Danish Jazz, Anyone? Blue Notes, Anyone?

Here’s one that almost made it to the $3,000 bin: Sahib Shihab and the Danish Jazz Radio Group, Oktav OKLP 111. This was an original Danish pressing listed in Ex condition for both the record and the cover, with just a single photo on the listing. The bidders must have had a lot of confidence in the seller because the record sold for $2,965. Last time we saw that record in the Jazz Collector Price Guide it sold for $1,953. This seller had quite a week. This next one went deep into the $3,000 bin: Presenting Jazz Quintet 60, Fontana TL 687.527. This was another Danish original, from 1963, and it featured, among others Bent Axen and Neils Hennings Oersted Pedersen. It was described as being in pristine condition and sold for a whopping $3,617.89. Imagine buying these records in the mid ’60s for, what, the equivalent of five bucks or so each, and now selling the two of them for $6,500? What’s more, if you look at the seller’s completed auctions, you see another record that sold for $2,240: Jazz Quintet 60, Metronome 15124.

Here are a few nice Blue Notes:

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Andy Warhol Covers For the $2,000 Bin

Someone mentioned this one in the comments: Jay Jay Johnson, Kai Winding, Bennie Green, Trombone by Three, Prestige 16-4. This is a rare item, a 16-RPM record with a cover design by Andy Warhol. We’ve seen it sell for nearly $300 in VG++ condition in the Jazz Collector Price Guide. Which did not prepare us for this one, which was in mere G condition for the record and just VG for the cover. It sold for $2,000.

Here’s another jazz record with a cover by Andy Warhol: Conte Candoli, Cool Gabriels, Groove 1003. I have to admit, this is one I’ve never seen before. The record was in VG++ condition and the cover was VG++ as well. The price for this one was also $2,000.

Since we’re already in the $2,000 bin, here’s one more:

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A Couple More For the $1,000 Bin

Here are a couple for the $1,000 bin in the Jazz Collector Price Guide:

Lee Morgan, City Lights, Blue Note 1575. This was an interesting one. The seller had it on last week with a reserve and didn’t sell it despite a bid of more than $400. He put it back this week, the bidding accelerated way past the $400 mark and the record wound up selling for a buy-it-now price of $1,200 before the auction closed. The seller must be pretty happy he put a reserve price on this record the first time around. The vinyl was listed as M- and the cover seemed to be VG+.

Bent Axen-Bent Jaedig, Let’s Keep the Message, Debut 133. This was the original Danish

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Another For the $1,000 Bin

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.

Updating the $1,000 Bin

We’ve been updating the Jazz Collector Price Guide this morning and we just added a fairly  large group of records that surpassed the $1,000 price barrier. We’ve mentioned some of these before on Jazz Collector, but it’s interesting to see the group all at once. There are no links attached to these, by the way, so don’t try clicking them. Here goes:

Bent Axen, Let’s Keep the Message, Debut 133. There are actually two copies of this that fit into the category. They were both in M- condition, both cover and record. One sold for $1,790.90 and the other sold for $1,326.

Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, Prestige 7079. There are two copies of this as well. One was sold by the Jazz Record Center and was in M- condition, both record and cover. It sold for $1,492. the other was in VG++/VG+ condition. It sold for $1,575. Go figure.

Here’s the only one on the list that was a bit of a surprise:

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Two More For the $1,000 Bin

Things may be slow on eBay this days, but there always seems to be a large appetite for some of the rarest records, and two of the ones we’ve been watching sold for more than $1,000 recently. We haven’t had quite such luck with our own sales although, admittedly, we haven’t been putting up gems. Still, we had more than 50 records up for auction this week and probably sold only about 50 percent. This is highly, highly unusual, since we tend to underprice the records and grade them conservatively. The other thing, and a few readers noted this, is that traffic on eBay seems to be down: Not only are fewer people bidding on the records, fewer people are looking at the records. I think it’s all a temporary lull — a reaction to the economy — and I’m planning to continue posting records on eBay. Whatever doesn’t sell I put into the store inventory, which you can view by clicking the Items For Sale link above, so you may find bargains if you take a look. In the meantime, we continue to track eBay pricing and here are the two records that recently sold for more than $1,000:

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