Comments on: Listings and Musings on Rare Jazz Vinyl

By: Paul S

Paul S — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 19:37:09 +0000

Interesting. I agree that ebay is now the only place to go. Painful to think of how many great jazz records are bottled up in Japan. Its remarkably rare to see a nice American or European jazz record from a Japanese source on ebay.

Tampa-28 (Marty Paich) and Tampa-20 (Art Pepper) just sold for good money on ebay. I would take those records over any Blue Note, any day of the week.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 16:31:47 +0000

A lot of smaller shops are now consigning with some of the big ebay sellers.

By: Clifford Allen

Clifford Allen — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 15:37:23 +0000

@Art, sometimes that works but not always. A store in Austin wouldn’t sell me — even at top dollar prices I offered — rare mint European jazz that he wanted to sell to people on another message board, just because his “brand” was more important than the cash in my hand at the counter. Totally bizarre. Basically he didn’t want them circulating locally.

The Sheldon went for over a grand, by the way, which is impressive.

By: Art Klempner

Art Klempner — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 14:00:58 +0000

Here’s the answer, talk to your local record store owner! Tell him what you are willing to pay for a album that would go to eBay . A $ in the hand is worth 2 on the Internet . Is that too hard?

By: jason

jason — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 19:54:49 +0000

Ethan – that’s how most stores SHOULD do it…but most don’t…it’s disappointing. Give us locals the first chance at the field finds, then send it to the interwebs for the e-finds….There’s a couple stores that I head to that gets an OG press in..but those are very very rare now days.

By: Ethan

Ethan — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 12:15:31 +0000

My local spot, Plaza Records, always wall hangs the good stuff, currently including a 1962 mono Kind of Blue and a peeled Beatles Butcher cover, well before ebay. They use ebay only after us local geeks get the chance to decide how low we want our bank statements to be. They want 200 for the Miles and 800 for the peeled Butcher. Seems high for the Miles but very fair for the rare beatles sleeve. Wish more stores had the same courtesy to their customers.

By: JOK

JOK — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 05:34:36 +0000

“Run, Buddy, Run”.

By: bopmodalfree

bopmodalfree — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 22:56:10 +0000

Hi DaveS, I agree that ebay is the place you have to hunt for the highly prized and rare records if you hope to amass a nice collection in less than an entire lifetime. However, I frequent the Carolina Soul store and have gotten nice, and sometimes desirable, items pretty much every time I go there. Often they’re cool items that are less obvious than Blue Note, Prestige, etc. But just last week I went in there and walked out with an OG Farmer’s Market in great condition on yellow fireworks label, for something like $60-$70. Once in a while they shelves seem a bit dry, but not usually. There was also a nice NJ copy of Rollins Plays Bird (fireworks) that was also on the wall ($45) that I didn’t purchase, as well as a cool New Jazz repress of Jackie McLean’s Lights Out. It’s still fun for me to go to record stores and when you find an item they are more of a “trophy” and an experience than something that ends up getting mailed to you.

By: Woody

Woody — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 17:54:40 +0000

The overall thread of this conversation is mostly about how hard it is to find original pressings from the 50’s. Blue Note, Riverside, Prestige, Savoy, etc. were small private companies that only pressed up enough copies that they could sell based on the distribution channels at that time. Only a few thousand copies were pressed compared to a major label like Columbia Records.
For example if you look up Walter Davis – Davis Cup(1959) on popsike there’s only 175 sold copies. Versus Miles Davis – Kind of Blue(1959) you can find 180 six-eye white label promos alone!!!
I think we love to discuss the rarity and cost of certain jazz titles but push comes to shove we’d choose Kind of Blue over Davis Cup for a top ten desert island list.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 16:24:18 +0000

Of course there’s other labels besides Blue Note!!!

There’s Riverside and Prestige… 😉