Month: May 2009

Some Nice Blue Notes For The Price Guide

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We’ve seen several nice Blue Note records break the $1,000 price barrier in the past couple of weeks, including the copy of Cool Struttin’ by Sonny Clark that sold for $3,416. Here are some of the Blue Notes that we will be entering into the Jazz Collector Price Guide this weekend. 

Lee Morgan, Candy, Blue Note 1590. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing. The record was VG++ and the cover was M-. The price was $1,575.

Lee Morgan, Indeed, Blue Note 1538. This was an original Lexington Avenue pressing in VG+ condition, both record and cover. The price was $900.

Thad Jones, The Magnificent Volume 3, Blue Note 1546. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing. The record was VG++ and the cover was M-. The price was $500.

Then there are these records from Sonny Clark:

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A $1,000 Bill Evans & a Few More For The Price Guide

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We’ve been quite busy selling some nice records on eBay and posting a few more, but we’ve still made time to keep an eye on some of the interesting collectibles that other people are selling. Here’s an update, all of which will be entered into the Jazz Collector Price Guide sometime over the weekend:

Bill Evans, New Jazz Conceptions, Riverside 223. This was an original white label pressing with the original cover. The cover is one of the things that makes this so collectible, since subsequent versions were released with another cover. For this copy, the record was in M- condition and the cover was listed as VG/VG+. The price was $1,136.

Phil Woods, Warm Woods, Epic 3436. This was an original pressing with the yellow label. The record and the cover were both in M- condition. The price was $555.

Helen Merrill, Emarcy 36006. This was the original pressing of this LP, which features

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One For the $3,000 Bin

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Here’s one that sold for more than $3,000 the other day: Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’, Blue Note 1588. This was an original pressing in M- condition, both record and cover. It had the advantage of being sold by Euclid Records, which is one of the larger sellers on eBay and has an excellent reputation. This copy sold for $3,416, which puts it among the Top Five we’ve recorded on the Jazz Collector Price Guide.  If you click the previous Price Guide link, it should take you to a page where all of the records are sorted by highest prices first, which is always a fun way to view the Price Guide. 

Speaking of prices, we’ve got some nice items closing tomorrow at pretty reasonable prices, and we just put up some interesting new items that are closing next week. Among the more interesting items we have up now are a Lexington Avenue pressing of Paul Chambers, Whims of Chambers, Blue Note 1534. This is closing tomorrow and is currently about about $180. For next week

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Looking for a Serious Jazz Collector in the D.C. Area

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Ever since we started appearing regularly in Google searches, all kinds of interesting people are finding Jazz Collector, which is great. We recently got a peak at a very cool Bud Powell collectible that we hope to share with you soon, and we also just got a note from a documentary filmmaker who is looking for a serious jazz record collector in the greater Washington DC area for a documentary movie about jazz. If you fit the bill and are interested in appearing in a documentary, you can contact Stefan at giganova@giganova.com. If you do participate in this, please make sure to share the experience with your colleagues here at Jazz Collector.

For the Price Guide: Trane, Sonny, Monk, Mobley

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We are up in the lovely Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, sitting on our porch with the lovely Mrs. JC, and looking at jazz records on eBay. Life is not bad. Here are a few items we will be entering into the Jazz Collector Price Guide sometime before the end of the weekend. 

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, Impulse A-77. This was an original stereo pressing with the orange label and gatefold cover. It was in M- condition, both record and cover. It sold or $150. One of the reasons I’m putting this up is that I recently acquired a mono copy in M- to go with my stereo copy, also in M- condition, and I am currently deciding whether to keep both or put one up for auction on eBay, or, perhaps, even sell it here on Jazz Collector. I am open to offers and/or suggestions.

Thelonious Monk, Prestige 7053. This was an original pressing with the cover design by Andy Warhol. It was in VG++/VG++ condition

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Another For the $1,000 Bin

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We haven’t been watching eBay as closely since we bought the collection in Trenton recently. We’ve been spending a lot of time washing and cleaning records. Fortunately, the results of our efforts are starting to bear fruit and a couple of the items from the collection finally made their way to eBay yesterday, including Paul Chambers, Whims of Chambers, Blue Note 1534,  and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers a the Cafe Bohemia, Volume 1, Blue Note 1507.  We did, however, take note of another item that recently surpassed the $1,000 price barrier, and that is: Bent Axen, Poll Winner 59. This was an original Danish pressing, Fona Klubben 416. The seller said that this label was kind of notorious for bad pressings and bubbles in the pressings, but this was listed as a perfect copy of the record as well as the cover. The price was $1,540.

Downbeats, Anyone?

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I’ve been posting old issues of Downbeat Magazine from the 1960s on eBay and have not seen a great deal of interest, which is  a shame since, to me, these seem so much a part of the history. Anyway, I received a note yesterday from a guy in Portland, Oregon, who has just acquired a massive collection of Downbeats from 1955 to 2004 and he’s looking to sell them in bulk. I already  have too many Downbeats to get rid of, so I told him I wasn’t interested but I would post an item on the site and see if any of the Jazz Collector readers are interested. If you are, you can send me an email (al@jazzcollector.com) or you can just post a response to this item and I will pass along your interest and you can contact him directly.

For Sale: Louis Armstrong Autograph

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I just posted an interesting item on The Jazz Collector Store on eBay: A copy of the Louis Armstrong autobiography Satchmo, My Life In New Orleans, which is autographed by Louis Armstrong. It is signed in large print on the title page: “To Joel From Satchmo Louis Armstrong.” The Satchmo is underlined. I have a receipt stating that I paid $270 for this item nearly 10 years ago, but I just posted it for $200. I did a quick search on eBay and there are not that many Armstrong autographs available and none quite as strong as this one, since it is an inscribed autobiography. Since the item is in the store and not up on auction, it could go fast, so I wanted to make sure I gave a heads-up to all of you who read Jazz Collector in case you wanted to grab it. If you buy it and tell me you read about it at Jazz Collector, I’ll give you an additional $10 discount. Can’t beat that.

Adventures in Jazz Collecting, Part 4

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So I finally got home on Monday after my trip to Trenton and massive traffic on the Belt Parkway through Brooklyn and Queens. I started unloading the records, My nosy neighbor was watching. I smiled. “Records,” I said. I’m not sure she knew what I was talking about. The records filled the front foyer of my house. There were seven crates altogether. I had decided to just take everything that Rob had. This included Christmas records, and Aretha Franklin, and some pretty well damaged jazz records. The first two crates I looked through had nothing. Was it all an illusion? In my rush of adrenaline and musk and mold and dust, did I imagine that there were collectible jazz records in this batch? I went searching for the Tina Brooks record. This I knew was a collectible. I grabbed it. The moldy flakes from the cover fell off in my hands. I grabbed the vinyl, went upstairs and put it on my VPI record cleaner. The dust and dirt and grime and mold came off, but the record was in only VG condition. And the cover? It was pretty bad, and it reeked of mold and musk. I threw it in the garbage. Not a good start.

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Adventures in Jazz Collecting, Part 3

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OK, so I let the nice collection in Hartford slip through my fingers. But I knew there was another option: Trenton, New Jersey. For the past couple of weeks I’d been dealing on line and on the phone with a guy named Rob in Trenton. Rob said his father had a friend who passed away and left his records to Rob’s dad, who had also passed away. Rob had been holding on to the records for years and was now ready to get rid of them. He’d come across Jazz Collector on line and saw some of the prices in the Price Guide and figured maybe they were worth something. We chatted and he sent me a bunch of pictures of records. There were definitely some nice ones in there, but there was no way for me to tell if they were originals or if they were in good condition. So I didn’t get too excited. Besides, I wasn’t sure what Rob wanted to do. At first I thought he might be interested in selling the records himself on eBay, and I told him that, in my opinion, that would be the way to get the best value for the records.

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