How do we lessen the influence and hold the flippers/scalpers have on the market?

I could not afford to play the game at all if I didn't sell off some of my old stuff to fund new purchases. I simply do not take 10 years to get rid of things anymore. 10 days is fine.

 

Which with shipping to the US makes it a $60 record.

 

I guess I can understand that point of view. That strategy just doesn't work with me. I just don't buy stuff if I think it's overpriced, and if I miss out on something I might regret it somewhat but not enough to make me pay an even greater price on the secondary market. I don't "need" to buy anything.

 

we have a solution!

• start a thread to scold flippers/scalpers
• flippers/scalpers see the error of their ways
• no more flipping/scalping
• rare stuff is affordable for all

If that fails, you can always try the other option: Take a pass on overpriced collectible crap.

Flippers/scalpers only exist because there are suckers. We all get to decide which role we play in this scenario.

 

I can't wait for the noobs to go back to what they where doing prior to whining about the record collectors market. Part of record collecting and building up ones collection is buying trading and selling. I'm not going to deal with noobs that have an entitlement mentality trying to vilify the record collecting community because they don't like the cost of records.

I got a novel idea, don't buy records, try streaming, in fact you can get most music for free on Youtube. But this trying to march through a town gathering other idiots to grab their pitchforks and go after who you don't like the way they shop and collect records is absurd. I'm sorry in this world you can't have everything you want, and if you miss-out on something move on. If you can't afford some of these exclusive titles find records you can afford, there is plenty of them.

 

I guess my beef is the limited releases. I recently wanted to purchase some MFSL SACD’s, Jeff Becks Group Truth and Alan Parsons Eye in the Sky. In both cases I waited until I got paid to order them, and in just 2 or 3 days after their releases they were sold out. On eBay, they were available for $10 to $20 over the list price. Not all that bad but from past experience I found the restocked price for was $20 higher than the first batch at stores (Iron Butterfly and Live are 2 recent examples). So do you buy the eBay prices or gamble the next batch is sold at normal prices.
I understand that out of print titles are going to go for market value, which is determined by who will pay the supply and demand price. I myself have purchased some expensive out of print lp’s , cd’s and SACD’s. Often it is because I was not interested at the time of release and then changed my mind. Other times it is because I read that it is the go to version.

 

Un-invent the internet?

 

Stop the obsessive-compulsive behavior. One does not need the fancy-smancy new reissue of some Alan Parsons sterile studio production or Iron Butterfly doing their big hit live over one side of a record when the 3 min. hit single if fine enough. Used CDs are all one really needs right, perfect sound forever. What's not to like there at $1.00 to $3.00 per title?

 

Most complaints I've seen, online, about record prices have been from people who aren't new to record collecting. New collectors don't complain as much. They either pay or don't pay.

 

Yes and no, we would see lot's of complaint threads, records are to expensive, they can't make records like they used to, or I don't spend more than $10 a record.

What is new is the attack, and yes it's an attack and vilification of the whole record collecting hobby with all these threads like this. Your immoral for selling your records at the current going price, your immoral for buying more than one copy. You are now the evil flipper ripping off everyone who want's to buy a record.

The real problem is this entitlement mentality from these people entering record buying lately. They feel they should be able to own every record at list prices, this is also extending to the manufacturers, blaming them for putting out limited issues. If they stop that then the market would be flooded and prices will not go up. They fail to understand that licensing for a title to be put out doesn't work like that, it's limited.

The fact is all records are limited and they all go out of print at some point. Quality will suffer if pressing records non stop and in the millions, not something I want to see.

Also what pushes prices up is the online chatter, the talk of something new coming out, once out the talk of the quality. The Beatles Mono box didn't go up in price only because it's OOP. People research online and it's labeled as the one to get. They flooded the market with that box set and all the individual titles. The box when it came out was $225-$250, by 2017 they where selling new ones online for $85 just to get rid of them. We now have 4 years of new people coming into the hobby now wanting what they missed out on.

The one step MFSL is the same thing, when it started no one wanted to pay $95 for one 45 rpm title. Then when it was talked about how good it sounded everyone wanted them. This pushed the quantity and retail price up, and once sold the secondary market.

Anyway the vilification of record collectors and the manufacturers putting records out is totally new. I attribute that to new people in the hobby who feel they are entitled to own everything they want at retail cost at the very least. The OP in this thread has only been here for 40 days, hard to think they have been doing this for 20+ years and never signing up.

 

I don't think the vilification of record collectors flipping is really that new. Might feel more new due to social media, but I don't think it is. People have always hated other people finding something they want for cheap and then selling it to them for more.

Most of the virtual places I hang out tend to skew one way so that's what I see. The OPs situation isn't proof one way or another. Until someone runs some sort of scientific based study on it, it's just conjecture anyway.

I don't think someone wanting to be able to spend $100 on the 1 billionth repress of Kind of Blue is entitlement. I think it's fairly normal for people to want to pay a fair price for goods. When someone, eg a flipper, intervenes in order to manipulate the market, it's hardly a surprise a buyer would get annoyed. I think it's kind of stupid to pretend that experienced collectors enjoy paying flipper prices. They don't.

Flippers aren't a big issue for me. I generally can't be bothered to do it. Takes too much time. I sold a lot of stuff to people who I knew were going to resell it. But I made what I wanted to make based on the effort I was willing to make. So I'm fine with that. I easily could've held out for more but I decided not to.

But if I did decide to be flipper, I wouldn't be a suck about it. I wouldn't give a s**t what people thought about it and most importantly, I'd admit to exactly what I am doing; buying up supply so I can profit from peoples desperation later on.

What I would not be doing is dressing it up with some nonsense about entitlement.

Flippers are taking advantage of a situation to make money. That's all it is. Flippers don't have to defend themselves.

But, I also think it's kind of pointless to complain about flippers. It's just a waste of time. As long as people remain desperate, they will be subject to the whims of flippers. You can only be free when you free yourself from desperation of owning something.

 

How bout the limited concert posters that are everywhere for $100+. How many artists out there get the go ahead by recording artists for these? Doesn't Phish hit them hard? Flip n run.

 

Remember Beanie Babies? Thousands got hosed. Remember trading card shops? Thousands got hosed. NYC are stores relocated to Florida n got hosed. Comics? Crash n burn. Flip early flip often.