The Great Ebay Debate

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Three years ago, in the previous iteration of Jazz Collector, we had a heated discussion about the pros and cons of eBay, spurred by a letter from the Blue Note expert Larry Cohn. I’ve been updating the site with a lot of the old material and posting it with the original dates. This one, however, I thought was worth reprising as a current entry, since the blog format of posting comments is just perfect for this type of discussion. Please take a look, starting with Larry’s original letter, read the comments, and then feel free to post comments of your own.

“Hello Al, from Larry Cohn in NYC. Like you I have been collecting jazz LPs for decades and was surprised by the major rise in prices beginning in the 1980s, largely spurred by Japanese collectors. However, I don’t think we can take as seriously the recent eBay phenomenon.

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Reader Forum/Hot Topics

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We’ve set up a new section on the site called Hot Topics. We’re hoping that it evolves into something like a Reader Forum, where collectors can come and ask questions about collectibles and can get answers from other collectors within the community. At Jazz Collector, we don’t claim to be experts on everything in the jazz collectible world, but we know that collectively our readers have all the expertise anyone would ever need.  I will add a question and several responses that we received this week on this post to show how it works. If you have a question about any jazz collectible, just post it as a comment on this post and let’s see if we can generate some responses.

Ebay Today, Oct. 2, 2008

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Ready for another day on eBay? Here we go:

Yesterday there were a couple of comments on the Norgran label. Here’s one for sale today: Lester Young, Pres and Sweets, Norgran 1043. Not my favorite of the Pres records, but it has a great cover by David Stone Martin. And if you like Sweets, try this: Sweets, Verve 8097. 

Here’s a heavyweight: Freddie Hubbard, Open Sesame, Blue Note 4040. If you take a look at our Price Guide, you can see that it’s sold for as much as $1,600 on our watch. We’ll see how it goes here. This one is an original in very nice condition, but not mint. Read more

Autumn in New York From The Artistry of Tal Farlow

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So I’d asked my friend Dan Axelrod to post a comment on Tal Farlow, and he did. It appears elsewhere on the site, but to simplify things, here it is:

“Yeah…the Artistry -later released as Autumn in NY. On that tune, Tal used a special tuning to achieve a 7 string sound, in which a low bass note replaced his 5th string. He recorded that chord melody section alone, knowing it would be inserted later with a tape splice. But he told me he’d spent so much time working out that detailed chord melody solo… that he didn’t realize that he neglected to ever blow over those complicated changes of the song…. and when the melody chorus ended and it was time to improvise, Tal suddenly realized that he didn’t know the chords! By the 7th bar, he didn’t know where the hell he was, he was completely lost and the tape was rolling! Not knowing what to do, he just listened to each piano chord and tried to fake his way thru a blowing chorus. A trained ear familiar with Tal in fact, could probably spot a bit more reticence and ’start and stop’ from him than usual in that solo -especially in contrast to the other clear and brilliant improvisations on that great record-”
Dan Axelrod

Rather than have you all hunt down your copies of The Artistry of Tal Farlow — those of you lucky enough to have copies of The Artistry of Tal Farlow — I decided to copy the track and put it here on the site. Enjoy. 

14-autumn-in-new-york

Another Day on EBAY

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While the past two days have been light on eBay, today is fairly loaded with interesting items. Here are a few to keep an eye on:

We’ll start with some nice jazz guitar records. Atomic Records has a pair of nice Tal Farlow records on Norgran: The Artistry of Tal Farlow, Norgran 1014. This is in nice shape and in the $100 range as of this post. Also, Interpretations, Norgran 1027. This seems to be in a bit better condition and is in the same price range. My good friend Dan Axelrod is loaded with personal anecdotes about Tal, and at some point I’m going to prevail upon him to share them on this site. Dan, are you out there? Read more

Catching Up on eBay

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Time to catch up on some of the items we’ve been watching on eBay:

We predicted this record would sell for a high price, and it did: Lee Morgan, Sextet, Blue Note 1541. This was an original Lexington Avenue pressing in VG++ condition. Price: $1,325

Another high-end Blue Note: Curtis Fuller, Bone & Bari, Blue Note 1572. This was an original pressing in M- condition. Price: $676.77

That Joe Newman LP with the Andy Warhol cover went for a bit less this week than it did a few weeks ago: Joe Newman, I’m Still Swinging, RCA 1198. Price: $57.77

Remember that Zoot record that was priced at just $30 a few hours ago. It wound up selling for $337.90: Zoot Sims, Zoot!, Riverside228. Read more

eBay Today, Sept. 30

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It’s another VERY slow day for high-end jazz collectibles on eBay. Is there something going on that we’re not aware of? Anyway, here are some interesting items of note that are closing today:

Joe Newman, I’m Still Swinging, RCA 1198. This is the one with the Andy Warhol cover. As we noted in an earlier post, this sold recently on eBay for $200. This one’s current price is $16.50.

Art Taylor, Taylor’s Tenors, Prestige New Jazz 8219. This is an original pressing with the purple label and it seems to be in nice condition. Offered by Atomic Records, which is one of the larger jazz dealers on eBay.

Zoot Sims, Zoot!, Riverside 228. This is an original pressing with the white label in nice condition. Current price is only around $30. That’s pretty low. It’ll be interesting to see how high it goes up.

Hank Mobley, The Turnaround, Blue Note 4186. This is an original pressing with the New York USA label.

Oh, and we almost forgot our own listings: 

The Complete Lee Morgan Fifties Blue Note Sessions, Mosaic MQ6-162.

Miles Davis, The Complete Plugged Nickel Sessions, Mosaic MQ10-158.

Price Guide Updated

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We’ve updated the Price Guide in a number of ways over the past few days. We added about 35 new entries, including a copy of Louis Smith, Smithville, that sold for more than $1,500, a copy of Sonny Clark’s Cool Struttin’ that sold for 3,750, the Count Basie RCA record with the Andy Warhol cover and several 10-inch LPs that are making their first appearance on the Price Guide, including the Max Roach Quartet on the Debut label. To take a look at the most recent entries, you can sort by clicking the Timestamp button at the top right and making sure the most recent entries are on top, by the date on which they were posted.

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And The Winner Is . . .

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Actually, no one. Two weeks ago we ran a contest to give away a free record. The instructions were simple: All you had to do was write a comment on this post.  No one did. However, in the interest of full disclosure, the collectible we were giving away wasn’t the most exciting, an OJC copy of The Dual Role of Bob Brookmeyer. Perhaps no one was interested. So, we’ll do it again this week, run a contest to give away a free collectible, and we’ll offer something a little better. And if no one responds this time, perhaps we’ll think of another format. In this case, we are going to give away the Bob Brookmeyer LP to our reader Rudolf A. Flinterman because he has been the most prolific and consistent commenter since we’ve re-launched the site. So, Rudolf, congratulations on winning the free record. I’ll send you a separate email to work out the details. For everyone else, keep an eye on the site today and tomorrow for our next attempt to give away a jazz collectible. Hopefully, it will be something that someone will want.

Upcoming on eBay, Sept. 29

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I haven’t posted since Friday, so I took a look ahead to see what’s interesting on eBay today, just to catch up while I work on other aspects of the site. It’s actually a fairly slow day for high-end collectibles, but there are a few, mostly Blue Notes. Here are some to check out:

Hank Mobley and His All Stars, Blue Note 1544. This is a nice copy with the West 63rd Street address, which I assume is an original pressing. I have a copy of Sonny Rollins Volume 1, Blue Note 1542, with the Lexington Avenue address, and that’s the highest number I’ve seen for Lexington Avenue. Perhaps one of the Blue Note experts out there can weigh in on this. Anyway, this Mobley LP is being offered by Euclid Records, a reputable dealer and, as of this posting, is still reasonably priced at about $120.

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