Comments on: Tracking Four For the $1,000 Bin

By: Mattyman

Mattyman — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 20:10:05 +0000

@ ceedee: makes sense and maybe you’re right. Buying for a record collective. Still one wonders if he buys for a collective, who gets what? But then again: whether we’re right or wrong, these in depth discussions here offer a great deal of fresh and different views to learn from, not to mention the fact that after I read about Leon Leavitt, I went on Google to learn more about this person and I found some great conversations on the Organissimo forum about him, his monumental collection and the following auctions when he passed. Here and there I read that he even owned multiple copies of extremely hard to find gems. Anyway, it’s a joy to read through the comments and marvel over all the anecdotes from the older cats here, who obviously already collected jazz when I was still in my diapers! 😀

By: BigBear

BigBear — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:41:26 +0000

Clearly the ebbs and flows of product going overseas can be explained in part by changes in exchange rates. Right now the yen/dollar is only ~80, vs 100-120 of recent years, so our LPs seem cheaper on relative basis. From the days of Euro being close to the dollar we know have 1.4ish dollars per euro. Unlike the yen this is not a clear difference vs recent past, but is up somewhat. I am not sure when you guys think the Euro buyers were at their peak in terms of auction wins, but I would guess it would at least somewhat correlate with exchange rate movements.

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 15:59:22 +0000

ceedee: Re Leon: this was the pre-EBay period. Leon, who was sourcing in the US, had to compete with Japanese buyers/distributors who came especially to the US to source and re-sell in Japan. So he was in direct competition.
Regarding Jay, not exactly a skinny guy, to say the least, who sold primarily to the honourable subjects of His Imperial Highness.

By: ceedee

ceedee — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 10:40:06 +0000

Mattyman:I think that sometimes a buyer who makes bids at such a rate may be buying for a record ” collective” or an individual store. It’s really no different than what I might do after a healthy auction-reinvest the money earned into buying more gems for resale! I don’t think it becomes something sinister because the bidder lives overseas.
dottorjazz: If leavitt said the market was being “ruined” by buyers from Japan and Italy,I’m sure he neglected to mention his role in that market. Buying up collections from owners ‘on the cheap’,then offering them to foreign bidders in highly competitive auctions. He did pretty well for himself in what was the genesis of all that we now hate-or love-about ebay.
Rudolf:”the seller Jay, the fat guy, told me that the Japs were his prime customers.” I’m neither fat nor Asian,but something tells me this passage could use a rewrite,you know?
Just my two cents.

By: Mattyman

Mattyman — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:16:55 +0000

Thanks for leaving that one comment, London Calling, 'cause I even referred to you in my earlier comment here, since I knew you had done some research on the subject. There's one thing in your comment that I'll quote right here: "One member – Yoshikinyseki – buys between four and nine US jazz albums a day, every day of the week. That's either a very bad record habit or he’s in the recycling business. Another seller is US-based, has 15 original Blue Notes up for auction, but all located in South Korea. This is a two way street, selling them back to the US. Almost all the sellers of recent Blue Note $500-$1000+ auctions, that album was a one-off. The rest of their sales are $10-a-shot rock and pop." When I read stuff like that, I don't know about the older cats, it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, since what London Calling has found out has nothing to do with the actual collecting of records. Especially if I have to read that these guys buy 4 to 9 US Jazz records a day, every day of the week! From my years as a collector of seventies funk I have learned a lot about the dirty ways of doing business sometimes, but to read that -apparently- the "Asian Connection" is only buying collectables in bulk in order to sell them back for big dough on the US/Euro market, then indeed it's just a, let's say, very disappointing thing to know, especially since they don't seem to care about the music. So thanks, London Calling, for exposing the "Asian Connection" one more time ;-) Where will this end for the rookies? Auctions with the good ol' hammer at Sotheby's as if it was the next Van Gogh? Mattyman

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:41:12 +0000

Japhy: your personal thought seems objectively the correct one. But from a very subjective point of view, I largely prefer a regular, standard pressing, with or without promo stamps. I don’t care for an eventual, theoretical, extra value of white labels because of their scarcity, which I think is highly debatable, since most collectors, I believe, don’t fancy them.

By: Japhy

Japhy — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:31:20 +0000

My personal thought on white label promos is that they are no different than first pressing non-promos. For example, wouldn’t a label like Atlantic be doing a normal production run on a new release and then simply set aside x-number of copies to receive the white label and go to radio while the rest to get the standard label to go to the shops? So it would all be a first-run on the press and a white label is no more a “first press” than others run at the same time that just got a regular label. The collectibiliy comes strictly from the fact that there are *fewer copies* with a white label, so if that matters to you then you’ll cough up more for it. Similarly, on Blue Note and Prestige they did the normal run and then just stamped it ‘Audition Copy’ to differentiate who it got sent to. Again the promo in that case is no more of a “first” or earlier press than another copy with the same pressing characteristics (DG, ear etc).

By: London Calling

London Calling — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:23:41 +0000

Out of curiosity, ok, plain nosiness, I have been poking about in ebay jazz auction results to try and make sense of “the market”.

From what I have found, among recent big-ticket Jazz/ Blue Note auctions, certainly there has been a significant Japanese presence, but also from all around Europe and the US.

When you track Japaneses buyers purchases through the “see all feedback” listing,there are some very prolific Japanese ebay buyers among them. One member – Yoshikinyseki – buys between four and nine US jazz albums a day, every day of the week. Thats either a very bad record habit or he’s in the recyling business.

Another seller is US-based, has 15 original Blue Notes up for auction, but all located in South Korea. This is a two way street, selling them back to the US.

Almost all the sellers of recent Blue Note $500-$1000+ auctions, that album was a one-off. The rest of their sales are $10-a-shot rock and pop.Even Bob Djukic’s feedback.

All I have found is that big-ticket jazz auction winners only bid 1-4 seconds before close, never make early bids, and drop a very large amount of money on the table.

By: Lester Hawkins

Lester Hawkins — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:07:50 +0000

I have a few different variations of promos, some with stamps, and some with different labels. I have several Coltrane Impulses with the white & black labels and nothing else on the sleeves themselves to identify them as such. And then there’s one Impulse with a promo stamp inside the gatefold and normal orange and black labels.

I also have some BNs and Prestiges with AUDITION COPY in fairly large letters stamped on the back. I don’t think these do as well with collectors.

Regarding Japanese buyers, for years I was under the impression that they were simply the ones responsible for pushing the prices of records (specifically Blue Note, at that time) to the 4 figure heights they’ve reached in the last ten years, but I’ve taken the time to investigate a lot of the music/artists that emerged from Japan’s jazz scene in the 60s and 70s. And a lot of it is exquisite. I can see why artists like Mal Waldron, who did a fair bit of recording exclusively in Japan, had a lot of admiration for many of his contemporaries there.

I suspect that the majority of the interest coming from Japanese buyers on ebay are from actual collectors, not sellers. This is a country, much like Holland, France or Denmark, that contributed a wealth of both talent and opportunity to the music, specifically at that time, and allowed for Jazz culture to continue to flourish when a lot of those opportunities had diminished altogether in the US.

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:58:25 +0000

true, the Atlantic promos were horrendous.