Second hand record prices rising well over inflation?

I slowed down used vinyl purchases about 10 years ago when I saw prices rising. Still buy the odd title more to compare an original UK with a reissue if anything. Many were actually noisy pressings to begin with which partly nullifies the AAA advantage over a well pressed digital source. I mainly bought used other than a few audiophile pressings from the mid nineties to around 2011. Grading has become an increasing issue as well. I would imagine London shops have the most inflated prices for used vinyl and the best place to buy is the north of England. It's hard to find anything in nice shape below £15 these days where twenty years ago £5 was the norm in used dealers unless it was a rarity / collectable. Seems to some people anything on plastic is now a collectable.

 

Absolutely. This is something I was going to point out.

Think back 10 or 12 years ago. Before Android phones provided us with quick easy internet access.

Many Thrift stores for example for years would regularly price vinyl albums at the same price. Regardless of any particular album. They'd all be in a section priced at $2.99, or whatever.

Those thrift stores didn't have easy internet access at the time. So the staff wouldn't know the difference between a Saturday Night Live Soundtrack album, to a copy of KISS Alive II, which contained the booklets & tattoo inserts.

Bill Wyman Monkey Grip would be priced the same as Boney M.

But after the android phones gave them easy access to check the net, all of a sudden we now see this huge spike in prices.

Which completely deflates the fun out of second hand store shopping.

 

It's interesting that shortly after Bowie died prices for standard original albums in EX condition shot up with RCA Victor pressings fetching £60. This lasted about 4 years until prices dropped by around 50% and less.

If the market is saturated with the same records at stupid prices, prices will drop as no one will pay crazy money.

 

I’m not sure why you are so quick to mention Android here as I would actually argue the iPhone was more responsible for the spread of mobile use of the “real” Internet.

I still recall the deeply defeatured web pages you had to use on phone Web browsers before the iPhone changed everything.

Today I would say it’s just mobile web using whatever method you choose; many tablets and computers even have built in cellular data access.

 

Nah, 10-12 years ago ebay was already in full swing. You're 10-12 years too late with this theory

 

I would say phones and tablets have made it easier to do.

 

They've always been great down there at Clearwater Record Store. Probably gone up a bit since I've been out of the game the past few months.

 

Haven’t been to that on yet..will check it out

 

There are surviving records where the generation that liked that kind of music has pretty much died out. It could be good music, but there are no more fans left to enjoy it. There will always be those in later generations that could discover it, but that would be more an exception than the norm.

 

Locally prices have jumped a good bit. What were once 10 dollar albums are now 17 or even 20. Any name items, Beatles, Stones, Who, Zep, they are stupid, even beat up copies 20 dollars or more. My favorite local store has a new owner, the entire vibe the original owner created is gone, completely. I doubt I'll return. There was nothing I really saw that even was interesting, my collection was better, by far than what he had for sale. Whenever I went into the store when the original owner was there I'd ask what goodies he had behind the counter. Without fail he had something wonderful. I asked the new owner, he had nothing. I got the vibe of a guy who thought it would be cool to open a record store, but really wasn't in to records.

 

It shouldn't be.

 

Yeah that's not good when we lose our record stores, and changing owners to one looking at it as a hobby collecting is losing a record store.

 

Sometimes it takes a bit for new owners to understand their clientele. Whatever kind of used stuff is most always going to be up to luck. Sometimes a store can find a good batch of used stuff, sometimes it can be dry. As far as prices, I doubt this guy is getting stuff as cheap as the old owner used to. You know the good old days back when nobody bought anything physical so owners had to be cheap... and could get stuff cheap.

 

Yesterday, I was checking out my surrounding neighbourhood for various garage sales. Almost no one is willing to sell records and a few that did are 50s stuff that almost no one wants. There was a big neighbourhood garage sale near my city's downtown core over a week ago and there are a lot more people selling their records and CDs, but I couldn't make it as I was away from the city. Pre-pandemic, there's a few big sellers of records but were priced at higher-than-normal prices, going by garage sale pricing standards, so I'd imagine it's probably higher now.

Though, I did score Bruce Springsteen's The River double LP for a whole twenty-five cents. It's quite dirty and it has some superficial paper scuffs but is otherwise looks good.

 

yep. there are a lot of simple minded idiots out there who don't mind defacing private property to get their ideological, agenda driven "message" across.

 

The thing is that around 2005/6 the name of a page like www.popsike.com was treated as top secret. Because it was one of the very first sites that revealed what a record could fetch. Back then this was my main source of information.

Discogs already was around but more of a discography site. Things changed drastically over the course of the next couple of years. More people got smart phones, more people were aware of Popsike and Discogs, consequently you had more rivals when digging early in the morning. And suddenly professional dealers were aware that there's value in more recent vinyl and started picking up 90's vinyl too.

Around that time - 2010/11 - Ebay encouraged people to stop doing auctions and switch to "Buy Now" instead. Which slowly but steadily led to people asking more and more "optimistic" prices. Sometimes successfully.

Another aspect was that more and more private persons willing to split with their records started to look 'em up online first. Giving them - sometimes inflated - ideas about their value.

All this led to where we currently are. More people with more information coupled with rising prices. Resulting in: Even more rising prices.

This may all be very basic but that's how I experienced it over here in Germany.

 

Another thing you’ve gotta remember about discogs and mobile phones is that record store shoppers can check prices with no effort, immediately while digging through records in a store. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t put something back I was originally interested in buying in the past couple years because I found a cleaner copy for less on discogs. It’s a bit of a double edged sword with prices, because if I can buy something for less online and have a better return policy, why wouldn’t I? I support local stores as much as I can and I’m somewhat of a regular at my local shop, but sometimes when I do find a cleaner copy of something for $10 less online, of course I’ll buy that copy instead.

In my experience this generally leads to more realistic local prices and even some deals/steals because stores are competing with individual sellers and online retailers. I bought 2 copies of The Velvet Underground- Loaded for around $100 online, and then a week later I found a clean copy for $25 locally.

 

I went to a record fair in Leicester UK today and I was shocked by some of the insane prices. I heard people complaining and the stalls were not selling lots. This was the first record fair I had been to since the pandemic and it seems prices were 20% to 50% more than they were in early 2020. However there was hardly anyone there, unlike before the pandemic. Anything Beatles, zeppelin, sabbath, stones, Dylan Hendrix was crazy prices even for run of the mill pressings in poor condition. People were laughing at the prices. I saw a trout mask replica with a torn sleeve (literally looked like someone had tried to cut out the art work) for £30, also saw a good to poor condition black sabbath paranoid vertigo swirl for £275 you would struggle to get that for a mint copy.

There was one good stall which had lots of Japanese pressings for great prices and was the only stall that was selling at normal prices. I got supertramp breakfast in America Japanese pressing, Boston don’t look back Japanese pressing and Gillian future shock all mint for £5 each which I think is an excellent price. So there are good deals to be had.

It’s a shame as if they priced them at what they are worth then they would sell more, even knocking of 20% would make them more money than selling online after fees. But it was great to do some record shopping and picking up some good finds.

 

The 2nd hand CD's nowadays are just like the 2nd hand vinyl was in mid 2000's.

About vinyl, too much "NM" copies for sale on the discog, about 10 years ago there was less NM copies. Hmmm... and totally crazy prices.

 

Interesting question. At least those Russian made replica CD's are now going for high prices on the Discog. Which were like 3 $ CDs just a half year ago.

 

A neighbor who is moving told me on Thursday she was going to have a garage sale and wanted to give me the first look at her cd collection. She said, "two dollars for each cd." My enthusiasm was quickly tempered by the discovery that she used cd magazines to store cds. Thus half the collection was in those five cd magazines and many were scratched. I managed to find about twenty discs and most went my wife. It seems the best deals might be private sales.

 

I went to the Record show in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago. Poorly attended both by sellers and buyers. It's been my observation over the years that there are a lot of overpriced records but at the same time other sellers that are more than reasonable. I avoid the former and gravitate towards the latter. I got lots of $1 and 4 for $10 bargains along with a few $5 and $10 records. So I think there are still reasonable sellers out there.

 

I stopped going to record shows because vendors were charging too much or would not negotiate. When I did secure a bargain, the vendor warned me, "not to sell these items for higher prices because I check all the websites to see if my product is resold." I looked at him incredulously and wondered how much free time he had. The best thing we can do to lower prices is not buy right now. I remember when antique furniture prices were at a premium in 08 and then the demand dropped and the prices plummeted. Records and CDs are not immune to the laws of supply and demand.

 

When there are online resources that are more efficient for getting money out of buyers, naturally the sellers lose patience with the old way of doing things.

"Why do I need to drive to a show and stand there and haggle with some cheapskate, when I can get what I want for my price online."

The benefit of personal relationships with your clientele is undermined by the simplicity of more automated, impersonal solutions. Of course what you pay for with that convenience, both for buyer and seller, is jumping through the hoops of (name your poison) Discogs, Paypal, or the USPS (and now, 1099's! ). The worst part of the sophistication of the hobby, is perhaps losing more and more opportunities of finding a treasure on a Saturday morning at a garage sale. And even that is harder now, with more opportunists who make it their business model, to scour yard sales in their area, buying-out whole collections on the street corner, just to flip on eBay.

We've been warned over and over, about the steady trickle/flood of our dollars going out of the middle class, and into the smaller-and-smaller niches of the 1%. Well, the same thing is happening on every level, even down to the collectors market from everything from vinyl to baseball cards.

 

I’ve run into the no haggling at record fairs too. That’s half the idea of buying records there IMO. Get up at the crack of dawn and pay a cover fee to get in, and then make some deals. The best stuff may sell early at fairs, but the best time IMO to go is when there’s an hour or so left. Sellers are a LOT more interested in knocking the prices down and even throwing in free records so they don’t have to pack up and move it all again.