Hard-To-find Vinyl- Lucky finds


Over the past month, I've been on a lucky streak of finding some rare and hard-to-find first pressings in Near Mint condition at great prices. The interesting part is the following finds were at the same record store!
1. Mark Knopfler- Ragpicker's Dream 2002;
2. Shirley Griffith‎– The Blues Of Shirley Griffith: Saturday Blues 1965
3. Buena Vista Social club - Self titled 1996; and
4. Jakob Dylan- Seeing Things 2008.

What great LP finds have you purchased lately?
dre1960

Showing 3 responses by whart

I've been focusing on pop and psych, early or odd pressings, mainly for
sonics, not collectibility, but some of these are fairly hard to find:
UK Vertigo Swirls - some of the more obscure ones:
Dr. Strangely Strange- Heavy Petting;
Gracious!
May Blitz- both titles- the 2nd of May is pretty rare
along with a number of others that are less rare; I cheated on Linda Hoyle
and bought a later Asian reissue of Pieces of Me, b/c the original is crazy
money if you can find one. (Even the Asian pressing was limited to 1,000
copies but the original UK was limited to 300).
Some nice WLPs: St. Dominic's Preview; Moondance; Dixie Chicken,
Alice's 'Love it to Death' on the Straight label;
a US W7 pressing of Astral Weeks;
a plum UK first with Peter Grant credit of
LZ III, along with minty early Plums of LZ II and IV;
a friend gave me a UK first black label Jeff Beck Truth- not nutty rare, but
sonically far more compelling than any other pressing of this 'Epic' record
(which was first pressed on EMI/Columbia);
a sealed package of Classic Clarity plus black vinyl of Tull's Aqualung,
totaling 8 records cut at 45rpm which, I believe, was an outgrowth of the
'samplers' Classic made for reviewers to compare the different vinyl
formulations , but in this case, of the entire album in both vinyl formulations;
A Claudia Cardinale of Blonde on Blonde;
a few nice old 6 Eyes, including 'The Sound of Jazz' from a guy in the
neighborhood;
an odd transcription of a radio program about Roy Harper, with Harper,
Page and Plant, Ian Anderson and a few others, from a street vendor in the
neighborhood;
a true UK first of Roy Harper's Stormcock (no EMI credit on label);
Earlier in the week, got to hear (but did not buy) a true first of both the
stereo and mono of Hoodoo Man Blues (with the 'friendly chap' credit).
Both were dead mint, but not for sale.
I've met some great sellers recently who supplied me with:
Ziggy/Spiders 6E/4E UK- dead mint;
Die Beatles Horzu -2;
a UK Vertigo Swirl '1970 Annual'- not exceedingly rare in itself, but contains
tracks from some albums that are quite rare; this 'sampler' is not easy to
find in mint condition;
on Knopfler, I picked up a minty UK Vertigo 'Spaceship' label of the first
Dire Straits album and found a Quiex copy of 'Love over Gold.'
I rarely buy classical any more b/c I have so many, unplayed, from buying
during the 80's- mainly RCA/Mercury/Lyrita/Decca/London/EMI ASD, etc.
but found a very nice Period pressing of Starker, Kodaly, Unaccompanied
Cello, that plays quietly, which is pretty unusual, I think. Most are beat up
for some reason, and expensive.
Slaw- on the Desparado, is it a WLP or simply an early 'white label' asylum- the first pressings of that record, pressed at Monarch, with the black inner sleeve, sound phenomenal (and still have that early Eagles country/western thing going, before they became an anthem rock band).
Slaw: no, not necessary, although your WLP may have been pressed at
Monarch. Monarch was a west coast pressing plant with a very good
reputation for punchy sounding pressings (obviously, much has to do with
the mastering). If yours has a timing strip, it does indeed sound like a WLP.
The reason I asked was because the early Asylum label was white and I
have an early pressing of Desperado on such a label (but it is not a WLP,
which should be a very early pressing).
I've been paying a lot more attention to all those little inscriptions in the
deadwax. :)