Blue Notes and Beyond
The Jazz Record Center has a veritable Blue Note Jazz Festival on eBay now, with several beauties, including a couple that are already sitting in the $3,000 bin, including: Kenny Dorham, Afro-Cuban, Blue Note 1535. This is an original 12-inch pressing with the Lexington Avenue address, flat rim playing surface and frame cover. This looks to be in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The auction closes in a bit more than one day and the bidding is already at $3,015. Then there is the Lee Morgan Sextet, Blue Note 1541. This is also an original Lexington Avenue, frame cover pressing, and this one has promo stamps on the labels. The record looks to be in M- condition and the cover is probably M- or, at worse, VG++ for sticklers. The bidding is at $3,000.
On the 10-inch side, there is the Gigi Gryce Clifford Brown Sextet, Blue Note 5048. This is an original Lexington Avenue pressing that looks to be in M- condition for both the record and the cover. The bidding is at $400. And the Clifford Brown Quartet, Blue Note 5047. This is another original pressing in beautiful condition, M- for the record and probably VG++ for the cover. The bidding on this one is at $430.
We were also watching a few other 10-inch LPs, so we may as well update those whilst we’re on the subject:
Dizzy Gillespie, Horn of Plenty, Blue Note 5017. Final price $239.24.
Chet Baker Quartet Featuring Russ Freeman, Pacific Jazz 6. Final price $405. Did we ever come to a final verdict on this one? First pressing, second pressing, third pressing?
Horace Silver Trio, Blue Note 5034. Final price $405.
This one is ongoing, closing in a few hours: Jazz at Massey Hall, Volume One, Debut DLP 2. This looks to be in about VG++ condition for the record and the cover. The start price is $450 and so far there are no bidders.
Regarding Afro-Cuban it is always impressive when sellers can se that an album is ”perhaps played once”. They are never ”perhaps unplayed” but always played once or twice;) I have a first press of the album myself. Maybe played 100 times, or 50, or maybe even 200. Still clean though:)
How about “most probably unplayed. Vinyl looks factory fresh, untouched.”
Since these artefacts were produced more than sixty years ago, mint looking albums from a huge collection, sometimes with doubles, triples, may indeed have been played one or twice, or never. I was in the basement of collector/trader Raffe Simonian. He pulled out 3 mint copies of J.R. Monterose Studio 4 album.
I had four copies of Saxophone Colossus. One unplayed (N.J.), which I sold for 1500 usd, one unplayed Esquire, still there, one NYC, which I have since 1957, played maybe 50 times, and a Metronome copy which has become the one I play when I wish to hear that music.
Resuming, I find “maybe played once or twice” satisfactory to explain the condition of a record. For me, as a buyer, I know what to expect. Whether it is 5 times, 10 times played is immaterial.
I have a record played only once (by my two year old daughter). I think the buyer would be very disappointed;) Seriously I am also fine with the description but I do generally wish that more expensive record were play graded though.
Interesting regarding not play grading, for some reason I assumed the JRC played them, but this is not noted. There’s definitely mint records that suffer from anomalies you can’t visual see, or played a limited amount of times on terrible equipment. I’m going to guess that the JRC knows what to look for, and would have a listen if the sound quality might be in question.
Is it probable that this auction is all from the same collection/owner?
When I bought the collection in Baltimore, it seemed pretty clear that the owner would buy a record, write the day of purchase on the back, play it once and then place it carefully back into its original packaging with the loose plastic covering. When I saw the records, it was as if I was seeing them preserved in a 1950s record store. Of course, now that I’ve had the records for several years, most of them have been played more than once, and the original packaging is gone. But, hopefully, the condition is still pristine. 🙂
I would bet that the auction is from the same owner/collection. Could be a consignment sale, or an collection bought by the JRC. I’ve been in the store when they’ve play-graded records. I’m not sure what their policy is (we can always ask), but they’ve been doing this as long as anyone and they have a very strong reputation. I’ve always found them to be extremely credible and knowledgeable, which is one of the reasons I often point to their auctions here at Jazz Collector.
I will firmly second Rudolf’s comment: ” I find “maybe played once or twice” satisfactory to explain the condition of a record. For me, as a buyer, I know what to expect. Whether it is 5 times, 10 times played is immaterial.” As one gets more experienced evaluating condition of records, one just gets that feeling that the things do look right or they don’t. If a record were “played once by a two-year old”, it would be visible to a trained eye.
I completely understand that buyers get nervous buying such expensive records sight unseen but given eBay’s buyer protection, I would be much more nervous as a seller of such items. It seems to be much easier for a crooked buyer to take advantage of the seller on ebay than vice versa. Of course, there were stories of massive seller scams in collectible jazz LPs, but in general, if one is not a novice, the legitimate stuff just feels that and so do the potential scams (or just grossly misrepresented material).
$6400 for Afro-Cuban; I’ll put on my nice $20 Japanese SHM-CD of this and enjoy the music!
I’m not sure if this is helpful or not, but when I was at the JRC shop in New York City a year or two back (I think it’s the same people), they had notes on a few records about how various scratches or whatever only caused some ticking, but no skips. So, at the very least, I think it’s safe to say that they do test play when there’s any question of playability. And they certainly have the equipment to do so… I asked if I could hear part of a record that had a worrying mark (I was on vacation and actually live in California, so I kind of wanted to make sure that I was getting what I wanted before jumping back on an airplane and flying a couple thousand miles away), and they just popped the record on a turntable and played the part I was concerned about. They’re quite professional… I’d trust that they know what they’re talking about when grading a record.
Al. You can find a bit of discussion about the Chet album here:
http://londonjazzcollector.freeforums.net/thread/200/pacific-jazz
Here’s a main bit…
Per James Harrod fantastic website “The same Claxton photo from a Radio Recorders session was used for the covers of PJLP-6, EP4-8 and EP4-9. PJLP-6 covers were issued with three different colors. The original was in black and white, the same as seen on EP4-7. Another version used an orange tone as seen on the cover of EP4-8. A third PJLP-6 version used a shade of light pink. The back liners were all the same.”
I reached out to him to confirm there were multiple pressing of this album and this was his response:
When I interviewed Claxton he said that the color tints were just variations to “jazz up” the original jackets that were B&W. The vinyl was the same. I did not scan the labels of the other versions as they were exactly the same, sometimes white on a matt balck label, sometimes silver lettering on the label, etc.
pacificjazz.blogspot.com/2012/04/pacific-jazz-pacifica-10-lp-line-first.html
GST, actually there are two different back slicks, one with a Melrose Ave address and one without. The orange tint and pink tint covers lack the address while it appears on the white cover issue (with the matte black labels).