Recent used vinyl price increases: what are the most surprising titles?

Not in the US - cassettes outsold vinyl starting in 1983. CDs started outselling vinyl in 1987, but they didn't outsell cassettes until 1991. 1983-1989 was really a "cassette era" in the United States, despite 1 or both of the other formats also selling large numbers in those years, too.

 

Indeed.
Fortunately there are still gems to be found in the used CDs bins. However, I think we peaked with the 'big CD selloff' about 10 years ago. Especially for the demographic that had originally bought all those 80s CD pressings upon initial release.

 

Can confirm. Plus cassettes were cheaper at the time, often by $3-6. And hardly anyone had a CD player in the car, so the cassette provided the most playback flexibility options.

 

OMG yes. the quest for "let's hope the person in world willing to pay the TOPPEST DOLLAR discogs leads me to believe something might go for to wander in" is deeply damaging to sales and longterm customer relations.

 

Also, affordable CD burners didn't pop up until about the late 1990's, so making mix tapes was still very much a thing, even if you had switched over to CDs

 

Not the first two, especially the first one. That's always been hard to come by. Brother Love's used to be couple of buck but was never all that common and you may get lucky in a shop that just sees "Neil Diamond" and tosses it in the dollar bin. But it's $10-15 online now.

 

There are enough crap records on the market. Most (not all) of the stuff that Universal and Sony releases suck. No care at all put into them. Just churn them out. Who cares about quality.

 

I had 8 Tracks and records starting in High School and so did friends and we had 8 Track players in cars and 8 track boomboxes. Before I graduated in 1980 everyone had switched over to Cassette in cars, boomboxes and the new walkman. Cassettes exploded in the 80s, far more portable and versatile for young people to bring out of the house to enjoy with friends. We were also able to record all our old records as well as other friends copies and record for friends, gone where the days of writing your name on your records bringing them out of the house.

That said some people liked to still buy the new records and then record tapes to bring them on the go. This is also why many 80s records are in much better shape, we recorded them and used the tape instead of the record. But this all cost more than just buying the factory cassette of the title so Cassettes of a title took a good share of sales from the vinyl copy through the 80s. Then when you add in CDs from around 85 and up, was the nail in the coffin for records, and it was cassettes and CDs till the late 90s. However with Walkmans cassettes were still better than CDs until around 98-99 when they finally made a gyro that stopped CDs from skipping. But that died out quickly with just buying files and have an iPod.

Now as far as Depeche Mode being rare that sparked this conversation, not really. But the thing is with them at least here in the states, they got popular at a time when 12" singles and maxi singles did. From my accumulation of Depeche Mode records over the years I would say they sold far more singles & maxi singles than the full albums. I have a fat stack of their records but it's at least 75% singles to 25% albums that I accumulated over the years.

 

I know 'used record stores' need to pay overhead and need to turn a profit but how much do they pay someone for a $20/$30/$40 album?

Or do they just give the seller $4, or less?? Is there a 'general ratio' of being paid on well-titled and other good-titled M- and VG++ albums?

How about for music-related books?

Thanks.

 

I was referring to the 20th century. C. 1969-70, Bang Records were 3/$1 items, and not just Neil D; Van Morrison Blowin' Your Mind, Derek ('Open up cinnamon, I want more' IIRC), etc.. Of course, the minimum wage, here in Michigan at the time, was well under $2/hr.
And Uni titles were even more plentiful, the ones that never 'hit' like Diamond being the cheapest; The Hook come to mind for some reason as one.

 

depends on the size of the operation and the desirability and condition, how fast will this move in the market locally, cause you need to lowball if it is going to have to sell on ebay since they are taking a huge cut, so yeah maybe $5?

 

Agree.

I was a DJ in the mid 80's and 45 RPM 12" Singles were really popular for new wave and sounded great.

I didn't understand at the time why 45 RPM was clearer and more dynamic than 33.3, I just liked the sound better.

 

Occasionally I’m selling stuff to a store and he’s paying good money. I guess you need to know what to sell in a store and what to unload online.

Like most things music related books tend to have high asking prices if they’re out of print and not especially easy to find. See „What’s Welsh For Zen“ by John Cale.

 

I preferred dubbing my own tapes. Plus if worn out from traveling, then replacement less expensive, higher quality (and I used good tape).

 

I was doing some last minute prep work for this weekend's Denver record show and grabbing things for my $1 and $5 bins. This one shocked me....sorted by US sellers lowest to highest. I should probably peel that 48 cent price tag off.

The Outfield - Play Deep (Vinyl Records) For Sale at Discogs Marketplace

 

Thanks Neonbeam, I totally understand ... & Books!!

 

Thanks NapalmBrain!!

 

Unfortunately, most of that may have to do with Turkey’s specific 35-50% inflation and monetary policy woes rather than greed about vinyl.

 

Wow!
And yet I still don’t want to sell mine. I’ve got problems.

 

More than 20 years ago I went on a drive down to Fredericksburg and my wife and I stopped in some antique shops. One of them had some records and sitting up on a prominent display was a mint-looking copy of Meet The Beatles. Of course I took a look. The cover was pristine, so I was a little excited. Pulled out the record to find it was thrashed -- plastered in scratches, gouged, filthy. Just an unbelievable, unplayable record. The price? $80. For just a second I thought to mention to the lady there that this was basically an unsellable record but you could probably get $15 ~ $25 for such a nice cover ... but then I thought that would be totally fruitless seeing the delusional $80 price tag. Mind you this was...I think in 1999. There was also a copy of Surfin' USA there in similar condition -- beautiful cover, vinyl looking like it had been out on the gravel driveway for a significant amount of time. Another time, out in California, another junk shop with records and I come across what looks like a still sealed NOS Everly Brothers LP on Cadence. On closer inspection it's clearly a re-seal so I ask to look at the record. Plastered in scratches. I politely pass. The lady asks why I don't want it -- in fact, she says, "What are you seeing that I'm not?" It's. Plastered. With. Scratches. Don't know if I made an impression there. One last encounter with the delusional. Regular weekly flea market -- organized one in a warehouse with booths and there's a record booth and WOW tons of surf, British Invasion, psych -- all kinds of things I want. And priced sky high -- like $40 per LP. Even the ones from the supermarket racks on labels like "Guest Star" and "Pickwick." And, wait for it -- every record scratched to hell. Not one would I put on my turntable. So I pass and the guy gets all aggressive with me with I tell him his records are trashed. I say sorry, whatever and walk off and the nutlog follows me out of the building muttering about how they really are great records and maybe we can meet halfway or something. Nope. Halfway to trash is still trash as far as I'm concerned.

So back to your post -- it seems those kinds of sellers have filled up the Discogs space and elsewhere. Too bad. Really has ruined all the fun.

 

I pulled this one off the shelf a couple nights ago and gave it a spin. Not exactly sure where I got it but almost slipped off the chair when I saw the prices these go for......

Pharoah Sanders - Pharoah

 

That's a pretty rare record. I don't think it sold well when it was released. India Navigation was located at 35 River Road in Grandview, NY. I lived down the road from that location- a friend owned the property-- it was an old bottling plant that had been a studio space at one time.

 

Unless it's the Beatles 2014 mono boxset.

In that case, everyone should have bought as many copies as possible immediately.

You just have to be able to magically intuit these things.

 

Any website that lists in-demand albums that were once very common that go for stupid prices now like Buffett?

 

The Blue Note Records website has everything marked down 30% right now. Tone Poet series from $38 down to $27, Classic Series from $28 down to $20. I've been buying NM to VG+ Classic Series for $11-$14 regularly on line, often in the classifieds here. Even some Tone Poets for not much more.

I've got a VG+ Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic sitting in the cart that will end up being $27 after tax and shipping, but it's from a seller I buy from often that I can pick up a bunch of records for under $5 with no additional shipping cost. I'll probably add 10 more records I really want that cost $3 each or less. So for about $55 I'll end up with 11 LPs, including an otherwise relatively expensive one that completes my Steely Dan collection. In my mind it doesn't matter what I pay for the most expensive record when I order, the cost of the record is whatever it averages out to. That seems like a good deal, especially considering all those people went and spend $150 on a Pretzel Logic UHQR that the conscious seems to be, not a good remastering whatsoever.