Another Blue Note Day At Jazz Collector
Here are a few more high priced blue Notes  we’ve been watching on eBay:
Hank Mobley Quintet, Blue Note 1550. This was an original deep groove pressing and it was in VG++ condition for the record and what looked to be VG+ for the cover. It sold for $939.77. Do you think people are buying these Blue Notes at these prices for investment purposes, thinking that they will continue to increase? Or do you think it’s real collectors buying them for the music? Or perhaps it’s something in between: Real collectors buying them for the music, but also looking at them as a solid investment?
Lee Morgan Sextet, Blue Note 1541. This was an original Lexington Ave pressing that looked to be in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. The price was $776.
Jackie McLean, Jackie’s Bag, Blue Note 4051. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing that looked to be in M- condition for both the record and the vinyl. The price was $689.
Lou Donaldson, Sunny Side Up, Blue Note 4036. This was an original pressing in M- condition for both the record and the cover. It must be nice to be able to afford to buy all of these Blue Notes in M- condition. Or to sell them. This one fetched $632.
I have bought thousands of BN’s over the years simply for investment purposes. Most of what I have bought are unplayed store stock copies at under $20 each. I will be selling them soon, as how many complete series can you store and never listen to?
I never bought a record in which I had no musical interest.My only reason to sell is to have found a better copy or to substitute a reissue.Anyway jazz is a passion,not my job:I’m a dermatologist.
As Al wrote yesterday,and Terry confirmed today,time and space aren’t infinite.In fact I’m not sure to succeed in listening to all the music surrounding me.You,sellers,continue to sell.Me,buyer,I’ll buy what you sell.
Terry,you can send me a few boxes of those “unplayed store stock copies”,since as you said you can “never listen to” them all. I predict you will immediately feel a sense of relief and,yes,even GRACE for having put great music back into circulation. Come on,man-you know you want to!
Well, Terry, I like the suggestion that Ceedee made: send us a few boxes of your unplayed store stock copies. After all, you say you have thousands of them. You won’t miss a box or two, now would you? 😉 The one thing that I like to know as a rookie collector with a very thin wallet: how did you know where to buy these ‘thousands of unplayed stock copies’? I visited a record warehouse once in my life here in The Netherlands and they had walls full of jazz, old stuff, most of it still boxed, but after asking and even begging them to at least allow me to flip through some of the boxes or buy still closed boxes in the blind, they simply refused: “this overstock has to be returned to the record companies and they will either recycle the vinyl, or simply destroy all of it”. And that was it. It had to do with book keeping as far as I can remember. I couldn’t spend one penny on their overstock even though I was willing to empty my pockets right there and then. So again: how come you were able to buy ‘thousands of unplayed store stock copies’? On the other hand: did Blue Note really press thousands of copies of every release during the what I call “originals years” (so not Liberty or United Artists, but the real Blue Note thing) to create store (over) stock? I mean, from what I have heard, Hank Mobley’s original first BLP1568 was pressed in a run of only 500 copies, hence the fact that it’ll now cost you 2 grand to get it. Besides all that: how are you going to keep all those thousands of records in good shape if you’re not a collector that would put them out of harms way? And are you sure that they’re all original, or are we dealing with thousands of Liberty and United Artists re-pressings? I’m not trying to sound mean, it’s just a few things I wonder as a rookie 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
there are 3 reasons to buy a record: 1: listen to it 2:make money out of it 3: to fullfil your life, to prospone death, to complete something,to escape real life, to connect with your old evolutionairy hunting feelin’, to find a reason to get up, to get in touch with a other period then you live in, to restore the happy and complete world you had as a child/teen, to get adrenaline rushing, ….euh.. i fall in nr 1 (50% of my collection) and 3 (50% of my collection) :-))
Maarten — that is absolutely dead-on. I think my percentages are 5 percent #1, 5 percent #2 and 90 percent #3. But I could be exaggerating and it could be more like 99% #3.
Well, Maarten, Al, definitely number 1 and 3 for me as well. I have never bought anything to make money off of it either. Music is my life basically and as said multiple times before: on CD, since they’re easy to obtain. And I have about a thousand vinyl records, but it’s all seventies funk and jazzfunk. Adding a truly original Blue Note pressing to that collection every now and then is like adding a genuine bit of history. And who can withstand the lovely old smell of an original pressing? 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Always on the look-out for record stores or warehouses for sale. 8-9 years ago I bought 93 BN 10″ for $200. A few days later the same guy sold me a little ove 4K 10″ jazz LP’s, still in there original sealed shipping boxes, for 10K.
Well, Terry, your stories make me kinda jealous. I wish I had the means to be on the look out for record stores and warehouses for sale… Besides all that, it seems to me that only in the States these things are possible. I mean, The Netherlands as a country is about half the size of the state of Alabama, so we don’t have huge amounts of warehouses scattered all over the country, as I assume is quite the opposite for you. On lighter note, I have a suggestion: why don’t you contact Al and ask if you can write and contribute a guest column about what it means to be on the look out, about finding nice stores and warehouses, tell us what it means to search the country and tell us what you find. Is it like vast, unsold stocks? Maybe you can even tell us some interesting anecdotes about crazy situations in where you found amazing amounts of vinyl that were stored in a truly unexpected fashion. Call me a nut, but I love reading stories like that, just like I once read about that Danish guy that scavenges the entire US for unreleased Elvis material. Hope you like the idea and thanks for your reply 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
A rookie, yes, but ready for long trousers any time soon. My BN’s number 160, of which maybe 50 are “originals” pre 1966.Only two Lexingtons but a growing number of 47W63rd and NY.
Money? Have you ever tried listening to money? Put a $20 bill on your turntable. Garbage.
If you want to make money, go short-sell commodities.Leave records alone, they are what needs saving, not the planet.
The only good reason to own a record is to play it. I won’t pay a penny for a record I don’t like, however rare, or cheap. I’ll pay way over the market rate for the best pressing i can find of music I adore.Because its worth that to me.
All of my records are cherished, they are my babies. They get bath-time (RCM), they get played (with) regularly, I take them to parties, but unlike my actual kids, they get replaced by a better model if one comes up. Such is life.
However I am grateful for sellers, without whom I could not buy. Terry, recycle. Please.
Well, London Calling, I couldn’t agree with you more. I assume you read all of my replies here today? 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Mattyman – I just checked back – check, echo.
Perfect. 🙂 and now let’s just hope that Terry is willing to share some of his ‘scavenging’ stories with us, like I suggested in my comment above.
Enjoy the weekend, folks!
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Watch the Rising Sun.
I checked which buyers scooped all the pies in the recent run of mouthwatering Lexingtons and rare BN’s auctioned by “PetenBarb” from London’s Battersea.
In each case the winning bid in the last few seconds came from Japan or South Korea.
Sayonara, Blue Notes!
Hmmm… Interesting. I wonder how you found that out, London Calling. I tried to find that “PetenBarb” seller, but all I found was a buyer with the same name, and that account has been deleted. Still I’m surprised to see that your research shows that the Japanese and the South Koreans seem to be the notorious last minute buyers. One thing is for sure: the Japanese re-release Blue Note CDs and LPs all the time, probably easily obtainable for South Koreans as well, which says a lot about the demand for BN material over there and maybe that’s why they’re buying all the BN gems?
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Appologies for sloppy referencing:
Seller: peteandbarb01
If you go to feedback for this seller, see all, you will find the “identity” including location of the winning bidder for each sale.I checked only a few of the big ticket items out of curiosity.
The winner of MOBLEY BLUE NOTE 1550 47 WEST 63RD D/G (£355) was buyer Member alteca55 Profile:
since: 23-Jun-09
Location: Korea, South
I was curious who were these collectors pushing up prices, so I started digging. I spotted the Japanese and South Korean buyers but a more scientic search to be fair shows other big ticket items winners recently hailed from Mainland Europe – KENNY DREW £416(buyer from Italy), and LEX CAFE BOHEMIA £346 (buyer from Greece)
Suprising what you can find out by identifying ebay winners via their seller feedback, and thence their location.
actually I had some nice sales to Italy recently, way above average prices. But So. Korea, Japan and Singapore/Malaysia are still the major league players.
London calling: my daughter lives in SW16. Do you think peteandbarb01 have a shop in Battersea. I might pop in on a next visit to London.
Rudolf,re:sales to Italy-I see a lot of dealers with reservations about shipping to Italy-in some cases refusing to accept bids from there at all! What is your experience? Is it bad/slow service,theft…or just a bad rap?
Sadly Rudolph, they trade from a private address, and are scrupulous at trading only within ebay rules. (I fear also that in the event of a mysterious house burglary in the Battersea area, in which only certain rare Blue Notes records were discovered missing, it would not take Sherlock Holmes five minutes to put me away!) Seriously, they have some fine records, know their worth, and put only a few titles on each week. I confess to bidding on a few myself, but have always been quickly outbid.Still its fun watching.
I see. So it’s Peteandbarb01… I’ll go and have a look myself then. And you’re right, London Calling, through seller’s feedback it is indeed easy to locate the buyers, I could have found that out myself, but I obviously didn’t. Thanks for this nice bit of research, it’s fun! 😉 By the way: still no word from Terry the warehouse man. I honestly hope he’ll tell us some more about his adventures.
Happy lazy Sunday!
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Ceedeew – re:Italy, you must declare value on the customs doc, so a lot of packages ‘disappear.’ I won’t ship there unless the buyer pays for registered, insured air mail.
Mattyman, I’ll contact Al and see if he will let me post a guest column.
Ceedee/Terry: I am shipping to Italy registered/insured or via regular mail, according to the instructions of the buyer. So far all the parcels have safely arrived.
The only experience I have of a parcel which disappeared, was a shipment to England. The tracked parcel had left France, but never arrived at its U.K. destination.
I have seen US sellers who don’t ship to France. I don’t understand: France has one of the most reliable postal services in the world (still state run; will certainly deteriorate if privatised). I noticed a few years ago, after the US invasion of Iraq, that some US sellers wouldn’t sell into France, but that was politics.
Terry: I don’t declare the value for customs when shipping to Italy, since I am shipping from within the EU. But when I am shipping to non-EU destinations, I declare $ 10 per album “used gramophone record”. It is criminal to let buyers pay high customs duties for records which originally sold in the shops for $ 4.98.
Interesting stuff to read again, folks. At least it explains why so many sellers always list countries like Italy when it comes to shipping.
And Terry: glad to see you’re willing to share some of your stories with us and I can’t wait to read some good anecdotes as to in what situations you encounter all these gems! Appreciate it 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Without giving too much away, ahem, when I am not in UK I am in my place in the south of France. Where I live everyone lives in apartments – “houses” are impossibly expensive – £1m plus.
Our letter box is a series of “boites aux lettres” each with a small slit – no postman ventures up five flights of stairs .
The postbox is stuffed with unwanted mail for supermarket special offers. You could not rely on this system if your life depended on it!.
Sometimes there is a small note amongst the junk that you have an undelivered package.
London Calling: I live high up in the mountains. So no junk mail, but the postman comes all the way up to deliver the mail. Even for one letter he comes up on his mobylette, partly walking and pushing up the thing because of the steepness of the road.
Don’t criticize La Poste, s’il vous plaît!
Criticize La Poste? Surely not Rudolf. You are fortunate your postman is not always “en greve”, and looking forward to retirement on full salary, oooh, at fifty five. Vive La France!
Cheers!
Well, folks, I live in a regular Dutch small village right next to a big city but here in The Netherlands we face another problem: a few years ago our government decided to privatize the mail market. It would create “more competition” and thus “lower prices” they said. NONE of that has happened and here TNT (the former state run PTT) is about to lay off over 4500 people, folks that shove the envelopes in our mailboxes. Things have gone downhill since the mail stopped being state run. Now I see students delivering the mail and they don’t give a rat’s ass about to whom or where they deliver the mail; hence the fact that I’ve become more and more worried about the proper delivery of the cherished Blue Notes that I buy through eBay every once in a blue moon. So, Rudolf, your story makes me jealous! 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
Mattyman — one of the only delivery problems I ever encountered in all my years on ebay was in The Netherlands. I shipped a big box of records and they never got delivered. They did, however, get returned to me, for which I had to pay double shipping. Now I see why.
I know, Al, and it is a crying shame that these things happen. I have to admit that with my packages it’s been “so far so good”, but one thing is clear: the privatisation of the mail market has only deteriorated the levels of quality, reliability and service.
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
my friends: unfortunately I will not participate during a week in our discussions, I am off for a week.
Anyway, my postman, when he is up, and enters through the kitchen, knows that there is always “un petit blanc” waiting for him.
Of course, the privatisation in the Netherlands was an outright shame.
two afterthoughts:
today is a day of a general strike France: still I got my mail delivered!
When I was in Holland the other day, I wanted to send one postcard, the Post obliged me to buy five stamps for five postcards. I threw them my postcard right in their face. To hell with TNT, and Ad Scheepbouwer, their greedy CEO.
Rudolf, you took the words right out of my mouth! Amen, brother. And in the meantime all the financial news papers are reporting one thing and one thing only: who is going to be the follow up to Ad Scheepbouwer. Well, I couldn’t care less about his follow up, but apparently that’s the only thing these a-holes worry about, while in the meantime their customers -me in particular- never know if the next package is going to be delivered or not. The Netherlands is only a speck on the world map, but still the powers that be felt the need to privatize countless of good old reliable services. And just so you know: I bought a few nice Blue Notes on eBay about to weeks ago from a seller on the west coast of the U.S. and guess what: still no sign of any package delivered. Now y’all understand why I kept on ranting about the Dutch mail…
Enjoy your week off, Rudolf 😉
Mattyman, The Netherlands.
erratum: “to weeks ago” of course should read “TWO weeks ago”.
Mattyman.