Led Zeppelin 11

I bought a number of hot stampers from Tom for a number of years until I discovered a record seller in the Bay Area and another in SoCal where I could buy multiple copies and perform my own shootouts.  In some cases I was able to find pressings better than hot stampers.  The LZII is a sore spot for me as I paid big bucks for a hot stamper after Tom saying it was nearly impossible to find a RL copy in good condition which I then debunked when I bought a nice RL copy on Ebay for something like $200 that absolutely eclipsed the hot stamper version.  It was superior in every way especially in bass and dynamics.  The impact was something else.  I eventually stopped buying hot stampers and found my own for a fraction of the price.

I see that Better Records hot stampers have suffered from the same price escalation as with equipment.

I no longer collect records as I now listen to streamed digital files through my headphones.  There, I said it.  It is most cathartic to finally come out as I never, ever thought I would trade LPs for digital, but here we are.

I collected records for 50 years and learned through Tom Port's hot stampers and others some of the tricks in finding the best pressings, at least the ones most likely to enter into shootouts.  Things like determining who the parent record company, the country of origin, the usual best-sounding pressings for a certain label, etc.  There were prior existing rules of thumb that didn't often work like getting pressings from the country of the artist; it was more important to determine the parent record company and get pressings from the country headquartering that record company as they were more likely to manage the mastering there and used the highest generation mother stampers for pressing there.  Also, to look in the deadwax and find an imprint of the top mastering houses like Sterling Sound or The Mastering Lab.  Things like that.  

Now with digital I don't worry about that stuff.  I think I have about 150 Better Records hot stampers and 350 that I did myself.  The only question is what to do with them, maybe sell them or hang on to them.