This one is from the auction that closed this past week: John Jenkins with Kenny Burrell, Blue Note 1573. This was an original West 63^rd Street pressing. The record looked to be in M- condition and the cover was listed as “near new condition.” The final price was $2,524. Yes, another record high.

Fred Jackson, Hootin’ ‘N Tootin’, Blue Note 4094. This was an original New York USA pressing. Again, the condition was fairly immaculate, near new and virtually new, with “Review Copy” stamped on the back. This one sold for $1,525, another record high.

Lots of Blue Notes on these lists. Let’s find another label. How about:

Bill Evans Trio, Waltz For Debby, Riverside 399. The record looked to be in new condition, and the cover was probably VG++, based on the pictures. The final price was $1,269.

And Bennie Green with Art Farmer, Prestige 7041. This was an original New York yellow label, with the coated frame cover in “extraordinary” condition. This one sold for $1,830 and I don’t even have to bother to go over to Popsike to know that this is a new record price for this record.

To be continued . . .

Oh, and Happy Record Store Day.

Let’s sweeten the pot with Lee Morgan, Candy, Blue Note 1590. This looks to be an original West 63^rd Street pressing from the seller Carolina Soul. The record is listed in VG++ or VG+ condition and the cover is VG+. The bidding is nearly $800 and there are about six days left on the auction.  From the same seller is Bennie Green, Soul Stirrin’, Blue Note 1599, with the infamous Jug on tenor sax, not to mention Sonny Clark on piano and Elvin Jones on drums. This looks to be an original West 63^rd Street pressing, listed in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. The bidding is in the $130 range with five days left on the auction.

And let’s end today’s post with a little Bird: Charlie Parker Sextet, Dial 203. This is an original 10-inch pressing listed in VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. The bidding is in the $275 range, with the auction closing within a couple of hours from whence this post goes live. It’s amazing to me that in all of these years of collecting, I still don’t own a copy of any of the Bird 10-inch LPs on Dial. I’ve had a chance to get them in the past, but either the price orcondition, or the price and condition prevented me from pulling the trigger. One of these days, perhaps, the stars will align.

By Gregory the Fish

I love jazz and I love collecting jazz records. Everyone reading this does. But none of us is rich enough to buy every record we want whenever we want to. We’ve all read stories about buying collections, and it seems so rewarding… you buy a big fat stack of records for a great bulk deal, keep some real treasures, make your money up selling the doubles, and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But how does one go about finding these collections? We don’t all have big websites like this one that pull in the e-mails.

I just randomly started trying a few things. Posting on various websites, etc. Since then I have purchased a few very small collections of a few dozen records each, and made a little profit, but never had a good score of keepers… that is, until about two months ago. I randomly got an e-mail responding to one of the posts I had made, mentioning a collection… about 300 records. Not huge, but way more than I had dealt with buying before. I asked if there were any pictures, expecting a few shots of crates that I could gauge from the visible records. This guy took a picture of every single individual record jacket and sent them to me. I appreciated it, especially because there were some real items of interest. Some nice-looking Prestige and Blue Note records, of course, as well as several things like Clifford Brown on Emarcy, a dozen or so nice Verves, some great jazz on Atlantic, even a desirable Flying Dutchman or two. I was interested. Even in moderate condition or if they weren’t all originals, this collection had to have at least one thing I would want to keep, and it was definitely full of potential flips to buy other records, too. A meeting was arranged.

The couple that I ended up meeting were interesting people. They had three slot machines in their basement, right next to a huge industrial gumball machine. No records. I had no idea why I was in the basement, but since it was furnished and since I was being snuggled by the friendliest dog I have ever met, I figured it was safe. It was. The husband said his dad had left him a pile of records and he wasn’t much of a jazz fan, opened a closet door and there were the records. He started pulling out stacks – vertical stacks. The jackets were all almost entirely NM, and the records were almost all VG++ or so, seemingly unplayed. I found some great stuff. The Blue Notes weren’t all originals, but the Bennie Green and 3 Sounds records were. There was a stone mint Liberty press of “Midnight Blue”, still in the shrink wrap, NYC-label “Cookin’” with Miles on Prestige, a white promo copy The Esoteric Circle on Flying Dutchman, the Clifford Brown Emarcys were all original, as were the Verves… and several more as pictured, though I had sold a few things that were doubles or not originals by the time I took the picture. They were all in great condition. Plus, there were lots of things I don’t have any personal interest in but that are collectible – fancy Aretha Franklins on Atlantic, BB King on Crown, Clyde McPhatter, rare James Brown and Marvin Gaye, some stuff on Kudu, etc. But back to the exchange.

As I looked through everything, the husband mentioned that he had to be somewhere, and told me his wife would handle it. She had been chatting with me as I perused, so we had a good rapport going. She then mentioned that they had lots of 45s they didn’t want. I told her I know nothing about 45s, and they wouldn’t affect my offer at all, but I’d take them off their hands if they wanted to get rid of them. Speaking of offers, I had one in mind. I expected to haggle a bit, but she accepted it outright. I felt a little guilty, because I had started a bit low, so I reminded her that if she was willing to research everything on her own, she could make much more money selling individually online, but she said my offer was essentially the same as what they had agreed together to sell the lot for, and that she was happy to get them out of the house. Then we shook hands and some cash was exchanged. After another minute of me picking up piles of records, she saw an Aretha record that she said she had really loved. I took the hint and said she could keep it, no change in the offer. She was grateful, and it made me feel good, too. Around this time, her husband came back downstairs, noticed that I was packing up boxes, and said “thank god they’ll be out of here!” Their son also came downstairs and introduced himself. He is a high school basketball player. Nice kid. He offered to help me load the records in the car, which I was grateful for. The dog hopped into my car, which she apparently never does, and we all had a good laugh. We coaxed her out, I drove off happy as a clam, and enjoyed sorting through everything and listening to my new scores throughout the rest of that weekend. In fact, I am still getting through some of it. There were even a few valuable 45s in the pile, and they went to good homes. What a score.

Dexter Gordon, Dexter Calling, Blue Note 4083. This looks to be an original New York USA pressing. Based on the description the record and cover both look to be in VG++ condition. The bidding is getting close to $300 with more than a day left on the auction. Getting back to Popsike, to my surprise, this record has sold for more than $1,000 at least once, with a top price of $1,045.

Bennie Green, Walkin’ and Talkin’, Blue Note 4010. This looks to be an original West 63rd Street pressing in Ex condition for the record, which I translate into VG+ using my terminology, and VG+ for the cover. The bidding is in the $170 range with more than two days left on the auction.

This is another one we were watching: Clifford Brown, New Star on the Horizon, Blue Note 5032. This was an original 10-inch pressing listed in VG- condition for both the record and the cover. At the time I wrote the original post the record was sitting at $50 with 13 bids and three hours left on the auction. I speculated the price would go up and it did, all the way to $265. Not bad for VG-, right?

Here’s another Prestige that went for a high price, although this one may be skewed because the real collectible value is probably more in the Andy Warhol cover than in the actual contents of the music or the musicians: The Story of Moondog, Prestige 7099. This was an original New York pressing in M- condition for the record and VG++ for the cover. It sold for $698.01. I sold my copy on eBay a few years ago. If I recall, it was about $300. There was a time where I thought I would be a Prestige completist, at least for the yellow labels, but I gave up that idea and when I listened to the Moondog record there was nothing on it that would ever convince me to listen to it again, so I decided to sell it, without regard to the label or even the cover art. I don’t think I regret it. Certainly not like I regretted selling Lee Morgan Candy or Jackie’s Pal 25 years ago to buy a frickin’ boat that sank.

I also realized I never officially closed the books on that copy of Ike Quebec Soul Samba, Blue Note 4114, which I was watching last week. It sold for $860.

Yes.

It sold for $860.

In case you missed it, that was $860.

How about this one, with the second cover: Art Blakey, A Night at Birdland Volume 2,Blue Note 1522. This was an odd one in that it had a Lexington Avenue address on one side and a West 63rd Street address on the other. It was clearly not a first pressing, particularly with that cover. But it sold for $236.50.

Someone on the previous post also mentioned this one:

Dexter Gordon, Go, Blue Note 4112. This was an original pressing and it was in Ex+ condition for both the record and the cover. It sold for $685.

There there was Bennie Green, Soul Stirrin’, Blue Note 1599. This one was in M- condition for the record and Ex+ for the cover. It sold for $860.

Finally there was Art Pepper, Surf Ride, Savoy 12089. This was an original red label pressing in M- condition for the record and Ex for the cover. This one sold for $598.

I think someone in the last post mentioned the idea of a feeding frenzy, with so many big ticket items, in very nice condition, all being sold in one week. From the prizes that seems to be a pretty good analysis.

Here are a few from the recent Jazz Record Center auction, starting with Red Rodney, 1957, Signal 1206. This was an original pressing listed in M- for the cover and probably VG++ for the record. We were commenting that there was no action in the auction but, of course, there was quite a bit at the end. The record wound up selling for $1,324.50. Thelonious Monk, Monk, Columbia 2291. This would not normally appear on a list of collectible records, but this was a promo copy with the white labels. The record was in M- condition and the cover was VG++. It sold for $114.37. From the same auction there were also . . .

Wayne Shorter, JuJu, Blue Note 4182. This was an original mono pressing  that looked to be in M- condition for the record and the cover. It sold for $460. Wayne Shorter, Night Dreamer, Blue Note 4173. This was also an original mono New York USA pressing. The record looked to be M- and the cover was probably VG++. This one sold for $361. Art Taylor, AT’s Delight, Blue Note 4047. This was an original deep-groove West 63rd Street pressing in M- condition for the record and the cover. It sold for $458.89, a relative bargain IMHO. Bennie Green, Back on the Scene, Blue Note 1587. In our earlier listing we described this as pristine for the record and cover, which translates into M-. This one sold for $666. It seemed at the time of my earlier post that $500 or less was a possibility, but there were late bidders. Still, $666 looks like another relative bargain.

I’m tempted to bid on this one, but I can’t figure out the condition: Bennie Green, Walkin’ and Talkin’, Blue Note 4010. This looks to have the West 63rd Street address and the deep grooves. The seller makes no mention of the ear or RVG. He also says it is a flat-edge pressing, which it’s not. So right away the seller’s credibility and knowledge are suspect. Then there’s the listing itself, whereby in the headline and the description the record is listed as VG-. But elsewhere on the same listing it is listed as VG+ with the additional descriptor that it “plays great!” (his exclamation point, not mine). We are now about four hours from closing and there are still no bids at a start price of around $200. If I knew it was a nice VG+ record and an original pressing, I’d think about a bid. As it is, however, I think I will pass. Obviously, others feel the same way.

I was mentioning 10-inch Blue Notes the other day, and now there is this:

Miles Davis Volume 2, Blue Note 5040. This is an original pressing in Ex condition for the record and VG+ for the cover.  The bidding has already surpassed $210, but it has not yet reached the seller’s reserve price, which is . . . . Who knows?

This seller has several nice Blue Notes on eBay now, including Jackie McLean, Capuchin Swing, Blue Note 4038. This looks to be an original West 63rd pressing in VG+ condition for the record and M- for the cover. Nice record in seemingly nice condition. The pricing is in the $250 range already and there are still four days to go on the auction.

This seller also had a large number of items last week, including:

Bennie Green with Art Farmer, Prestige 7041. This was an original New York yellow-label that looked to be in M- condition for both the record and the cover. It also had a promo stamp on the back cover. It sold for $630, quite high for this particular record. This record represents one of my favorite scores ever. I was shopping in one of the local stores on Long Island, Mr. Cheapo, many years ago. I was at the counter paying for my records. While I was waiting I decided to look in the 25-cent bin they had on the floor. This was always where they put junk that nobody would ever want, not even for a quarter. Imagine my surprise — a copy of this record, Bennie Green with Art Farmer, an original pressing, record in M- condition, cover a little bit shot at VG, with a slight tear. Think it was worth 25 cents? I did, and I left Mr. Cheapo that afternoon with a huge smile on my face.

Here are a few Blue Notes on our radar:

Curtis Fuller Volume 3, Blue Note 1583. This is an original deep groove West 63rd pressing in what looks to be VG+ condition for both the record and the cover. This one has Sonny Clark on piano, along with Art Farmer on trumpet. The bidding is in the $340 range with about a day and a half left on the auction.

Bennie Green, Back on the Scene, Blue Note 1587. This is an original pressing in M- condition for both the record and the cover. There are two and a half days left on the auction, the bidding is in the $225 range and it has yet to meet the seller’s reserve price.

Lee Morgan, Candy, Blue Note 1590. This is an original pressing in what is described as  M- condition for both the record and the cover. Seems like the record condition should be downgraded if you read the description. Bidding is flow so far for this record. It is in the $150 range with more than four days left. I’m sure this one will end up in the $1,000 bin, and perhaps the $2,000 bin.