I found my bid on the Jackie McLean record from the big Nautiluso auction last week: Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin’, Blue Note 4024. This looked to be a beautiful original pressing in near mint condition, quite lovely. Anyway, I bid $345, figuring maybe people would get scared off by the magnitude of the auction. It sold for $828. Oh well. I guess I’ll have to stick with my Liberty pressing, electronically re-recorded to simulate stereo. Yuck.
Here is some of the jazz vinyl we’ll be watching this weekend on eBay.
Sonny Clark, Sonny’s Crib, Blue Note 1576. This is an original pressing. The record is listed in VG+ condition and the cover is listed as VG++. Seems to be a nice copy. The current price is $385 with one more day to go.
The seller bobdjukic is back with a few items this weekend. I don’t know this seller, but he seems to be a bit unpopular among some of the visitors to Jazz Collector. I’ve censored a few comments about him because, as I’ve said, I don’t really want this site to be a forum to air complaints about individual buyers and sellers. But, having said that, there have been a few complaints. In any case, he seems to have some kind of magic system for getting great prices on his records and in getting high viewership. Here’s one of his records this weekend: The Cannonball Adderley Sextet In New York, Riverside 404. This is a
This is the record: Saxes, Inc., Warner Brothers 1336. It is not a major collectible and it started out with two strikes against it. Strike one — it doesn’t have a leader, which means it has to be filed under “Various” or “Miscellaneous” in the collection and those are always the records that get put away where you can’t reach them or see them and you wind up never listening to them. Strike two — it’s one of these “arranged” LPs with a lot of emphasis on charts and less on playing. Anyway, despite starting off with two strikes, this record, surprisingly, makes the cut and will be in the final 1,000. It’s actually an awesome record with great playing and great arrangements that really swing. It starts
So there’s more on the big auction last week by the seller Nautiluso: The buyer who left the negative feedback yesterday? He has rescinded the negative feedback. His exact comment is: “Seller now agrees to accept Pay Pal. Emails appear to be legitimate.” It will be interesting to see what happens and whether the buyers are happy with the condition of their records. I will say that there is a strong tendency in the community to suspect fraud: In addition to what appeared on the Jazz Collector site, I received a few emails from people quite skeptical that this auction was for real. My personal feeling was to give the seller the benefit of the doubt, based on the fact that he
I have a feeling I may regret this one: It’s more an emotional decision than a rational one. This is the record: Lee Konitz Jazz at Storyville, Storyville Records PA 6002. I’ve had this in my collection for years and it was one of those that got lost in the shuffle. I’ve had it so long, I always assumed it was an original pressing. So I was going through my records the other day and came across this one and decided to check it out. To my surprise, my copy is not an original. It is a Japanese pressing. Hmmm. Anyway, I was disappointed and I put the record on and it sounds good and Konitz’s playing is terrific, but I think I’m letting this one go. Everytime I look at it I’ll be reminded of my disappointment. No one ever said jazz collectors were rational.
Now that we’ve given away the Billie Holiday record it is time to turn our attention to the next contest. As mentioned, we decided to go through the collection we purchased the other night to come up with something worthy. There were many candidates, and the one we chose is this: Herbie Nichols Trio, Blue Note 1519. This is a French reissue of this classic Blue Note LP featuring Nichols on piano with Max Roach on drums and either Al McKibbon or Teddy Kotick on bass. We can safely give this one away since the one in our collection is a Lexington Avenue pressing. As always with these contests, the goal is to encourage people to comment on the Jazz Collector site. It is working and we are getting both more comments and more commentators. Anyway, we have
Remember that monster jazz vinyl collection last week from that seller in South America/Germany? Remember all of those records that sold for more than $1,000, some for more than $3,000? Remember all of the comments from Jazz Collector readers expressing skepticism? One of the buyers from this auction has expressed negative feedback on the eBay Feedback Forum. The crux of his complaint is that he received emails of questionable origin and the buyer was asking for a bank check as opposed to Pay Pal. This doesn’t mean the records don’t exist or that winning bidders won’t get what they paid for. But it certainly raises a red flag. We would love to hear from other winners from this auction about their experiences. We generally shy away from allowing readers to use this site to comment on buyers or sellers — we don’t want it to be a place for the airing of personal grudges — but this is one time when we do want to hear about what is going on.
Like the compulsive nut that I am, I spent yesterday going through the records I purchased the other night. Not just going through the records, but doing a major record reorganization so I could welcome these records to their new home. however transient it may be. Anyway, I was hoping to get some upgrades out of this collection and here’s one: Lee Morgan, The Cooker, Blue Note 1578. Sad to say, I do not own an original copy of this record. Sad because original copies are selling for nearly $500 on eBay these days. It also shows how difficult it was to find original pressings prior to eBay. I’ve been seeking jazz records for close to 40 years and, if I had ever seen one of these at a decent price in a record store, I would certainly have purchased it. Which means, it never happened. Scary. In this case Read more
Time to give away the Billie Holiday record: The Essential Billie Holiday Carnegie Hall Concert, Verve 8410. This is an original pressing with the MGM label and the gatefold cover. It’s an interesting piece in that it intersects Billie’s singing with a narrative from her autobiography Lady Sings The Blues. The goal with this give-away, as with all of our give-aways, has been to encourage people to comment on the Jazz Collector site. The good news is that the tactic seems to be working: Since we began this particular contest we’ve had 22 separate people posting comments on the site, which is our high mark for a two-week period. So thank you to everyone for contributing. OK, rather than list everyone’s name — you know who you are — we will just delve into
So much for whittling down my collection. Last night, I bought another batch of albums, about 300 altogether. So, let’s see: Since I started this Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown two weeks ago, I’ve decided to sell 12 records. In that same period, I’ve managed to purchase 300 records, for a net gain of 288 records. At the rate I’m going, in three years I’ll have a half a million records and I’ll be living in a straitjacket. In any case, there is a story behind the purchase of these records, which I will tell. A couple of weeks ago I accompanied the lovely Mrs. Jazz Collector to a party of her colleagues. She told me there would be many other spouses there. She was wrong: There were three others, and two of them fell asleep before the hors d’oeuvres were served. So that left me and another guy. We started chatting. I told him about Jazz Collector. “Really,” he said. “I’m moving to California in two weeks and I was thinking about selling my jazz collection.” “Really,” I said. “This could be
