Vinyl lovers

[Mike1812]

Raided my dad's collection, some good old stuff from the 70s there. Some Pink Floyd, Led Zep etc.  It's a pain in the are trying to find what release they are on Discogs. 

[englishbob]

19 hours ago, Mike1812 said:

Raided my dad's collection, some good old stuff from the 70s there. Some Pink Floyd, Led Zep etc.  It's a pain in the are trying to find what release they are on Discogs. 

 

Probably not worth your time digging there. It's not like you could be sitting on a blue triangle DSOTM or Plum LZ1...

[Mike1812]

I have a DSOTM. What's the blue triangle?

[Agent L]

I borrowed my dad's vinyl collection when I started buying 4 years ago or so. It included a copy of DSOTM that discogs told me was worth £108 at the time! I remember buying it with him at a church jumble sale in the very early nineties for 50p or a pound!

 

I promptly gave it back to him as my son was very young at the time and I didn't trust him not to ruin it. That and the fact that I don't like it 

[Mike1812]

It's the shaded blue triangle, unfortunately. Still has the poster and stickers in though!

[Art Vandelay]

Just type the catalogue number into Discogs and the right release will appear. I inherited a few Led Zeppelins from my dad and even humdrum copies go for decent money. I think because they're all mad die-cut gatefolds with extravagant posters and the like most got battered over the years. Anything approaching passable condition fetches a good price considering they all sold about a billion copies. 

 

My old man had a wicked collection of soul 45s too. Anything vaguely obscure on Motown or Stax seems to go for stupid money in literally any condition. Most of his sound like he used them as emergency brake pads on his Austin but people still seem willing to fork out for them. Always worth checking.

[Mike1812]

1 hour ago, Art Vandelay said:

Just type the catalogue number into Discogs and the right release will appear. I inherited a few Led Zeppelins from my dad and even humdrum copies go for decent money. I think because they're all mad die-cut gatefolds with extravagant posters and the like most got battered over the years. Anything approaching passable condition fetches a good price considering they all sold about a billion copies. 

 

My old man had a wicked collection of soul 45s too. Anything vaguely obscure on Motown or Stax seems to go for stupid money in literally any condition. Most of his sound like he used them as emergency brake pads on his Austin but people still seem willing to fork out for them. Always worth checking.

Which is the catalogue number? Whatever I type in gives hundreds of variants. I know with newer stuff you can scan the barcode but most of these don't have them.

 

BTW, I have no invention of selling them, just interested. 

[Art Vandelay]

It's the label's catalogue number that's usually printed quite small and popped in a corner somewhere of the sleeve or on the disc label. Something like this Roy Ayers album has 22 release variations – so CDs, reissues, cassettes etc. – but the one I have has a code of PD-1-6126 which was the US original pressing. Sometimes you might see the same code listed twice, but in this case it's the 8-trak that came out at the same time so I can safely ignore that. On major labels it's usually easy to find the right one as they would have a system for numbering, and then meticulously organised by some dork on Discogs.

 

I'd never sell my Dad's records either. He has some early rocksteady singles that are worth hundreds which I might be tempted to flog and surprise him with the money one day. The dude had some good taste!

[Mike1812]

Yeah my dad had some good stuff. My mum however, I might have to 'lose' some Barry Manilow

[ZOK]

You don’t like Barry Manilow?! For shame.

 

I’ve been very lucky too, picked up a stack of old vinyl from my dad including first pressings of most Beatles, Bowie and Rolling Stones albums, plus loads of old Ferry, Elvis Costello, psychedelic stuff, not my usual things but tons of good music really.

[ucci]

On 25/01/2021 at 17:51, Mike1812 said:

Yeah my dad had some good stuff. My mum however, I might have to 'lose' some Barry Manilow

 

If you look on the inner ring of the vinyl, there will be a matrix number etched or printed into the vinyl, you sometimes need to catch the light to see it, this will be the definitive catalogue number for the record as the catalogue numbers on labels and sleeves are repeated on represses. You can type the matrix into Discogs. 

 

Has yer ma got any Top of the Pops records? Hehehehe. https://www.popsike.com/Top-of-the-Pops-SHM-735-Hallmark-Records/100501034450.html

[RastanSaga]

 

 

This girl. 

[RastanSaga]

[RastanSaga]

From yesteryear...

[Quest]

I bought this record off Taobao for pennies:

 

 

Seems to be a Japanese release as the only contributor to the Discogs page is a record shop in Osaka, but there's no year of release, no artist, no other useful info. There's a comment asking if it's connected to the game but no one has answered.

 

Could be any old nonsense really but I love a mystery record. Should arrive in the post in a few days.

[Mike1812]

New vinyl day! All the way from the USA, only took a month and a half. 

 

 

I think I might be addicted. I should never have bought a turntable 

[DirkCrisis]

This is the most I’ll ever spend on a release. At least I’ve made a list of the other records I want so there’s an end to my spending lunacy and at least they’re mostly £15 -£30 each.

 

 

[Mike1812]

How much was Slayer?

 

I won't pay much over £30 unless it's really special. The Descendents one I posted earlier is cheaper to get imported than it is to get it here so it was worth the wait. 

[DirkCrisis]

Horrifyingly, £480 which was comparatively cheap although I was then whacked for £120 import duty on top of that that I didn't factor in. At the time of purchase there were two other second hand options - one in Italy for £620 (presumably with the import fee) and another in a UK store for £850-ish. This one at least was new and sealed.

 

I did some research on the prices of the 6 records I really wanted in there and they seemed to be coming out at more than £480 so I consider it to be an OK price of sorts additional forgotten VAT aside.

 

Am sticking to the £15 - £30 bracket from now on though. 

[Art Vandelay]

God Almighty, that is one expensive record! Fair fucks to you, that takes some nerve.

[DirkCrisis]

TBF it is a collection! There are 11 records in there

[Art Vandelay]

Ah OK! Still a decent outlay. There's loads of things I've added to my wishlist in that bracket but I'd never have the bottle to go through with it. I think I'd be using it as a makeshift roof when my partner found out for a start. 

[ZOK]

Holy guacamole, that collection was the same price as my mixer! 

[DirkCrisis]

I think this is the thing I've been finding with vinyl that I want (mostly 70s, 80s and 90s metal/rock/punk with a sprinkling of other bits). If I didn't buy it at the time and it hasn't been re-released, it is horrifically expensive. I guess that's a maxim which applies to most vinyl though. But this was the least painful way to get what I wanted rather than paying £70 - £100 per record for the 5 or 6 I was after. I should imagine they'll all get re-releases and I'll be kicking myself when they're all £20 in 2 years.

 

Fortunately the majority of things left on my list are pretty vanilla and mostly easily available with the exception of one or two things which I might just put off indefinitely.

[Art Vandelay]

I think the most I ever spent was on this as it was mint condition and I've never seen it before or since. Seems to have plateaued in price since then annoyingly. Wicked album though. Weirdly the ones that have gone sky high in price most I got at the time for next to nothing. Hercules And Love Affair ‎– Blind and Elton John ‎– Are You Ready For Love continued to ride the rocket ship like a trendy cryptocurrency. Mental money for non-obscure mainstream releases that were probably plentiful when they came out.

 

Rereleases don't tend to effect prices too much as they'll always be someone after the original pressings so I wouldn't worry.

[And]

Woah. That puts some of my recent buys in perspective. 
 

I've got an issue - a couple of records skip on my relatively new rega but are fine on my old Ariston, both are using the same cartridge and have the tracking dialled in to the correct weight (checked with some scales) 

 

Both records look pristine, owned from new and treated very kindly. Both played fine last time I played them (recently too)
 

Any ideas what could cause this? Given them a wipe with a micro fibre cloth and that’s not helped. 
 

Stylus on the rega looks fine. Other records are playing fine. 
 

I can’t get my head round it. 

[DirkCrisis]

I really do believe that buying records is more than just buying the music. You have to invest time in listening to them and handling them and even the way they are packaged is an art in itself.

 

But I also think that the time when records were truly a bargain was when they were losing the format wars to cassette and CD in the late 80s and early 90s.  But I also appreciate I may not always be looking in the right places. I should imagine that there are decent record shops like Crash in Leeds waiting for people to come back in and rifle through their stuff.

 

Would love an Amoeba or Rasputin Records equivalent in the UK though. Those two places are one of the highlights of San Francisco for me.

[Art Vandelay]

There's definitely bargains to be had still, but Discogs has made collecting like a stock market. It's easy to manipulate prices and it only takes a few people with deep pockets to completely distort things. Artists and DJs are especially naughty too in that they often say they have pressed up a handful of copies of something, then make a song and dance about them dropping into shops around Soho which will obviously sell out instantly. They then become the resellers on Discogs and are able to charge stupid figures. Like any release though, that median price is set in stone for anyone wanting to check its value in the future. I think the absolute worst time to buy anything is in the weeks after something has sold out at retailers as you get sucked into the fun and games. I tend to put that down as a loss and move onto the next thing.

 

I might start a bargains thread actually. There's millions of things on Discogs and eBay that are still pocket friendly.

[esar]

I don't think I trust Discogs pricing anymore, it doesn't make sense to me.

 

For example I was checking the price of a rare record I own by British Jazz legend Ian Carr, its an original pressing on Vertigo, a highly sought after label:

https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/507693?page=1

 

So its valued at around £150-£200, which is great but there's bloody loads of them on sale so how can it be worth that price? It feels to me that people don't really want to sell these records so stick them on for a ridiculous price and if someone comes along and buys it then that's a bonus.

After MF Doom passed away the prices for his music went crazy, like £80 for Madvillain, a really common album that's been repressed loads but when you check what has actually sold no one is actually paying these prices. It feels like Discogs is turning into a site for people to brag about how much their records are worth.

 

Thats not to say that there aren't any bargains on Discogs, its just not great with the more well known rare stuff. The best way to find records is still out and about, I've found a first issue of the Suicide LP in a moldy barn, I paid a fiver for a pink label King Crimson from a boot fair, and even ebay still has some good stuff, I got a mint Tangerine Dream LP for a fiver the other week.

Finding Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can LP mint for a pound in a charity shop is one of the highlights of my life  

 

I get so much more pleasure finding awesome music for cheap, a bargains thread would be great.

[Mike1812]

The most I've spent is £100 ish on S&M2 which was a box set with cd and blu ray and other stuff(the vinyl alone is £75 I think). The Wildhearts Chutzpah! was around £60 but again, it was a really nicely packaged re release with bonus demos etc. 

 

I have gone over the is a bit to get coloured versions on occasion(American Idiot, for example) but only around £10 extra.