Just Another Ho-Hum Day on eBay
Here are some of the more interesting jazz vinyl collectibles we’ve been watching on eBay. Let’s start with Dexter Gordon, Dexter Calling, Blue Note 4083. This is a mono pressing with the New York USA labels and the RVG stamp in the dead wax. It does not have the Plastylite ear, which, to my knowledge, would probably make it a second press. The seller calls it an original first pressing and states clearly that he will never use any Blue Note guide to assess the generation of any Blue Note pressing. Fair enough. I should note that the seller is Bobdjukic, who, with all due respect, is a tremendously successful marketer on eBay who apparently has a coterie of devoted collectors who trust him and pay top dollar for many of his listings, including this one, which was listed in M- condition for the record and some version of VG++ for the cover. The final price was $1,913.90. According to Popsike that is a new high for Dexter Calling, nearly lapping the previous high price of $1,045.
Here’s one more from the same seller: Miles Davis, In a Silent Way, Columbia LP CS 9875. This was a sealed copy and “guaranteed original first pressing.” The final price was $200. Just one more: Roland Kirk, Triple Threat, King 395-506. This looked to be an original first pressing and is a quite hard to find record, although, personally, I might not describe it as “insanely rare” or “rarest jazz!” or “true Holy Grail” or “monster rarity,” but, having spent my career as a journalist, I am not particularly partial to adjectives or adverbs, but that’s just a personal preference. I guess in the world of eBay, whatever works is a credo to live by. The record was listed in VG condition and the cover VG+. The final price was $841.
I can’t say any prices are an aberration anymore because the market is the market, so this is the current market for Charles Mingus, Ah Um, Columbia 8171. This was an original stereo pressing with the red and black 6-eye label. The record was listed in VG++ condition and the cover was VG. The final price was $239.50.
Stanley Turrentine, Hustlin’, Blue Note 4162. This was an original New York USA pressing with what looks like deep grooves. I seem to be having trouble lately remembering which pressings in the latter part of 4000 and 4100 series are supposed to have deep grooves, but I’m pretty sure this is one of the ones that is supposed to have them. Why this and not others that were issued in the same time frame? I’m sure someone out there knows the answer. Maybe Lion and Wolff had a premonition that nearly 60 years later collectors would be obsessed with every detail of every Blue Note pressing and they just decided to mess with our heads and are laughing their asses off from the grave. Does anyone have a better idea? Anyway, the record was probably in VG++ condition, based on the description, and the cover was either VG++ or VG+, depending on how you feel about dirt, staining and yellowing. My proclivities push me in the direction of VG+, but I know there are some of you out there who are more generous. The final price was $306.
I saw that Dexter album when it was sitting at around $300 and thought to myself somebody is making a very costly mistake to bid up a fake liberty so high. I didn’t bookmark it and suffice to say I’m stunned by that final price of $1900. I don’t get it…
Well, if nothing else, it’s a very pretty fake Liberty 😉
Mark, are you familiar with the seller Bobdjukic? He’s been getting unreal prices for records for years, I have no idea how. He plays fast and loose with the term “original”, often selling 2nd and 3rd pressings as “BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL FIRST PRESSING” like this Liberty copy of Trompeta Toccata https://www.ebay.com/itm/144048074674?hash=item2189ef2fb2%3Ag%3A2NkAAOSwtC1gqVcu&nma=true&si=bxfgl6tcug3uRqVO8uNMlkr1FNk%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Aaron I’m very familiar with this seller but this Dexter result is above and beyond is it not? It’s “insanely crazy”
Bobby D strikes again. I don’t have any clue how he does it, but if his buyers are happy and he’s not getting returns for every other record he sells, then kudos to him. As Mark mentioned, $300 is already high for an earless copy of Dexter Calling, so $1,900 is beyond any reason. There are 2 VG+ 1st pressing copies sitting on Discogs for ~$350 as I write this, so the blame is definitely on buyers not bothered about doing even the slightest research and simply being swayed away by the man’s immoderate slinging of epithets. That or some some sort of sophisticated money laundering scheme…
Everyone seems scared to say it, so I will: Bob is a conman.
I took a minute to read that bizzare rant on Blue Note dating… The man created his own parallel universe of “facts”, different from real facts, and apparently there are plenty of people who headlessly subscribe. Just like in real life. Then, they vote, with their $$ in that case, all to the benefit of the cult leader.
Sleepers awake ! The curse of Capitalism strikes again ! Be it jazz records or a loaf of bread. Here’s one I thought to run by everyone . Did you ever try to pay a guy more for a record because he had priced too low and you wanted to be fair ?
I wish we had a reaction button for these comments! But be careful, Bob might send Al another nasty “cease and desist” email like he did a couple years ago. Al should totally re-post that one.
Greg is spot on, it just needs to be said: This seller is a conman who preys on the ignorance of his buyers, and he has been working his scheme for a long time, successfully, unregulated and unpunished by eBay. It’s one thing to omit important info from a listing, but this guy flat out lies about his sales.
That said, I don’t feel sorry for the buyers either. When you’re ready to drop $2k on a record, you better do your homework before setting that snipe. It’s almost like some of these buyers are asking for it.
Art: in person, with friends, yes I have actually done that.
Does anyone remember when the Plastylite “P” became a defacto standard to id’ing original pressings? I don’t remember looking for it 25 years ago, but maybe that was just my ignorance.
It’s incredible how much time and effort that seller Bob puts into his factually incorrect description about Blue Note provenance. And such terrible attempts at humor throughout that just come off as laughable. We understand you don’t want to accept the facts of life Bob but at least stop putting so much effort into crafting a factually incorrect description. The burden is on the buyers though and the top bidders of this auction are so misinformed it hurts. Or maybe the buyers are just like Bob and don’t use the record deadwax information at all just the labels haha.
I’ve been resisting commenting on this one for several days but I find I can non longer ignore the compulsion to scratch the itch.
First, the easy bit: yes, Art, I have sometimes tried to pay more for a record because it was under-priced. Two circumstances in which that has happened: a). when it’s a close friend or relative who I want to do right by; b). a local friendly real-world bricks-and-mortar store that I want to stay in business. Sure, I could take the short term win but we have to look to the longer term too – if we all exploit under-pricing by these outlets then they’ll wither and die which will restrict our future collecting opportunities.
Now on to Bob D…
I’g going to choose my words with care and recall what our grannies said about if you’ve got nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. Then I’m going to slightly ignore that advice 🙂
This guys cherry picks when it comes to his definition of what’s an “original” pressing. And he always cherry picks on the side that is most advantageous to him. After watching many of his auctions over the years (including some records I would very much like to add to my collection like the batch of Strata-Easts he recently had for sale) I’ve concluded that he does not reach a high enough standard of trustworthiness for me to do business with him.
I empathise with the caveat emptor view expressed by several other commenters here that people ought to due their due diligence research first before paying inappropriately high prices. However, those prices don’t just sting those buyers – they hurt us all because they tend to artificially inflate future prices. Both eBay bidders and sellers look at historical prices and set their expectations on what they see but they don’t necessarily look closely enough to spot that many top-dollar prices are associated with a particular seller.
Even if you detest his lack of truth in advertising, we about talking about 12 separate bidders for whom caveat emptor was put aside. I have no sympathy for people dropping major $$$ and being too lazy to buy Fred’s book for $45 or even reading this free website. What is more interesting to me is the resale market for these buyers. Bob has easily sold 1000s of high end jazz records over the years. How do the original buyers feel when they try to sell or trade these pieces without Bob’s hype machine provenance backing them up? You would think that these buyers would stop buying from him once they realized they dramatically overpaid. Yet the demand seems endless.
Question: Is there a parallel jazz collector universe that we don’t know about where the generally accepted guidelines of collecting don’t apply? Bizzarrojazzcollector.com?
DaveS:
There’s a sucker born ever minute, and Bob sells far fewer than a record a minute. I think that’s the real answer.
Another layer of shameless misleading and deliberate confusion in the Dexter auction is the picture of a pre-liberty inner sleeve…