Second hand record prices rising well over inflation?

Probably bootlegs - from that seller that was convicted recently...? Pop down Camden Market - the tourists are still buying horrible bootleg vinyl with photocopied sleeves of Beatles, Clash, Siouxsie etc. poor fools!

 

in the late 80s / 90s you could scoop up 100s of records for 25p / 50p at boot sales. now its 35+ years later you cant.

 

Aye, now they often want one whole pound each for the hundreds of Bert Kaempferts, Merle Haggards and Cleo Laines dumped on the mat

Of course, the bigger the car boot you can get to, the chances of finding singers/performers beyond that kinda stuff increases, and yeah, you gotta set that alarm clock real early..!

 

You'd think the rises would have tailed off for some bands. Sabbath's stuff just keeps going up and up - someone out there must be willing to part with £60 for Sabotage - thats how much the copy I saw was going for this weekend, in a 'vintage' antique shop. Not a record shop, note. It will have been bought by the time I go back, I bet.

Have to say, as a sometime lp and cd seller on Ebay, the cost of SELLING has risen, with Ebay taking a bigger cut and postage going up. Sellers will pass these rises onto the buyer.

 

Ah, the good old days! I remember going to the Denham car boot one Saturday and ending up in the back of a seller's transit can, sorting though the piles of lps everywhere. Ended up running out of room in the car for all of them! Luckily I kept hold of the best ones when I purged the collection in the 'Streaming Years'.

 

Yep - 7am start round here. You snooze you lose. I get to see the same faces each Sunday, sorting through the piles of James Last for the nuggets, a look of wild desperation on their haggard faces...

 

I love Merle Haggard

 

I remember selling vinyl in the 80s, and the record store owners would rely on their knowledge when deciding on how much cash to give me for each one of the stack. He'd rapidly go through them and systematically put them in separate piles that represented specific price ranges, and of course there would be a stack of "I can't sell these, so you're getting them back."

Now when I walk into a record store to sell a pile of used albums, the owner/clerk is ready with a laptop on the counter permanently opened up to Discogs, so they can quickly determine the pressing and what people are asking for copies in similar condition to the one I'm looking to sell.

And therein lies the problem. They aren't looking at the actually sold copies of the LP in question; instead the are viewing copies for sale. I just looked at a sought-after album (Nevermind, US 1st pressing), concentrating on VG+/VG+ copies only. The cheapest one is €899.00 (US $981), but is described as having "light surface scratches and spindle marks" which is questionable for a VG+ record. The other two are CAD $1500 each (US $1112).

However, when viewing VG+/VG+ copies that have actually sold, aside from two outliers, there are four in the CAD $931 - $1094 range (US $690 -$811), and two in the CAD $505 - $583 range (US $374 - $432). Furthermore, there's a NM/NM from 2021 that sold for CAD $1137 (US $837). Many other examples are even worse - Beatles early pressings comes to mind.

In essence, when buyers in record shops rely on hopeful prices in the Discogs "for sale" section rather than LPs that have actually sold, they end up passing along unrealistic prices, and a vicious cycle ensues.

 

It doesn't make sense for a seller (record store owner or not) to only look at what's currently for sale when determining value for buying. They would only be shooting themselves in the foot and would be paying more than they need. I would defintiely bring my records to sell them at shops that do this!

But when selling records, you should be using the history. Same idea with eBay, you look at recently sold. Also, you shouldn't just look at one data point, but look at a few that have sold within the past view months. That's pretty much the value.

Stores that do that actually sell records for decent prices IMO.

There are stores that do other things that cause jacked up pricing, such as looking for whats currently for sale, or looking at the highest recently sold, then adding up to 20% on top of it "since you had to pay for shipping on discogs anyways". Those stores I don't visit.

There's one store that does a tripple whammy. 1) overgrades, 2) determines solely based on the highest sold, 3) then adds shipping plus additional (~20%) on their price. Eeeeek.

I was in one shop in Lousiana that didn't price any record. You bring them up to the counter, and pulls up up discogs for each one as you sit there and wait. The good news is that he goes straight ot the price history screen and seems to price stuff not based on the highest (nor on the lowest).

 

Charity shops never fail,a very battered Led Zep album,£50 and sold within a few days,Ive seen Harry Secombe records priced at £7.
Same shop bought for £1.25 this.
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Forces Of Victory

 

I wish I had seen this thread earlier to read all 27 pages. Lots of catching up to do.

Anyhow, second hand prices are all mostly out of my price range these days and I'm just happy I already own 99% of the back catalog stuff I want. Any other back catalog stuff is just new discoveries at this point.

I've really slowed down in shopping in used record stores because of prices. If I do, I'm usually only walking out with a few records at most these days. Recently I was in a store for about an hour browsing and there were titles I would have picked up 5 years ago at 5 years ago prices, but had to pass. Anything remotely interesting to me seems to start at $50. When I brought my 3 records up the cashier asked if that was "all I wanted?" and commented "that was a lot of work". Normally I can come back with a quick response, but I was really caught off guard. I probably should have said I would have picked up more if the prices were competitive, or at least better than I find it on Discogs. The 3 records I picked up still came to $125, it's not like I picked up a $20-25 Eagles album, because yes, that's what VG+ used copies get priced at now.

My second experience this month was stopping at a store in Laguna Beach. I thought I knew going in what I was probably getting myself into, but I almost fell over at the pricing. Most of the records were VG to VG+ at best and the prices were stunning. Mostly stuff that was common 1o, and even 5 years ago, all listed between $30-40. The few things I was interested in were all over $60. The one I really wanted was "Rank" from The Smiths. Original US pressing, maybe VG+ if being generous, and $60. Just couldn't do it. Spent 15 minutes there and walked out with nothing.

I'm going to Amoeba on Saturday since I'll be in the area for a concert and I have a gift card and trade. Last time I was there, prices were high but not extraordinary. I still found a lot of interesting titles between $15-25 which is more than I can say about most places I have been in the last year.

I used to like going to dig because you might actually find a deal, or something halfway interesting that wasn't going to set you back a lot. Most times these days I just feel like I wasted time.

My biggest question is "who are paying these prices?". Because apparently people are if they are pricing them as such.

 

The good shops do look at the Sold prices on Discogs, sometimes just pegging their price to the median sale price, more or less. This can have its own issues (it doesn't account for condition, and can be skewed by small sample sizes), but it's generally more accurate than looking at For Sale prices.

Using For Sale prices should theoretically be self-correcting though, since a store that consistently tries to sell records for more than they're "worth" won't have much success and will eventually either have to lower their prices or go out of business. And yet, prices do seem to creep up a lot faster than they should. It may be because "optimistic" Discogs pricing has a big effect on buyers as well as sellers--if you want something and don't want to wait for a bargain to come along, you're limited to what's for sale on Discogs or at your local shop at the moment, regardless of what the median of past sales is.

 

That is my question as well!
I'm sure there are some people out there willing to pay $60 for VG Rank, but are there enough people like this for the entire used record industry to price things like this?

 

ive stopped buying records like i used to, i used to regularly spend a few hundred a month, but be buying easily 50+ albums, but now its a couple of reissues every couple of months as i just cant justify paying £30+ for one album

 

The problem is people are paying good money for vg/vg+ ringed out records. It is ridiculous now.

 

Aeomba is suprisingly fair on prices given its a high rent location (I'd imagine) . The only problem I have is the absolute insane amount of traffic that pours in there. Last time I was in I left with nothing--felt like things were picked through. I'm sure they get massive amount of stock each day though.

While I like going there with I visit LA, I have several other places that I like much more. Permanent Records is my new fav.

 

I often walk out with nothing when I go record shopping these days. I think there's a certain type of buyer who probably isn't an obsessive record collector, maybe they buy mostly new reissues and a used record every month or two. For them, spending $30-40 on a common title isn't a big deal because it's not adding up to that much money spent over time. I think this type of buyer is also more likely to go to the record store with money burning a hole in their pocket--they're going to walk out of there with something, even if it's overpriced.

I live in a metro area with a bunch of record stores, and every single one gets 4.5-5 stars on Yelp, even the ones that are laughably expensive and/or stock mainly new reissues at prices higher than online. I think a lot of people are just into the record store experience--going out on a Saturday with their friends, looking through a heavily curated selection of records, and taking something home without worrying about whether it's a good deal or not. The whole crate digging/bargain hunting mentality probably defined the average record buyer 20-30 years ago, but not anymore.

 

Hit my local store during lunch, and like a chump I just paid $18 for a copy of CCR's last and worst record, Creedence Clearwater Revival - Mardi Gras . But I've been looking for a clean copy of this for while, and my favorite track, Someday Never Comes, is a quiet song, but still.... Really need to shed the collection aspects of record collecting, since I only wanted it for a few songs and to complete my CCR LP collection.

Also picked up Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World on CD for $3. Last sold on discogs on vinyl for $55.

(And I didn't really need the CD. CD from 1989 and the version streaming on Apple Music sound the same, both sound very good. But who knows, maybe I'll cancel my subscription someday.)

 

Local HalfPriceBooks had $50 price tags on used original issue LP's of the Stone's "Some Girls" & Rush's "Moving Pictures".
I stop there about once a month to look around and walk out emptyhanded.

 

Get ready for used records to get even more ridiculously expensive with these A-holes introducing their grading company, similar to how some companies "professionally" grade comic books...

Vintage Media Grading

I hate this. I hate everything about it!

 

You gotta find the stuff that they misprice. I've since learned this and learned to like them. Here are three scores that I got (this was over several months and visiting often):

1) I found this in the "overpriced" case for $40. I think they thought it was a modern press, but I could tell right away it was an original. Record and jacket is NM condition:
Miles Davis - Milestones

2) Yesterday I found this for $25. This used to be in the expensive case, but got removed and marked down since it sat there forever (it was $40). What told me to buy it was the fact that it was NM. Not a super score, but probably a fair buy.
The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet - Free Jazz

3) The manager likes me enough to allow me to dig in the backroom. I picked this up for $50. It had a chewed up cover, but record was in VG+ condition (really clean).
Pearl Jam - Ten

But yea, most of the stuff is overpriced. Some of it is "fair" priced. I picked up a VG+ Beach Boys friends for $8 a month ago. That's a really good price. You just have to hunt and dig. I pulled out several jazz finds as well that had decent prices.

 

That is fascinating. Scary but fascinating.
First time I have seen anything like this.

 

The translation from comic book preservation to record ‘preservation’ is hilarious. Might as well dip my jazz collection in epoxy resin.

 

Hope you don't mind but I borrowed your link for main forum.