Is The Market Slowing? Not Based on These Prices

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Sometimes, as summer approaches, eBay slows down. Not so far this summer. We’ve seen a lot of rare jazz records setting new highs for prices over the past few weeks, as we’ve been upgrading the Jazz Collector Price Guide. If you look at the prices of some of these records, you’ll get an idea:

Kenny Drew, The Kenny Drew Trio, Riverside 224. This was an original white label pressing. The record was listed in M- condition and the cover was listed as VG++. The price was $898.88.

Kenny Dorham, Whistle Stop, Blue Note 4063. This was an original West 63rd Street mono pressing that was listed in M- condition, both record and cover, and it was posted by a reputable seller. It sold for $898.89.

Jackie McLean, 4, 5 & 6, Prestige 7048. This was an original Yellow label pressing with

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This Weekend on eBay: Thad, Jackie, Kenny Dorham

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Here are a few items we’re watching on eBay this weekend. As always, it’s a good idea to check the seller’s other items because many sense, such as yours truly, tend to offer decent records in bunches:

Thad Jones, The Magnificent Thad Jones Volume 3, Blue Note 1546. This is an original West 63rd Street pressing. I’m not sure why, but the seller mentions Lexington Avenue pressings selling for more than $2,000, but I’ve never seen or heard of a Lexington Avenue pressing of this LP. Has any of you? Anyway, this one looks like it’s in about VG condition and has a starting bid of around $150 and, as of now, has no bids.

Jackie McLean, 4, 5 and 6, Prestige 7048. This is an original pressing with the New York address and the yellow label. It looks to be in VG+/VG+ condition, although the seller uses different terminology that we do, and is currently priced

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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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New To the $1,000 Bin: Giant Steps

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We’ve been watching a bunch of records to add to the Jazz Collector Price Guide and one of them is a newcomer to the $1,000 bin: John Coltrane, Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. This was a black label original mono pressing. The record was listed in M- condition — hardly played — and the cover was listed as VG++. It sold for $1,125 and had about 230 page views, which is quite a bit. This record may have sold for more than $1,000 previously on eBay, but, if it did, we weren’t watching. Our previous high for this item in the Price Guide was $690. By they way, as I was doing a search in the Price Guide for this record, I noticed that not everything is being listed in alphabetical order. I guess the database is structured so that when new items are entered, they automatically go in at the end. So if you’re searching for a record like Giant Steps, or anything else by Coltrane — who has three pages in the Price Guide — you should make sure to look at all of the Coltrane pages because after the first couple of dozen items, everything else is entered kind of randomly. I hope this is clear. I will talk to my Web and database associate to see if this is fixable. In the meantime, just do a lot of searching.

Philly Record Fair, July 11

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Jazz Collector must be getting popular: I now find myself on a list getting various and sundry press releases on jazz and vinyl topics. I will pass on to you those that I think will be of interest, such as this: On Saturday, July 11, there will be a Record Fair in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art. I can’t vouch for the quality of collectibles, and I won’t be able to attend myself, but it is always fun to go to a record show and hunt for bargains. This one opens at 9 a.m. and offers free admission after 11 a.m. For details, you can click here.

Horace Silver on Blue Note: Comments Anyone?

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OK, we’re still in the midst of the contest to give away the book: Blue Note The Album Cover Art. To be eligible to win this book — free, we even pay for shipping — all you have to do is post a comment on the Jazz Collector Web site before July 2. The winner will be announced July 3. When we did the original post announcing the contest, we promised to share with you the foreward of the book, written by Horace Silver. Here goes:

“Blue Note Records were very meticulous in every aspect of their production: They used he best vinyl, they paid for rehearsals and when I asked to be in on other parts of my album Alfred Lion (the label’s founder) gave me every opportunity. A lot of musicians in those days worked very hard to make good music and once the music was done, they let Alfred Lion go on with the rest of it. One day I went to Alfred and said,

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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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If You’re Looking For Mosaics . . .

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Just got an email from our friends at the Jazz Record Center. They have put up another auction on eBay, this time it’s all boxed sets from the Mosaic Label. Among the items are sets from Tina Brooks, Charles Mingus, Art Pepper and Lee Morgan. There seem to be 31 sets in all. If you’re interested you can view them here. We’ll keep track on the prices of some of these so that we can add them to the Jazz Collector Price Guide. We also have a bunch of Mosaics of our own that we will be selling soon.

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