Second hand record prices rising well over inflation?

I used to by second hand vinyl almost every other week but I have stopped and now only buy something if it is a treasure for a decent price. This is happening increasingly rarely as I feel the price of second hand vinyl in the UK where I live has risen much more than inflation. I love lots of funk and soul and stuff I would view as not very exciting or borderline crap is going for £20-£30. For example Earth Wind & Fire's late 70s commercial breakthrough albums, or stuff by Rufus and Chaka Khan. Good music but I bought all their albums for maybe £3-£5 around 10 years ago. Now these are seemingly rare underground classics according to local record stores in London. You can still get deals on Discogs and Ebay but in general you used to be able to get a minty album for a decent price 10 years ago. I understand small shops have a lot of issues with rising property rental and business rates, let alone post lockdown recovery. But I remember absolutely raiding a record shop in NY a few years ago. The guy said he would deliberately take a hit on a few records to increase turnover and encourage loyal customers. It worked, I bought most of the shop. I probably got 30 records for the price of 10 in London.

Anyway not sure what I am saying really, just times have changes

 

Records are a hip item at the moment, so prices go up.

With the announcement that new records are going to rise, perhaps the secondhand market is anticipating a boom?

 

It’s completely out of control.

 

I've almost completely stopped buying vinyl. Too much.

 

There are less 2nd. hand records, particularly in good condition and there are more people looking for them so prices go up. Also, like all businesses the owners have to charge more to survive inflation and pandemic effects.
I had shops in London for many years and many landlords use all sorts of tricks to increase rents. Sometimes they use illegal methods to inflate prices. Lawyers fees are ridiculously high. So when people blame retailers for putting prices up they should really look at the the crooked property market. Maybe other cities are not like that but in London it is definitely the case.
Where possible I prefer to pay a bit more and buy from a nice shop. For regular 70’s and 80’s soul that you mention you can still get them cheaply and in good condition from Discogs.

 

I don’t understand why people can’t just be happy with the cheap records they bought 20-30 years ago. There are several younger generations that are now collecting. Many records from the 80s and before were thrown away, or were partied hard with over the years. It’s no longer simple to find clean 70s soul records.

 

Yes. Now its the time to sell! And i mean it for real! Prices are insane...

 

The exact opposite is happening to me.

I like 80's music, and it is being cleared out at bargain bin prices.
7 inches, 12 inches, albums, you name it. This is on discogs, and ebay.

I have bought hundreds and hundreds over the last few months.

A lot of UK sellers can't get rid of them fast enough for me.

Sure the shipping costs are a little high, but who cares, for the prices they are selling at,
which are about $1-$5 at the most.

EXCEPTIONS : super rare promos, limited edition with posters pins etc, and so on.

later
-1

 

I remember going to a record store I used to frequent when it was located in a lower rent location. I was shocked how much records had gone up. This was around 10 years ago. I'm sure the new location has significantly brought more wealth to the owner of the shop. But that was the last time I visited that shop. I still shop for used vinyl. But I'm content mostly buying the $5 ones that aren't as popular. I still buy new releases. So I'm fine paying the going rate for those. But I'm old school. I remember when records stores had a used records section. You know, those bins that had lower priced records. That time has passed. But you can still fine some good records at good prices. I'm just glad I bought up most of the used records I wanted in the '90s and '00s.

 

What type of 80s music are you getting at those prices? If it’s the Cure, New Order, Depeche Mode, etc or soul, hip hip or indie rock, I’m gonna fly over and try to buy boxes of them at those prices and make a big profit.

 

I can't comment on the cost of used vinyl 10 years ago as I just got back into vinyl again about 5 years ago.

The shops I deal with here in Massachusetts have reasonably priced used vinyl IMHO. I live in a rural area so maybe the prices are less due to location but several of the stores I deal with have vinyl priced as low as $4-10 an LP with more popular bands around $10-30 depending on the title. Most are in the $8-15 dollar range and record grades of VG+ to EX+ for the classic rock bands I listen to so no complaints from me on high prices.

As long as someone is not looking for pristine album covers I think those prices are reasonable.

Let's face it, the days of $2-5 dirt cheap used vinyl is long gone with the resurgence of interest in that medium. Sellers have become a lot more savvy on the value of their old vinyl collections so even used vinyl shops are not paying pennies for collections anymore.

 

I did notice here in NJ over the last few months that the people at the used record shows have almost no $1 boxes anymore, most are now $3-5 each at minimum. Inflation I guess

 

Beg to differ, I'm still amazed how little I am offered when I bring stuff in to trade or sell. Guess it depends on what it is.

 

In Austria it isn’t extreme! I payed 60€ two weeks ago for three classic records in NM condition

 

The price rise has definately sucked some of the fun out of 2nd hand vinyl collecting. Here in UK it doesn't help that the places you'd traditionally find cheap vinyl if you put in the hours - charity shops, car boot sales - have all seen prices rise to match Discogs/Ebay in recent years, as everyone now checks prices online. Of course I'd rather buy a Mint condition lp for the going rate in Oxfam, as the money will go somewhere worthwhile. But too many people dig out their forgotten records from the garage, blow off the cobwebs, check Ebay and decide they are all mint and full price.

I don't know any musical genre that hasn't been affected by price rises. Even your 80s landfill like Shakin' Stevens or Paul Young can command £5+ in chazzas these days, which is laughable.

 

Maybe I should probably think of selling my 10,000+ mint condition LPs from the 60’s & 70’s.

 

it's not just vinyl, price increases are affecting CD's too.

not too long ago new Cd release were almost always $9.99 first week of release, store even had them advertised in their weekly flyers. now it rare to see a new CD for under $12.99.

and used CD's are much better. common used CD's that were always always always selling for $5 - $8 are now easily in the $9 - $10 range and the old $1, #2 and $5 are few and far between.

BUT

as someone above mentioned, bring in your stuff to trade or sell and they want to give you $1 for a CD they have for $10 in their own bins.

and collectibles (gold CD's and promos) keep em, or sell them or sell them on the internet yourself, , cause the stores won't give you **** for em.

 

here's a list from 2021:
One month down...How much have you bought already in 2021?

*NOTE : not everything was cheap, but the vast majority were
Just the vinyl:

Formats
==============================================
Vinyl = 63%
----------------------------
Vinyl LP 14
12 inch 188
10 inch 4
7 inch 202

Vinyl Boxset = 2%
---------------------------
vinyl Boxset Deluxe 11


Items by Group
[* these numbers include CDs also *]
==========================================
Depeche Mode 88
New Order 60
Ultravox 51
Duran Duran 46
Underworld 34
Pet Shop Boys 30
Thompson Twins 29
Flock of Seagulls 27
Big Country 23
Simple Minds 23
Frazier Chorus 21
ABC 17
Frankie Goes to Hollywood 16
Heaven 17 16
Go West 13
Kraftwerk 12
Kissing the Pink 11
Blancmange 10
The Fixx 10
Midge Ure 9
Tears For Fears 8
U2 8
Boston 8
Human League 7
Thomas Dolby 7
Curiosity Killed the Cat 7
Talk Talk 6
Electronic 6
Asia 6
Billy Idol 6

later
-1

 

Inflation is based on a basket of goods, where some go up a lot in price and some not at all, but the rate has to do with the average of all the goods in the basket. Inflation is not like every item goes up by the same proportional amount. We tend to notice the things that go up a lot, but not pay attention to the things that do not.

Also, while some things go up in price because of supply chain issues and other factors that increase the seller's cost, many companies and sellers often decide to increase prices during times of inflation because it doesn't stick out as much as if they did that when nothing else is going up in prices.

The vinyl record business has probably seen a larger hike in prices than other things. Even in the US, people have noticed that the online audiophile vinyl retailers stopped doing the sales that they used to. With demand for vinyl records increasing, and product being low, there's been little reason for them to discount things that can sell out anyway. We just happen to pick a hobby that's become very popular in recent years, and being taken advantage of by retailers by the inflation hike these days.

 

Y'all, this isn't difficult.

Starting around 1985, a lotta people got obsessed with those little spinny silver things. Starting around then but accelerating into the '90s, those people dumped literally hundreds of thousands of used LPs onto the market. Because most people wanted the little spinny silver things, record stores could barely give away LPs. (Except to people like me -- thanks again, everyone! Buying your vintage LPs for $20 for a two-foot stack was fun!)

Then about 15 years ago, some people started getting bored of the LSSTs and remembered that records were fun. Then a few years after that, streaming finally took off in the states and the market for the LSSTs started to crater, while at the same time, a lot of younger music fans started thinking, "These vinyl things look like fun..." And not many of either of those groups of consumers sold off their LPs, largely because stores that bought records were realizing that they could sell records for way more than they could 30 years ago, and that their profit margin was even higher if they didn't pay much -- if any -- more than they did for equivalent records back then.

And as for all the rare, desirable, cool records that the first group of people started selling back in 1985? Well, those are the ones people like me bought for pennies in the '90s. (Again...thanks for that, y'all are princes among men.) But we know what we've got, and they're not going on the market until we're tits up underground, and you're gonna have to wait a few decades for that.

It's not what it was in 1992 -- or even 2012 -- is what I'm saying. If you lucked out then, enjoy the fruits of your crate-digging labors. If not...I hear the LSSTs are cheap now -- go nuts on those!

 

I just picked up a stone mint copy of Electonic's 12" for "Get the Message for $4. Shipping was $4. That's not bad considering I was specifically looking for it after hearing a DJ playing it in a club a few weeks ago.

 

One thing I discovered in 2019 was that LPs are much more expensive in the UK than in Austria! Records I’d pay 10€ for here in Austria would have costed me at least 15£ if I would have bought them in London during my vacation

 

a friend of mine gave me about 100 CD longboxes a few months ago.

i've been replacing the cds for all of them.

in between ebay, discogs, and amazon.
except for maybe 10 of them.

i was able to purchase about 80 of them so far.
the price ranges from $2-$4 at the most.
amazon and pretty much every goodwill and halfprice
store has titles for that price.

in all cases the shipping is $4 too for each one.
(less if you buy multiples).

there are tons of cheap CDs out there, but the trick is to buy them in bulk,
to bring the average price down to those levels.

again, these are cds from the 80's and a few from the 90's related.

promos sometimes are even cheaper (unless they are rare, or have exclusive content).

later
-1

 

Used record prices have definitely skyrocketed even over the past 5 years. I can remember even when holy grail 60s psych and rock records were $150, maybe $250 tops. The first 13th Floor Elevators in mono? A clean copy was maybe $250, sometimes $300 for a NM copy. Now try $750-$1000 for a similar condition copy only 4-5 yrs later.

How about an unpeeled torso promo VU&Nico? Even just 2 years ago that was a $500-$600 record in VG+ condition. Now the cheapest on discogs last I checked was like $2500… and a few nicer copies were like 5 grand!

More of this stuff has been found and added to permanent or long term collections now. People like us, collectors, realized it was now or never afford it.

A lot of it also gets sucked into a constant game of flipping. I have watched a few copies of VU&Nico in particular with identifying marks sell for a couple hundred bucks, then a few months later ~$750 on eBay, and then after that, you see the same copy pop up for a couple grand from a private seller or on Discogs or wherever. For some reason people keep paying more for it even though it’s the exact same record over and over again. Record “sellers” are almost as common as actual collectors nowadays it seems. The kind of person who buys nice records, then takes some artsy/archive quality photos of the album, and asks 4x what they paid. And usually, they get it.

I’m not too surprised by any of it, besides maybe that it continues to get worse and worse. I expected the vinyl bubble to pop several years ago already. I figured after 2019, it would never get more popular than it was then. But then 2020, and 2021 came, and now 2022 when we’re in the middle of a recession with inflation the worst its been in 40 years and still, the bubble keeps getting bigger and bigger.

 

There is a vintage/vinyl store near me that was selling (and SOLD) a used copy of KISS- "Creatures Of The Night" for $75!!!
That's a $20 record at best (or so I thought!).