Oddities and Ends, So to Speak
Wait a second. Did you see what happened with this record I mentioned the other day: Clifford Brown Quartet, Blue Note 5047? This was an original 10-inch Lexington Avenue pressing. Original Blue Note, but, as noted by Rudolf, a reissue of the French Vogue material. Anyway, this one was in VG++ condition for the record and the cover and we were watching the auction with about a day left and there were still no bidders at a start price of about $500. I wasn’t sure if the record would sell at all. It did, for the whopping price of $1,535. There were two bidders and three bids and they all came in the last few seconds as snipes, I would presume. Talk about a bidding war. Wow!
I had thought about bidding on this when the price was relatively low, but I never would have won it anyway:
Bebop Jazz With All the Stars of the New Movement, Dial D-1. This was a 3-record 78-album, featuring Charlie Parker, Sonny Berman and others. The records and covers were graded at VG. I love these early, clearly authentic, original records from the late 1940s and early 1950s, but at $378 this auction went way beyond what I would typically pay for something like this.
And then there was this: Dexter Gordon, Getting’ Around, Blue Note 4204. This was a sealed copy. The cover was mono “High Fidelity” and it had all the trappings of an original pressing. There was no Liberty mention on the cover, for example. But how would a bidder know? The cost to find out was $229.51, which was the final auction price for this record. Existential question of the day: Will the buyer ever open it to find out or listen to it, or will this record remain pristine and unopened until the end of time, which, given the state of things in the U.S. these days, may be here sooner rather than later?
Don’t know about that Dexter Gordon. With a catalogue number so close to the Liberty takeover it’s quite possible that it’s an early Liberty, with earlier stock cover and potentially stock New York USA labels but no ear.
This dexter never had an ear anyways
Gettin’ Around was released after Liberty bought Blue Note, original pressings have New York labels but lack the Plastylite “P”/ear.
I feel that the 78 album of Dial records deserves every penny for what it sold for. This is a historic be bop artifact for the obvious reason of the music and the not so obvious reason of the artwork by the legendary Wally Berman.
Off Topic. anilin1000 is selling a copy of ANDREW HILL SMOKESTACK Blue Note 4160 NY ear “Shrink” 1st ED. The back cover shows three other Andrew Hill records including “Point of Departure” 4167. Was this not released the following year. Is this not a first edition?
Sean—-Smokestack was released late, every copy I have seen with inner sleeve had the 27 years sleeve. Smokestack is actually fairly difficult to find with the Ear, many transitional copies out there, same as Morgan’s “Search For The New Land”
Just checked my mono copy of “smokestack”. Has the same 3 releases listed on back cover, has “27 years” innersleeve, and “ear”.
yeah, catalog numbers don’t correspond with release order in many cases, not just Blue Note.
Thanks, appreciate the info.
Off topic somewhat but I wanted to just throw this out there.
1. How many of you think that there is some shill bidding going on with these high end records ?
2. Do you think at this point in time there is downward pressure on price on a lot of these high ticket items ?
You just see the gamet now on Ebay when it comes to these types of records and not just Jazz. I collect in other fields and its completely whacky and not the Ebay say before 2007.
It just seems to be all over the board. Examples are far to many….
Al,
Just saw the “Stupid List” got a laugh from that. So I wanted to add mine , in 2 secs…. (No Surprises here..)
Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Blue Mitchell
Thelonious Monk
Dexter Gordon
And not even mentioning so many Desert Island artists….
Serge Chaloff
Howard McGhee
Jackie Mclean
MJQ
Sonny Stitt
ETC ETC ETC………..
Dexter swings his arse off on GETTING AROUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My mono copy looks ++ but plays VG. Been trying to upgrade that one!