Thanks for the heads up re: Discogs. I was able to confirm my ‘London Town’ CD is in fact a Russian Federation counterfeit (as suspected, although a pretty decent job complete with booklet) . . and that my Argentinian manufactured ‘This Is The Moody Blues’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ soundtrack are legit
No clue. Did you ask the seller if it had an IFPI stamp or etch and number on the hub? For me what kind of gave it away was the typography of the label on the hub and it's position adjacent from the barcode. I've only seen this on counterfeits. + Raven doesn't use that kind of set-up on their manufactures.
Here we go, with a little detective work- An Australian manufacture for a 2007 should look like this- Complete with IFPI
and China is even worse...at least with Russia you might get the original just pirated...The Chinese don't even try to copy the original...Take the 2009 Stereo and Mono Chinese pirates...terrible all around!
I only order albums from the USA, England, Japan, South Korea or Canada, maybe France or Germany but not normally. I’d say not to order from a Latvian seller.
The Raven discs I have that are Regency Media all look like the second photo ..... so I would steer clear of the Discogs copy.
Well, for sure in Russia there are serious CD collectors (being a huge country I believe there are all kinds of people with serious collections of all kinds of things), but I don’t believe that many of them are serious CD traders with accounts in Discogs offering big selection of titles, and trying to make a profit by reselling original CD’s. Knowing some fellow Russians, they would rather give them away for free, if they no longer need them, rather than engage themselves in international second-hand CD trade…. IMO the majority of the Discogs traders from Russia and some of the surrounding countries are people having access to counterfeit CD suppliers/plants, and not real collectors that just want to get rid of some titles they have, or to sell some very valuable and expensive genuine rarities. I might be wrong of course, because I never made an extensive research, but each time I spotted a rare title sold by Russian or a former USSR seller, it’s always in mint or near mint condition (or even sealed), and the price is always suspiciously cheap. I believe that the reason these sellers are having general positive feedback is because, first of all, many buyers are aware in advance that the CD is not genuine, and those who are unaware, but are able to realize this after receiving the item, are finally satisfied with the quality and the cheap price they paid, so they don’t bother give a negative review. As you rightfully mentioned, the foreign buyers are wary of Russian sellers, so anyone from Russia who's serious collector and is in his sane mind wouldn't try to sell internationally (unless he's well known and respected in certain community with a marketplace, as on this forum, for example. So I believe that if you decide to sell something in the SHF market place no one will question your credibility, but if you try Discogs or Ebay, the people would be quite suspicious).
You seems hesitated about Germany. I wonder why. I only ordered stuff from them twice (vinyl records), and outside of a bit high (but not very high) shipping costs everything was as described... And you know that vinyl purchases not fakes, but overgrading is the real evil )). Was I just lucky?
I find this strange as regards shipping costs , as far as I know Germany has the cheapest shipping costs for vinyl in the world , it costs € 3,70 to send an LP to anywhere in the world (airmail,no tracking) , whereas US > Germany is well over $ 20 for one LP, it is actually cheaper to send an LP from Germany to the furtherst corner of Siberia or a remote island in the South Seas than to my next-door neighbour - crazy world.
Yeh, I was charged something around 14 euros for 2 records... But records itself were fine, and even including this shipping much better deal then in US, where local sellers for some reason consider imported records as made from gold... I probbaly will be in Berlin in April or May, planning to scan some used record stores there as some krautrock bands have a soft spot in my heart )).
Don't ever order Japanese CDs or Microtech knives from sellers in China. Fake...fake...fake! But you can order authentic Cuban cigars via Hong Kong.
postage for 2 records is more (over 500 g),= € 7 and if you had insurance/tracking another € 2,50or so , plus PayPal fees + packing costs don't know about Berlin , but vinyl prices are generally high in Germany at the moment , although nowhere near as high as in the UK or Italy, but not a good time for vinyl shopping right now, but best of luck anyway
Hola Javi ! I hear you. All that expense and inconvenience only to get a counterfeit is a headache to say the least. This said, I own a lot of russian CDs and am very happy with them. The Darkthrone 2in1 CD series saved my life, to name just a few. Of course, I bought it locally and very cheaply.
Hola, todo bien? I feel that having a counterfeit in my collection has as much value as having a CDR with flacs downloaded from the internet. Zero.
I'm glad to have a pressed CD, even if it's not the original thing, if you know what I mean. CD-Rs, OAH, I regard in the same way you do, but at least they serve the function of allowing you to play the music, esp. if it's a title that's only had a non-physical release, like a lot on Bandcamp.
not sure , haven't been in a second hand record store in well over 10 years . However, I know some people who run 2nd Hand stores and all of them also have online shops, either on discogs, ebay or amazon , so I expect prices to besimilar, perhaps a little higher than online
