Now Here’s a Rare Jazz Record
Here’s something I would love to hear and own: Bill Evans Acetate, US Army Dance Band Jazz 1951. This seems to be a legitimate recording of Bill Evans in 1951. The problem for me is that the start price is $1,000 and that seems too high unless I planned to do something with it, like transfer it to digital and make it available for broader consumption. I would be willing to do that, but not at that price. It makes me think that we should form some sort of non-profit Jazz Collector collective to acquire some of these rare items to share and preserve them. If you recall, there was also a very rare J.R. Monterose recording of him as a teenager that we had an opportunity to acquire, as well as a recent Dizzy Gillespie concert and I’m sure many others.
This seller has some interesting items, including Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’, Blue Note 1588. This looks to be an original pressing listed in VG+ condition for the record and probably VG+ for the cover. The bidding is in the $450 range and there are still two days to go on the auction. We’ve seen this record sell for more than $3,000 on many occasions in the Jazz Collector Price Guide. One of the things I find interesting about this auction is
that the price for shipping the record to the United States from Germany is $100. Can it possibly be that the costs are even close to that? Is there some advantage to the seller to charge that much for shipping, even though it will likely reduce the number of bidders and probably the final price as well? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it’s been several years since I’ve sold records on eBay, so perhaps things have changed.
Al,
I agree with you 100% , that the shipping is crazy and if you are selling records for $500+ I personally would be throwing shipping in for free.
That being said,I live in Toronto, Canada and we have the most expensive shipping fees in the world , due to many factors , which I will not bore you with the details.
Shipping a record in a professional record box to Europe and Asia with tracking # is around $78+
Without tracking it’s around $55.
But I would not ship a $500+ record without tracking.
To the USA it’s much more reasonable with a average price around $18 with tracking.
I have purchased (Lp’S) from Germany in the recent past and it was no where near $100. More like $30
I have not sold myself on Ebay for some time but I can tell you , that people do complain about shipping costs and it reduces bidders for sure.
the records from the German seller I looked at mention a shipping rate to the US of $ 20.
$ 100 cannot be possible and must be a manifest error.
I looked at the Sonny Clark record again and it does say $100.
money laundering? who knows. that seller seems legitimate.
Hi,
I live in the Netherlands, Germany’s neighbour.
I checked and shipping to the Netherlands would also be $ 100.
Even within Germany shipping is still $ 50!
the Sonny Clark album is the one I did not look at. I looked at others. Now looked at the Clark. It is supposed to include insurance, but ridiculous it is, also the $ 50 fee for intra European shipment.
I am surprised the Struttin is already so high with tape on it like that.
Sellers used to try to weasel out of final value fees by jacking up the shipping cost of an item, but there’s no use in doing that anymore because eBay taxes you on the total price including shipping now. Maybe international overnight shipping is that expensive??
not related, but i thought i’d share a fun experience for a relatively new collector such as myself: saw and got to hold and admire a mint lexington copy of jutta hipp with zoot sims today. the asking price was $2200. i offered them $100, but they said it was a bit low, and we all had a good laugh.
still, very exciting stuff. i bought a comparably reasonably-priced impulse that nicely filled a hole in my impulse library instead.
GTF:
Was that at Academy in NYC? I looked at that bad boy last week. I couldn’t read the price across the counter and said foolishly “If it’s $200, can I take a look?”
Seems like your $100 was an insult after my $200 big money offer.
I’ll admit that it’s hard to sell stuff like that off the wall at eBay prices. I highly doubt that even Fred could get $2200 in the shop for the Jutta Hipp/Zoot Sims LP.
Gregory and Dave S: You guys are in NYC too?! I actually went as far as having the owner play me the entire record in the store as I patiently listened, prepared to make a serious offer. So here’s the scoop on that record: looks beautiful, solid VG++ visually, and played with zero pops or clicks, but sadly played with the onset of distortion from groove wear, and as per usual, the distortion got worse and the stylus wound closer and closer to the label. The seams on the jacket were also completely split with the exception of the inner safety tape at the top of the jacket. I was a little bummed out; I didn’t even make an offer. But everytime I went in there for a month or so I kept seeing that darn thing on the wall and I eventually starting thinking ‘maybe I’ll never see this record again’ and decided to take a serious shot at it–which was pretty exciting! But I was happy to save my money at the end of it all.
GTF/Rich:
I live in Atlanta, not NYC. Was just up there for some shows and some crate digging. Of course I ran into a guy 2 weeks ago who claimed to have picked up a copy for $50 in the Bronx. Who knows. It’s like Vegas. Everyone always claims to win.
Ha, I too was looking at the Jutta. I am in Philly but saw it on social media. The owner said it played great. I toyed with selling a couple records to fund it. Glad I didnt.
yep, it was academy. i’m actually in central jersey. i was there to see my tattooist, eat some sushi, buy some records, etc.
i don’t usually do too much record buying in NYC for the reason that the prices are typically, to be frank, stupid. $80 for a vg stereo copy of dakar? $20 for the status pressing of “meet oliver nelson”. $300 for “working with the miles davis quintet”? $25 for any benny carter record at all? ludicrous. this is not just any one store. it’s all of them. i occasionally find a nice bargain here and there, though. so i never go to NY just to buy records, but i make a point of stopping in all the shops on my journey if i’m going for something else.
sounds like we all need to record shop in the bronx!
jazz collector meet-up? that would be fun. although we can’t all go to the record shops together. it would be a bloodbath.