Category: Prestige

For the Price Guide: Dolphy, Jackie, Criss, Kamuca

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Time to catch up on some recent collectible items on eBay and update the Jazz Collector Price Guide, which has now surpassed more than 4,000 entries, each one, I’m proud to say, hand-entered and hand-selected by yours truly. Here are a few more I’ll be hand-entering this weekend:

Eric Dolphy, Last Date, Fontana 681008ZL. This is the original Dutch pressing. The record was listed as M- and the cover as VG++. It sold for $661. Also from Eric Dolphy, Outward Bound, New Jazz 8236. This was an original deep groove purple label. The record was M- and teh cover was VG++. The price was $283.

Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin’, Blue Note 4024. This was an original West 63rd Street pressing. The record was listed as VG++ and the cover as VG+. The price was $547.11.

Sonny Criss, Jazz USA, Imperial 9006. This was an original pressing. The record was listed as

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This Week on eBay: Prestige, 10-Inch & a Blue Note

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I’ve been putting more records on eBay lately — just a function of time and how much work my real job entails — and I actually structured some organization to the items I posted last week. I had accumulated a bunch of Prestige duplicates, so today is Prestige Day and there are 10 Prestiges closing later. Then I had pulled out a bunch of 10-Inch LPs, so tomorrow is 10-Inch Day, and there are 16 10-inchers. Then, on Thursday, I decided to go back to Prestige with another 10 items. Then I figured we can’t let a week go by without a proper Blue Note, so on Thursday night I put up a heavy-duty Blue Note collectible. Here’s a sampling of items of interest, and you can always see my eBay Items if you click Items For Sale above:

Gil Melle, Gil’s Guests, Prestige 7063. This is a nice copy in VG+ condition, both record and cover, and it plays really well. Not to mention that it features some great Kenny Dorham. This one is only at $49, so it could be a bargain, depending upon how heavily trafficked eBay is today.

John Coltrane and Hank Mobley, Two Tenors, Prestige 7043. This is a yellow label with the New Jersey address and it’s also in nice VG+ condition, plays great. This is one of those second pressings I was talking about in an earlier post: It’s not the first issue of this LP — which was under Elmo Hope’s name — but it’s a great package, great cover and great record and it’s Prestige and it’s yellow label and it’s Coltrane. To me, it’s irresistible (which is why I have two copies, I guess).

And the heavyweight Blue Note is:

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Adventures in Jazz Collecting: 78s

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I asked the question the other day: Does anyone out there collect 78s? No one replied, so I figured I would get the ball rolling.

The answer to the question, for me, is that I don’t collect 78s. I do, however, have more than 1,000 78s. The reason I say I don’t collect 78s is because if I did collect them, I’d be obsessed about them and worried about filling in my collection and getting all the Blue Notes and searching for 78s and hunting them down on eBay. That is what I do with my LP collection. I have never done that with 78s. Yet, through the years I have accumulated them.

It started back in the 1980s. There was an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper. A guy had a collection of jazz 78s and wanted to get rid of them. Normally I wouldn’t have cared, but I was curious: What if there were some original Bird 78s on Dial? So I called him and, indeed, there were some original Bird 78s on Dial: Yardbird Suite, Moose The Mooche, A Night in Tunisia. Holding these in my hand, it really felt like I was holding a piece of jazz history. The guy had about 1,000 78s and wanted $100 for them. That night I walked into the house and began unloading crates of 78s. Mrs. JC just looked at me and sighed.

Then, of course, I had to get a 78 player. I still have the first one I ever purchased: A crank-handle

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A Record Bash & (Another) Adventure in Jazz Collecting

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As I write this, there is a gathering of jazz collectors taking place 50 miles from me in the wilds of Iselin, New Jersey. This would be the annual Jazz Record Collector’s Bash, which, according to the promotions, has been taking place annually for 35 years. The event actually began last night with the dealers setting up and continues through today and tomorrow, starting at 8 a.m. each day. For more information, you can go to their Web site by clicking here. I used to attend this event fairly regularly when it was in East Brunswick, NJ, which, of course leads to a story. I have been a jazz collector for nearly 40 years now and have never thought of myself as a seller of jazz records. Perhaps that is why I call the site Jazz Collector as opposed to Jazz Seller. Anyway, like many of you I’m sure, through the years I had accumulated

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The Rise of the Second Pressing?

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There was a time, and perhaps that time will come again, when jazz collectors seemed only interested in original pressings of original LPs. That seems to be changing somewhat, at least with the Blue Notes and Prestiges. I noticed that with a couple of items I was selling, and with another item that caught my eye as I was watching other records on eBay. Last week, I put up the record Miles Davis Volume 2, Blue Note 1502. This was a nice old copy of the record with heavy vinyl, but it was a West 63rd Street pressing, as opposed to an original Lexington Avenue pressing. The record was in nice condition: I graded it conservatively at VG++ for the vinyl and VG+ for the cover. It sold for $140.50. The other record I was watching was also a Miles Davis LP: 

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Get ‘Em While They’re Hot

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We don’t usually plug our own records on eBay, but we’ve got some nice items closing later today and later this week and the prices are not too high. So, perhaps there are bargains out there. Here are some of the items worth watching. After you look at these, please go to View Seller’s Other Items and click “list.” 

Sonny Rollins, Moving Out, Prestige 7058. This is an original New York pressing with the yellow label and deep groove. The record is in VG++ condition and the cover is VG+. It sounds great. The current price is just a little over $100.  In the Jazz Collector Price Guide we’ve seen M- copies of this record sell for nearly $500. 

Herbie Hancock, Takin’ Off, Blue Note 4109. This is a New York USA pressing that is autographed by Herbie Hancock. The record is in VG+ condition and sounds great. The cover is VG++. The current price is just

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One For the $3,000 Bin

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Here’s one that sold for more than $3,000 the other day: Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’, Blue Note 1588. This was an original pressing in M- condition, both record and cover. It had the advantage of being sold by Euclid Records, which is one of the larger sellers on eBay and has an excellent reputation. This copy sold for $3,416, which puts it among the Top Five we’ve recorded on the Jazz Collector Price Guide.  If you click the previous Price Guide link, it should take you to a page where all of the records are sorted by highest prices first, which is always a fun way to view the Price Guide. 

Speaking of prices, we’ve got some nice items closing tomorrow at pretty reasonable prices, and we just put up some interesting new items that are closing next week. Among the more interesting items we have up now are a Lexington Avenue pressing of Paul Chambers, Whims of Chambers, Blue Note 1534. This is closing tomorrow and is currently about about $180. For next week

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For the Price Guide: Trane, Sonny, Monk, Mobley

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We are up in the lovely Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, sitting on our porch with the lovely Mrs. JC, and looking at jazz records on eBay. Life is not bad. Here are a few items we will be entering into the Jazz Collector Price Guide sometime before the end of the weekend. 

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, Impulse A-77. This was an original stereo pressing with the orange label and gatefold cover. It was in M- condition, both record and cover. It sold or $150. One of the reasons I’m putting this up is that I recently acquired a mono copy in M- to go with my stereo copy, also in M- condition, and I am currently deciding whether to keep both or put one up for auction on eBay, or, perhaps, even sell it here on Jazz Collector. I am open to offers and/or suggestions.

Thelonious Monk, Prestige 7053. This was an original pressing with the cover design by Andy Warhol. It was in VG++/VG++ condition

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For the Price Guide: Benny Green, Gil Melle, Bill Evans

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Here are a few more items for the Jazz Collector Price Guide. By the time you read this we may have surpassed more than 4,000 records listed in the guide. Not bad. Please take a look.

Bennie Green with Art Farmer, Prestige 7041. This was an original New York pressing. The record was in VG+ condition and the cover was VG+. The price was $131.50. I have a small affinity for this record: I was browsing the $25 cent bin at one of the local record stores on Long Island, and an original copy of this was sitting in there. Clearly the guy who priced jazz records was out ill the day this one arrived in the store. 

Bill Evans, Waltz For Debby, Riverside 399. This was an original blue label mono pressing. The record was VG+ and the cover was VG++. The price was $365. 

Lou Donaldson, Lou Takes Off, Blue Note 1591. This was an original West 63rd Street Read more

Updating the $1,000 Bin

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We’ve been updating the Jazz Collector Price Guide this morning and we just added a fairly  large group of records that surpassed the $1,000 price barrier. We’ve mentioned some of these before on Jazz Collector, but it’s interesting to see the group all at once. There are no links attached to these, by the way, so don’t try clicking them. Here goes:

Bent Axen, Let’s Keep the Message, Debut 133. There are actually two copies of this that fit into the category. They were both in M- condition, both cover and record. One sold for $1,790.90 and the other sold for $1,326.

Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, Prestige 7079. There are two copies of this as well. One was sold by the Jazz Record Center and was in M- condition, both record and cover. It sold for $1,492. the other was in VG++/VG+ condition. It sold for $1,575. Go figure.

Here’s the only one on the list that was a bit of a surprise:

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