worth between zero and $5.

    The last collection I bought numbered 130. There were between 65 and 70 common, good condition records I could sell at my antique shop table for $4. There was one record that I wanted to add to my personal collection, a Rounder Records Bashful Brother Oswald album that wasn't worth much to anyone but me. There were no records worth big money. So there were about 60 records that (as a courtesy) I would have to haul off and donate at the charity thrift or carry to the dump.

    I explained all this to the seller and offered her $100 which she accepted. My reasoning was that I couldn't pay more than $1.50 each for those 65-70. A few of those would turn out to be in poor condition and have to be tossed. I'll clean each record and put in new inner and outer sleeves so that is 32 cents per not counting cleaning supplies and I'm not factoring in time and effort. Basically I'll have a little more that $2 in each record and sell for $4. If there had been 3 higher value albums in that collection, say Pink Floyd DSM, LZ II, and Grateful Dead Europe 72 I would have offered $125-$140.

    I don't think buyers are lowballing sellers these days. There are a lot of factors that don't seem to be considered when discussing this.
     
  24. Chee

    Chee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Denver
    Stores aren't paying more. Lowball city for decades. They size you up then here it comes, the lowball.
     
    MrSka57 likes this.
  25. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    Considering that the person that walks in to a record shop or meets with a record flipper is the first link of the chain for a used record to end up on a shelf at a record shop or consignment booth, what percentage of retail price do you consider fair market price for a record? 15%, 25%, 40%, 50%??????
     
    uzn007, MrSka57 and All Down The Line like this.
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