On eBay: Some Blue Notes, Curtis Fuller Savoy

I’m sitting here hanging out with the lovely Mrs. JC and whilst she’s chatting on the phone I’ve spent the last hour going through two full days of jazz records on eBay. Here are some of the items I found — far fewer collectibles than I would have expected to encounter over 48 hours, by the way:

Johnny Griffin, The Congregation, Blue Note 1580. This is an odd one: It has the original vinyl, but the cover does not seem to be an original. Does anyone know the vintage of the cover — it has no address on it? The cover is by Andy Warhol, so that has always added to the value of this particular Blue Note. The record and cover are both listed in M- condition. Despite the cover the bidding has already reached more than $240 and the record has yet to reach the seller’s reserve price.

The Eminent Jay Jay Johnson Volume 1, Blue Note 1505. This is an original Lexington

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On EBay: Norgans, Riverside, Transition, More

Here are some interesting items on eBay now:

My friend Steve at Roundagain Records in Providence has a few nice records closing pretty soon, including: Bud Powell, Jazz Original, Norgran 1017. This is an original yellow label, deep groove pressing. The record is VG++ and the cover is VG+. The price is already close to $150. Here’s another Norgran: An Evening With Anita O’Day, Norgran 1057. This is also an original yellow label pressing. The record and cover are in M- condition and the price is about $115. Here’s one more: Lucky Thompson, Lucky Strikes, Transition 21. This one is in VG+ to VG++ condition for the cover and record and it includes the booklet, which is not always so easy to find with the record anymore. This one is close to $200.

This one is more than $80 but hasn’t yet met the seller’s reserve price:

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On EBay Now: Griffin, Red, Blakey, Bird

EBay is loaded with nice jazz vinyl this weekend. Some of the top sellers are back in action, it seems. Here are some of the items we’re watching:

Johnny Griffin, A Blowing Session, Blue Note 1559. This is an original West 63rd Street pressing that is listed in VG++ condition for both the record and the cover. When we looked at this item last night the top bid was only $99. We thought we might be able to steal it for a decent price and we put in a Bidnip bid of about $230. Alas, no such luck for Jazz Collector today. The record is closing in a couple of hours and it is currently at about $425.

This seller has been selling some very nice records that seem to be in absolutely beautiful condition, including this: Red Garland, High Pressure, Prestige 7209. This is an original pressing in near mint condition and, from the picture with the listing it looks absolutely pristine, the cover as well. The current

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Price Updates: Newk, Cliff Jordan, Johnny Griffin

Here’s some more jazz vinyl for the Jazz Collector Price Guide:

Sonny Rolins, Saxophone Colossus, Prestige 7079. This was an original New York pressing with the yellow label. Based on the description we would rate the vinyl as VG+ and the cover as VG+. Considering the overall condition, this one sold for a pretty hefty price tag: $1,705.

By comparison, based on the condition, we thought this might fetch a higher price: Cliff Jordan, Blue Note 1565. This was an original pressing in at least VG++ condition, perhaps M-, based on the description. We expected it to certainly break into the $1,000 bin, but it fell just short. It sold for $939.

This one did not fall short of the $1,000 bin:

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On Ebay Now: Blue Notes of Note

There’s some nice Blue Note jazz vinyl on eBay now, including:

Louis Smith, Here Comes Louis Smith, Blue Note 1584. This looks to be an original pressing with the vinyl in VG++ condition and the cover just VG-. The seller goes out of his way to provide some nice clear pictures of the cover, which we always appreciate. This one is only $58 with more than a day to go, but the seller has a reserve price and it has not yet been reached. I know many of you are not fans of auctions with reserve prices, which is something to consider when listing jazz vinyl.

Cliff Jordan, Blue Note 1565. This is also an original pressing and it looks to be in VG++ condition, at least, for both the vinyl and the cover. Actually, it’s probably closer to M- than VG++, based on the description. The current price is $315 and there’s more than a day to go with no reserve. I would

not be surprised to see this one sell for more than $1,000.

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Updating the $1,000 Bin: Griffin, Bird, Dolphy

Doesn’t look as if things on eBay slowed down during the Christmas weekend. Here are a few of the items we’ve been watching:

Johnny Griffin, The Congregation, Blue Note 1580. This was an original pressing with the West 63rd Street address and the cover illustration by Andy Warhol. It was listed in M- condition by a very reliable seller. The price was $1,875. The same seller also sold: Here Comes Louis Smith, Blue Note 1584. This also looked to be in nice M- condition for both the record and the cover. It sold for $1,275.

While we’re updating the $1,000 bin, here’s this one:

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Catching UP: Kenny Dorham, Johnny Griffin

Time to catch up on some jazz vinyl we’ve been watching this week. Let’s start with a little KD: Kenny Dorham and Jackie McLean, Inta Somethin’, Pacific Jazz 41. The vinyl on this was in VG++ condition and the cover looked to be VG+. This is a nice record, but I’ve never thought of it as a high-end collectible. However, I will have to rethink that now that is has sold for $667.56. Also, there was this: Kenny Dorham, Afro-Cuban, Blue Note 1535. This was an original

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Price Updates: Serge, Thad, Miles, Silver, et al

We’ve been quite busy the past few days updating the Jazz Collector Price Guide so, if you haven’t looked lately, it’s worth taking a peek. There are more than 4,100 records in there now, and quite a lot in the $1,000-and-up category. If you want to search by highest prices first, you can do that just by clicking the word “Price” at the top of the Guide, or you can just sort by fields. If you want to sort all of the records based on price, you can click on the link for View the Complete Price Guide. Anyway, here are a few more records we’ve added to the Guide.

Johnny Griffin Sextet, Riverside 264. This was an original blue label pressing. The record was listed as M- and the cover appeared by be bout VG+. The price was $237.50.

Miles Davis, Cookin’, Prestige 7094. This was an original New York pressing that was listed in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The price was $394.

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The Incredible Rise of the $1,000 Jazz Record

The $1,000 bin truly doth runneth over  days. It’s quite an interesting phenomenon.

Paul Chambers, Whims of Chambers, Blue Note 1534. This was an original pressing in VG++ condition for both the record and the cover. A few years ago, I bought a copy of this on eBay in similar condition for about $300. At the time, I thought I was overpaying. A few weeks ago I sold a separate copy on eBay for about $325. It was in nice condition, with a VG+ cover. This was not a record I ever expected to see in the $1,000 bin. This copy sold for $1,313.

Here’s another one I never expected to see sell for more than $1,000: Cannonball Adderley, Somethin’s Else, Blue Note 1595. This is a nice record, but has never been among the higher-priced Blue Notes. The highest price we had previously recorded for this in the Jazz Collector Price Guide was around $400. This copy was in mice M- condition for both the record and the cover. It sold for $1,475.

This one almost entered the $2,000 bin:

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All Things Considered, Some Surprising Prices

Time to catch up with some of the items we’ve been watching this past week. We will do this in a few posts throughout the weekend. We’ll start with some of those items sold by the seller bobdjukic, who’s clearly got something going on that enables him to get wacky prices as well as staggering numbers of page views.

We’ll start with Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Music, Riverside 1102. This was a later stereo pressing, with that gold stereo stamp that many of the Riverside’s carried. Clearly not an original, which was a white label mono. One time on eBay, an original copy sold for more than $3,000. We chronicled it on Jazz Collector and it created quite a stir. See here. In any case that price for a mono was an aberration, just as we feel the price here for a stereo is an aberration. This copy, in M- condition for the record and cover, sold for $413.55. The seller actually wrote this in his listing: “Monstrously rare stereo pressing, many times rarer than the mono.” Yikes.  The other amazing thing about this record: It had more than 1,700 page views in eBay. Yikes again.

Speaking of second pressings, there was the copy of John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This was the one with the bulls-eye label, that was characterized as being of the same provenance as the black label. This record

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