Of Market Value and Music Value

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Back on eBay and wanted to first catch up on some of the items we were watching last time, starting with George Wallington, New York Scene, New Jazz 8207. This was the one from the Jazz Record Center and the bidding was at close to $800 when we wrote about it. The record wound up selling for $2,000, well surpassing the previous top price paid for this record, according to Popsike. I still find it fascinating that certain records have a strong appeal to collectors, i.e., value, while other records of the same era, perhaps by more prominent artists, have less of an appeal. Off the top of my head, I’ll use Sonny Rollins Plus Four as an example. This is a great record, featuring ground-breaking artists in their prime, on Prestige, yet it has never come close to the $1,000 mark, let alone $2,000. I’m sure I can come up with other examples, but you get the drift. I’m sure it has to do with supply and demand and all of that and perceptions of what is “rare” and what isn’t, which, I guess, is one of the nice things about having sites like eBay and Popsike to monitor the market and see on a daily basis what actual market value looks like. Back in the dark ages before the Internet, most of us were probably operating in the dark, not quite understanding the market value of what we were collecting. I guess we were focusing on the music that we loved.

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Guest Column: Another Misadventure

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I said I have more stories this week. Here’s another. But it’s not mine. This one comes courtesy of one of our loyal readers, who wants to be known, simply, as JazzBo Dave. This is his story:

I got tipped to a smaller collection that might be for sale down here in the Southeast.  I had a couple of pleasant phone calls with seller James. He was in his 80s, had lived all over the U.S. and had been collecting since the ‘50s when he was in college.  Immediately, the pre-screening light bulbs started to go off in my head.  There might actually be something there.  Read more

Rare Jazz Vinyl, For Thousands of $$$ or, Perhaps, 25 Cents

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I have more stories to tell, including a return engagement at Spike’s Record Rack in Catskill, but I feel I must get back to the business of looking at collectible vinyl on eBay before I do so. Nothing too exciting — no new collections — just some random stuff. So let’s get on with some eBay watching first and do the story-telling later in the week. If it’s eBay, there must be an expensive Sonny Clark record selling for thousands of dollars somewhere. This week it is Sonny Clark, Cool Struttin’, Blue Note 1588, courtesy of our friends at the Jazz Record Center in New York. This looks to be in really nice condition. Based on the description, my grade would be M- for the record and VG++ for the cover. There are nearly two days left on this auction and the bidding is now in the $1,100 range. We have consistently seen this record in the $3,000 bin and, at least once in the rarified $5,000 bin. I’m setting the over/under on this copy arbitrarily at $4,100.

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A Visit to A Record Store, Upstate NY Edition

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Sometimes you are lucky enough to  find a decent jazz vinyl score where you would least expect it. Here’s one for you. The other day I was scheduled to pick up The Lovely Mrs. JC at the Amtrak station in Hudson, NY, for a weekend in The Berkshires. I’ve already checked out the record store in Hudson more times than I can count, so not much interest there. But I happened to do a search of record stores in the region and, voila, there was a complete guide to them all, courtesy of an online publication called Chronogram. I have wanted to check out the one in Beacon, NY, called Hudson Valley Vinyl, because our friend and sometime-contributor Clifford has recommended it to me in the past. Not to mention that it is on the way when I drive up from Manhattan to The Berkshires. But, alas, timing hasn’t worked out, yet. In the meantime, I noted one of the stores was a new one, just opened in April of this year. It is called Spike’s Record Rack and it is in Catskill, NY, just 10 minutes or so from the Hudson Amtrak station. The listing in the article was quite sparse because the store was quite new when it was written, but I had some time to kill before The Lovely Mrs. JC’s train was due to arrive, so, I figured, what the hell. At the very least I would get a lovely drive over the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and the Hudson River during the peak of fall foliage up here in the mountains. Read more

Warhol, Blue Notes, Sun Ra: An Eclectic Day at Jazz Collector

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It’s not often that you go onto eBay and find $40,000 items in a search of Jazz records and think that, yes, perhaps that is a legitimate price someone would pay. What do you think of this: Original Study Andy Warhol RCA Records Kenny Burrell Blue Note 1543 Jazz Album? From the listing it looks like an original pen and ink drawing from Warhol’s own hand. It seems to be that there is enough certification to assert that this really is a Warhol original. I’d hang it in my home. Not for $40,000, but I’d still hang it in my home. This has already gone through one eBay cycle that I know of and is back again at the same $40,000 start price. There is a “Best Offer” option as well, so you never know.  Read more

A Day for Sonny Clark (Not to Mention Sonny Clarke)

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I’m back. The good news is the major book project I’ve been working on is finally complete and the book will be published in the next few weeks. That should free up more time for me to spend on Jazz Collector. The bad news is I’ve made promises like this before and failed to keep them. We’ll see how it goes. It’s only been in the last few months or so that I’ve really slacked off, so perhaps I just need a little inspiration, like buying a collection, maybe?  Also, I’m wide open to other people writing for the site, as Clifford has done in the past, so if you’re interested you can just drop me an email, alatjazzcollector.com. In the meantime, I want to thank our loyal reader Japhy for reminding me to get back into the fray by sending me a link to the $7,300 Sonny Clark Leapin’ and Lopin’, which has already been the subject of a post here, but which made me realize how long it has been between posts for me. Anyway, on to rare collectible jazz vinyl on eBay.

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Rare Jazz Vinyl: A Question of Condition

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I had my eye on this one to see if it would sell: Jutta Hipp, At the Hickory House, Volume 2, Blue Note 1516. This was an original pressing with the Lexington Avenue label. So, it was listed in VG++ condition for the record and VG++ for the cover. Except . . . the record had a few light surface scratches and played with some surface noise. So maybe the vinyl condition gets downgraded a notch. And then . . . the cover has a seam split ton the top with visible damage, so that gets graded down at least a notch, perhaps two. Then the question becomes how much do you trust a seller when there’s a clear discrepancy and the start price for the record is more than $900. The answer on eBay was “not enough,” since nobody bid. The record is back for sale with a lower start price, barely, of about $900.

Here‘s another:

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Leapin’, Lopin’ and Lunacy

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After last week’s diversion, I see I am being prodded to get back to the regular business of tracking the market for rare jazz vinyl, and so I will start with a note and link from our friend Clifford, subject: Sonny Clark WTF. Clifford writes, “Hey, Al. Here’s one for the ages (maybe). I’d gladly let my copy go for just $5000!” And the link is Sonny Clark, Leapin’ and Lopin’, Blue Note 4091. This was an original mono pressing with the New York USA address. The record and the cover were in just VG+ condition. The final price was $7,300. As Clifford so eloquently put it: WTF! There were 21 bidders and 44 bids and the price went from a reasonable $563 to a ridiculous $7,300 in the last moments. I would guess that two bidders both had a strategy of putting in humongous bids just to assure that they would get the record and, voila, they ran up against one another. How else could we explain a VG+ copy of this record selling for that price? Read more

A Misadventure in Jazz Collection, The Final Chapter

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What a relief. No more phone calls from Debby, no more emails of pictures, no more soul searching, no more thinking about logistics, about renting a van, hauling records down three flights, driving 10 hours, figuring out where to put the records, trying to flip a portion of the collection to get my money back quickly. All in all, I was very satisfied with the way things had transpired.

I probably could have purchased the collection, perhaps for $40,000, perhaps a little more, perhaps a little less, if I had really wanted it and was very aggressive and unconcerned about driving to Rochester and all of the logistics. But, in the end, it didn’t seem like that great a collection, I already own most of the collectibles, and as The Lovely Mrs. JC asked right at the outset, “Do you really need more records?” The answer was “no” – or at least not these records. Read more

A Misadventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 5

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Five hundred thousand. Dollars. Half a million. That’s what Debby told me her collection was worth. After all the research she’d done, the piles she had pulled together, the broken dining room table, the $250 Woody Hermans and Benny Goodmans, the Japanese reissues and Blue Note originals, after all of that, the grand total was $500,000. And that’s not all. She’d had several subsequent conversations with the Big Shot Record Dealer From Chicago, who shall henceforth be known here as the BSRD from Chicago. He told her that he would pay her half of the retail value for her records.

I tried not to choke. I tried to remain calm and cool as I explained to her, for at least the tenth time, how things actually work in the real world. That what she thought the retail value of her collection was worth, would not be the same as what the BSRD from Chicago would think it was worth. That dealers are in business to make money and they need margin, they need to account for their time, they need to clean the records, put them on eBay, pay the fees, deal with fickle buyers who return items for no reason at all. That any buyer would have to transport the records, ship them, rent a truck to haul them, who knows. Read more

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