Comments on: Some Gems From a Gem of a Collection

By: Bill Walter

Bill Walter — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 19:03:19 +0000

Regarding the Ray Draper & John Coltrane lp, it’s really a shock to see this selling under $200. This low price is really a mystery, especially considering it’s from the Wong collection. Meanwhile other lps from the Wong collection continue to sell at unexplainable prices. The post above (by Oriduck) suggested that possibly these high prices are “an artifact of Dr. Wong’s aura.” If so, it’s an interesting insight into human nature. It reminds me of George (from Seinfeld) being excited over purchasing a car he believed was once owned by Jon Voight!

By: oriduck

oriduck — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 23:44:24 +0000

yes, consistent with all the above commenters: (1) i have bought a lot of records from funkyousounds over the years, and have found the seller to be eminently trustworthy, and (2) the dozens of records from Dr. Wong’s collection that I was interested in, and that i unsuccessfully bid on, sold by and large at prices far removed from bargains and, often, far across the threshold of insanity. but these prices seem unusually unusual to me — perhaps they are an artifact of Dr. Wong’s aura — and don’t, i think (i hope!) constitute a “new normal.”

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 13:10:57 +0000

Re the Monk album on Riverside. It is not a DG and already forty bids. Strange indeed.

By: Paul cake

Paul cake — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 18:32:08 +0000

I have quite a lot of master tapes jazz singers Louis Armstrong duke Ellington and prob a lot more as my father inks with was a sound engineer would they be worth much

By: B. Walter

B. Walter — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 02:20:45 +0000

I have also noted that a number of lps from Dr. Wong’s collection have been selling for some very high prices. Possibly this is the result of a quality seller in combination with lps from the collection of a popular jazz celebrity. Right now I’m 0 for 3 in bidding on records from this collection as my bids are getting blown out of the water. One lp which I thought I could snag for around $25 sold for over $100.

By: jazzvinyl.ru

jazzvinyl.ru — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 01:44:28 +0000

fellows, sorry to interrupt you, but there’s one i’m a bit confused about
Monk – In Action over 200$ already..anything I’m missing? the condition seems to be great, but anyway..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Thelonious-Monk-In-Action-Jazz-LP-Riverside-12-262-Mono-DG-/401044921948?hash=item5d6023de5c:g:OFEAAOSwHPlWeExR

By: Terryfromflorida

Terryfromflorida — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 19:44:32 +0000

Al, you’ve posed the question about the Ray Draper lp before and I agree with you 100%!
I’m not sure why, but I really enjoy this album. Additionally, I think it has a great cover featuring the young Draper who was just a teenager at the time.

By: bill

bill — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 08:33:37 +0000

Although I don’t know the person behind funkysounds, I can give you a little insight into the Herb Wong collection. I was one of the many people invited to look at the Wong collection. One of his associates is a good friend of mine and the widow asked him who she might call and he mentioned me. Over the past several months his widow had asked many different dealers to come and bid on the collection. They came from LA, Japan, and the East coast as well as the Bay Area. When I was told it went to St. Louis, my first thought was Euclid Records. I am very surprised it went to funkysounds as his business seems to be entirely through ebay without a brick and mortar shop. Let me clarify a bit.
First, I should mention that Dr Wong had been ill for some time and initially, (before his passing), had sold many of his most collectible items. What we were presented with was still, an enormous amount of records. They were kept in a large room devoted exclusively to records, books and cds. The room was the size of a large living room and had record shelves on all the walls and more jutting out into the middle of the room. There was a desk and some chairs but that was all.
A few of the dealers had estimated approximately 18,000 lps. By the time I looked at them they were all over the floor and piled on top of the shelves so it was impossible to even estimate. They were 90% jazz with a bit of classical thrown in. This is not including the cds and books. There were at least as many cds as records, and, to me, the books were also a high point of the collection as he had an extremely comprehensive assortment of jazz books. As far as I know, neither the cds nor books were included in the bidding.
There is no way to accurately characterize a collection for this magnitude but there were a few trends that could be detected. First, because Dr. Wong was a radio host and record and concert producer there were an enormous amount of promos. They almost all came from the 70s and 80s and were uniformly unplayed. There were an enormous amount of OJC and other reissues from this era, also mostly unplayed. Of course there were hundreds of fine collectible items like the Johnny Griffin as well, but all (or most) of the remaining Blue Notes were 4000 series New York and mostly stereos. There were quite a few pieces like the Garland where they were 2nd issues; collectible but not that expensive. Dr. Wong had his favorites as well and unfortunately they were mostly big band and trad things. There were over 300 Woody Herman pieces for example.
I know what a few of the bids were, but I did not bid myself. I only deal on ebay and I felt the large amount of 70s and 80s stock (not to mention the Woody stuff) was best suited for a store and that precluded a competitive bid. Not to mention the fact that although I have a large storage facility, there was no way to store all 18000 records.
Funkysounds seems to believe that this is not a problem. I know he has a wonderful reputation and has had the ability to get at or above the top of the market prices on his offerings. He will certainly have to. I wish him well and can say to anyone who bids on these pieces they will be in excellent condition and have been well cared for.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 05:02:05 +0000

I won a promo copy of Coltrane Settin’ The Pace from Funkysounds that came from the Herb Wong collection. He had the LP listed at VG+. The record was more like NM. Played flawless. I was extremely happy and would definitely buy from him any time.

By: david j

david j — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 00:20:52 +0000

i gotta second japhy’s thoughts on funkysounds: very nice guy.