I tend to follow the sales of various LP’s on Ebay. Recently, i have noticed that the price of many of them seems to have skyrocketed! For example, many of the Mobile Fidelity albums have sold for prices that are two-four times more than what they were when new! This is a new development, as only recently, say in the last six months, the same LP’s were selling at or below their original retail price, no more! The recent MFSL reissues of the Miles Davis LP’s are a good example...some of them sat on the various sites that sold them new for years at the same price, or even slightly below...now we see these very same albums going for up to four times what they originally sold for.. Same goes for several of the Analogue Productions reissues..what’s up??
Combination of things coming together in a perfect storm situation. Old records are like postage stamps collectible even if only due to not being made any more. For decades the supply was plentiful relative to demand. But now at the same time demand is growing, supply is dwindling. Demand is growing from a combination of more people realizing the superiority of vinyl, greater availability of turntables and gear to play them with, and now also people cooped up with more time and being scared into spending it alone and at home.
As if all this isn't enough we also have not only the US but governments all over the world printing money by the trillions. Audiophiles may not get it, but not many have to, and anyway who says you have to be an audiophile to want to buy something that's going up in price?
Like I said just last week, when I dropped and scratched my copy of New Basement Tapes Lost on the River I thought no big deal buy another one, until I found the only 2 copies on discogs were not the $35 mine cost but now go for $200.
Have to use this to take another well deserved shot at digital. All kinds of CDs out there, anyone seeing price appreciation in digital? Yeah, what a joke. Which goes to show all the other reasons cited are indeed reasons, but ultimately are being driven by superior sound quality. Unlike CD, people actually enjoy listening to records- and prove it where it counts by being willing to pay more for them.
@millercarbon While your post explains some of the rise in value, it doesn't totally explain the considerable rise in value of the reissues, some of which I mention in my OP. Remember, some of these will be available again ( after repress) at pricing that is at the original retail on some of the usual retailer sites. Is it because folk have to have the album now...and cannot bear to wait for any amount of time?? Or is it something else?
Look at the demographic that spends lots of money on vinyl records.
I grew up with vinyl and I experienced all of its problems, so I am a young member of the baby boomer generation that likes CDs and downloaded digital music.
Although my son is not an audiophile (yet), he and many of his generation made a great deal of money as entrepreneurs. They are buying vinyl in droves and others are buying incredible digital systems. Companies such as MSB Technologies are catering to this new crop of Silicon Valley millionaires for digital ($84K DAC?) and this generation of vinyl-lovers are grabbing all of the content that they can. It is an artificially-inflated market and the suppliers' profit by offering a limited product, keeping subsequent prices high, even of reissues.
If a seller at ebay raises the price on collectible and sells then other sellers will follow as long the demand remains the same. You can also compare selling value at Discogs. Only one seller with these recordings? Monopoly. HQ pressings even some repressings are way too expensive, same goes with SACD's. I can understand the high prices on out of production SACD's and original releases on LP, but reissues? I always skip. G
Many years ago, Mobile Fidelity had a retail outlet in Sebastapol, CA. We visited and purchased many favorites at $13.99 each. A few years ago, I sold them to a used record store dealer for $50 each. He was thrilled to get them, and I was thrilled to have sold them. I recently got back into vinyl and regret selling them, but the profit helps ease the pain.
About twenty years ago, I found and bought a still-sealed Mobile Fidelity copy of Rickie Lee Jones for $6 in a used record store. I saw it recently advertised here for $250. Now that’s inflation, or is it just supply and demand?
I don't think it's really new, but the prices do continue to climb. It is supply and demand. The "reissues" you mentioned are (mostly) high quality, numbered limited editions. Some are not so popular and if they are still readily available they will sell at MSRP. If they sold out within days or weeks of their release, good luck finding one at its original MSRP.
Same thing happens with Record Stored Day releases. If there are only 2,000 copies of something popular, you'll see them at double their price within hours of them going on sale. Go look at prices for the RSD 2020 Black Friday version of Let It Bleed.
Both MoFi and AP issue their pressings in limited runs. Call it a marketing ploy to keep their LP’s in demand or reseller greed.
One example, I was keeping an eye on Norah Jones - Come Away With Me for last 6 months. It was ‘awaiting repress’ at the major retailers, eBay and Amazon was selling the AP pressing for $70 or more. As soon as it became available, I grabbed a copy for $35.00.
Another prime example is SRV’s Texas Flood, the 7000 run of numbered copies already sold out. And Elusive is now price gouging on the few remaining copies,
About twenty years ago, I found and bought a still-sealed Mobile Fidelity copy of Rickie Lee Jones for $6 in a used record store. I saw it recently advertised here for $250. Now that’s inflation, or is it just supply and demand?
Everyone wants to pretend its one thing. If it was one thing I would have said the one thing instead of listing and explaining a few of the many important factors involved.
Inflation by the way is a monetary phenomenon. When money is created from nothing that is inflation. Whether or not monetary inflation results in higher prices depends on many, many other factors. For example, if monetary inflation is running 10%, but productivity is increasing 20%, then prices may fall even with 10% inflation. Exactly what has happened with a lot of electronics.
Or if the newly printed from nothing money flows first into banks and Wall St then it will drive interest rates down and equity prices up. Any of this starting to sound familiar?
We are now in the early stages of monetary hyperinflation, but hardly anyone notices because they were all Jedi mind-tricked into thinking inflation is rising prices. By the time enough prices are rising fast enough to catch on to what I’m saying it will be too late.
Can anyone explain the sudden and significant increase in the desirability of a record like the MoFi release of Miles Davis Milestones, as an example. This release was available for years with seemingly little absorption, and yet we now see it selling for 3-4 times the original pricing! There are other good examples as well in both the MoFi catalog and AP, and I am not talking about the One Step releases, etc.
Are they asking 3 to 4 times the issue price or are they Selling at 3 to 4 times? I just bought a new issue of Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder for about $30, the cheapest I found on eBay was $200. Asking and selling are two different things.
Some posts are over-simplifying the issue, others over-complicating it.
Sidewinder by Lee Morgan is available in a new pressing (one title in the Blue Note Classic series) for $20-25. The copies of the album going for hundreds of dollars are different pressings (the Tone Poet series, for one), now out-of-print. Original Blue Note copies from the early-60’s are very expensive as well.
Mobile Fidelity makes an initial pressing of a title, often between 1,000 and 3,000 copies. Some are limited editions (with no second pressing planned), some are not. While still in print (copies available at Music Direct and their dealer network), the MoFi LP’s sell for $34.99. As soon as all the first pressing copies are sold, the price of the copies still out there immediate skyrockets. Some titles will now cost a hundred bucks or more. The same is true of LP titles offered by Analogue Productions.
However, some titles are only temporarily out-of-print, awaiting a repressing. Dylan’s great album Planet Waves has been unavailable for a while, so copies were going for $50-100. It is now again available for $34.99 at Music Direct, a new repress having just been done. The guy still trying to sell his copy on ebay for $50 is apparently unaware of that fact. ;-) Another MoFi title with an upcoming repress is Tapestry by Carole King. Patience, grasshopper.
Analogue Productions did a series of Beach Boys albums, including the infamous Pet Sounds. It was made available in both Mono and Stereo versions, and in both 33-1/3 (a single LP) and 45RPM (2 LP’s) pressings. The Mono version, at both 33-1/3 and 45RPM, has been unavailable since the initial pressing sold out, so of course the price of copies for sale went up. The Mono/45RPM Pet Sounds is now again available from Acoustic Sounds, the 33-1/3 version will be shortly.
Ok, so the fact that the title is no longer available, or is temporarily unavailable, guarantees it will now sell for multiples of the original price. This does not really make total sense to me, as the Miles Davis Milestones MFSL reissue was available for years..and clearly was not a big seller at its original price! So, now that it is apparently discontinued, it suddenly gains tremendously in desirability! Not for me it does not...LOL.
There's a saying in finance, you go bankrupt twice: gradually, and all of a sudden. The sun darkens, the cloud gathers, and then finally when the rain starts falling you point and go, "HEY! Why's this spot wet all of a sudden!?!"
There's some things no matter how many times or how well explained some never are able to get it. This it seems is one of them.
@chrisoshea I think you probably hit the nail on the head when you stated what you did about 28 year old newbies. That would certainly explain why so many of these titles are selling for multiples of what they were just a few months back...or even are still on other platforms that the more experienced would be aware of!
Marketing ploy....price gouging, gotta love it. In a free market, any item is worth what a seller will pay. Selling it for less, if you're in business, makes little sense. If you want to see true price gouging, go take a look at anything that's subsidized.
@builder3 Uhm, not what a "Seller' will pay, what a "Buyer" will pay. Selling it for less makes perfect sense if that 'less' is going to be more than what it can be sold for after said sale, or in the future! That is if one has to sell.
Meant buyer, of course. Your further comments presuppose a bit of psychic ability, and therein lies the 'rub' in any transaction. Will the price go up or down, in the future? No one can really say. But, historically, inflation drives the prices of many (most?) items higher, unless they are something that just becomes obsolete or undesirable. Vinyl has been all of these, at times.
And the Basement Tapes sound superb , absolutely superb on my bit perfect CD rip played back by server to Aesthetix DAC. Some of us have the clarity of mind and experience including high speed tape to appreciate what different formats can do.
@jafant Maybe. Although does that explain the significant increase in value of the MFSL Milestones LP that I exampled above? Plenty of supply for years...and little demand. Now that it is 'supposedly' out of stock ( and for how long?) the demand sky rockets? Where were all these folks when it was easily and readily available?
@daveyf ....true....but there's going to be a 'tipping point', where used CD's will outnumber used LP's. And, unfortunately, an LP is subject to wear, even with the finest of cart and arm....🤷♂️ I suspect that the next probe that leaves our solar system will include a variant of a CD with a player. Even a gold record might not withstand the millennia, if encountered at all....and one Voyager is heading 'up' and out of the galaxy's plane.... *L* I know, off topic....I like the LP's I do have, but know that eventually they'll end up in a bin in a store for someone to go...
"Joe's Garage"? *wtf*....'a Stratocaster with a Whammy Bar?!" *L*
This is nothing new...have you ever looked at better records to see what he is asking?? You will be shocked!!😳 Although I must confess to indulging gonna few of his records...😉 You should see what theyare asking on ebay for a sealed copy of The Doors "13" original 1970’s sealed records. There are a few priced at $250 and higher! I just stumbled upon a sealed reissue no bar code early seventies, possibly very early eighties copy, but only paid $60 bucks. Fine by me. Call me nuts, but I’m about to pounce on a swingin’ with the mastersounds sealed fantasy lp for $150. Gotta get em’ when you see em’, they don’t last long.
I’m not really a fan of ’better records’. I have a number of his ’recommendations’ and they are nothing special. Most of the better D to D LP’s or the likes of Opus 3, smoke them. Problem is, and this is just IMHO, the guy really isn’t listening through that revealing a system, so how can he make a great recommendation?
BTW, I’m not questioning how LP’s can be priced to the ether, but i am questioning why some of the more recent MFSL’s and AP’s, that sat on the shelf for years, now are.
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