I’ll point out one more from the Carolina Soul/Chick Corea auction: Donald Byrd, Byrd in Hand, Blue Note 4019. This is also an original West 63^rd Street pressing. The record is listed in VG/VG- condition and the cover is graded as VG+. Bidding is at $325, and the auction closes later today. If you’re interested in cool stuff, bidding or just watching, you should take a look at the full auction by Carolina Soul.

Another big eBay seller, the Jazz Record Center, also has an auction going this week, including Mal Waldron, Mal/2, Prestige 7111.This is an original yellow label pressing with the New York address. The record looks to be in VG++ condition and the cover is probably VG+. Bidding is in the $260 range, with the auction closing on Monday. This one features John Coltrane. I have a Japanese copy, not an original. Could I be a bidder? One never knows.

One more: George Wallington Quintet, The Prestidigitator, East-West 4004. This is an original pressing that looks to be in VG++ for the record and VG++ for the cover. This one features JR Monterose on tenor sax. My dad owned this record and, fortunately, I still have it. He must have bought it in the bargain bin somewhere, probably spent about a dollar or two on the record. Thanks, Dad. Bidding on this one is at $100, with more than a day left on the auction.

Here’s one I can’t figure out: Hank Mobley, Roll Call, Blue Note 84058. This is a West 63^rd Street pressing with the ear, Van Gelder and deep grooves. But it’s also a stereo pressing. Was Blue Note issuing stereo copies of this record when it was first released in 1961? I recall seeing stereo copies of Blue Train and Art Blakey Blue Note 4003, but they had a Stereo stamp on them, and not the number 8 in front. I’m sure someone will have the answer. In the meantime, this copy is listed as M- for the record and Excellent (and Amazing) for the cover. The bidding is at $325 with about three days left on the auction.

Billy Taylor Trio at Town Hall, Prestige 7093. This is an original New York yellow label pressing. The record is listed as M- and the cover is EX. The start price is around $500 and the auction closes in a day and a half from this posting. I realize, of course, that this is an original yellow label Prestige and those are quite desirable. And I’m also a fan of Billy Taylor, not just as a musician – he was great, popular and underrated all at the same time – but as an advocate and voice for the music. But I never got the sense any of his records were valued that highly by jazz collectors. So, let’s pause for a moment and work our way over to Popsike . . . I guess I was wrong. There have been several instances of Billy Taylor  original Prestige records selling for more than $300, with a top of $405 for A Touch of Taylor, Prestige 7001. If the seller were to get his asking price for this Town Hall record, it would be a new high for Taylor. As for this particular record, the highest previous price was about $167.

This one is from Clifford: Tina Brooks, True Blue, Blue Note 4041. The note said: “$3K for a True Blue with a nasty scratch on tracks one and two, side B. I would not call that EX+!” So, yes, the record was graded EX+ and the cover was M- and the price was $3,055. With records like this, is it possible buyers have no intention of listening, and just want to have a copy, especially one with a nice cover, in their collection? Or is it just that these records are so hard to find, that even what Clifford describes as a “nasty scratch” isn’t a deterrent from someone paying more than $3,000?

Here’s an inquiry from a reader in London: “Hi. I have to travel to Houston for work from London soon. Do you know of any good record shops that I should visit for jazz?” Personally, I don’t, but perhaps someone here does.

Jim sent me a note about a record store that bought a collection a few years ago and is just getting around now to putting them on the shelves, including some original Blue Notes. Jim mentioned Lee Morgan City Lights, Horace Silver Cape Verdean Blues, and an Ike Quebec. No mention of price or condition. A few years ago, I would have jumped into the car immediately and started the three-hour journey. But, I now seem to be more in the subtracting mode than adding mode, so I’m passing the information on to Jazz Collector readers. The name of the store is Bull Moose and it is in Scarborough, ME. They also have other stores in the area, so perhaps these records are making their way across various locations in Maine and New Hampshire.

The post Jazz Vinyl Miscellany and Mail first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/jazz-vinyl-miscellany-and-mail/feed/ 64 9178 https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/jazz-collector-back-on-ebay/ https://jazzcollector.com/blue-note/jazz-collector-back-on-ebay/#comments Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:52:35 +0000 https://jazzcollector.com/?p=9174 I’m on the road this week and won’t be able to post as frequently as I would probably like to, given the reality that the [...]

I’m on the road this week and won’t be able to post as frequently as I would probably like to, given the reality that the records I am selling on consignment with Carolina Soul Records began closing on eBay today and will continue tomorrow. I was paying so little attention to the auctions, I didn’t even realize they were closing today until I logged on around noon and saw that several of the auctions had already ended. All in all, about 300 of my records were on the consignment list today, with another 300 tomorrow. Despite whatever trepidations I may have had about the discrepancies between my grading curve and that of Carolina Soul, I’m very pleased by the results so far. Very pleased, indeed. And surprised. Having done Jazz Collector for about 20 years now, I feel like I’ve been well on top of the market and how it has evolved. But, seeing my own records being sold has been enlightening in a new way. I’m still processing the whole process and want to see how things end up tomorrow before sharing some of my preliminary thoughts. So let me do one of the things I do most frequently here at Jazz Collector, which is to look at the prices of rare jazz records that have been sold on eBay. In this case, every record on the following list was from my personal collection, singles or doubles.

John Coltrane, Coltrane, Prestige 7105. This was an original New York yellow label pressing. The record and cover were listed in VG+ condition. There were 45 bids and 21 bidders with a big flurry at the end, taking the price from $955 to $2,424.

Hank Mobley, Roll Call, Blue Note BST 84058. This was a blue label stereo pressing, listed in VG+ condition for the record and cover. The final price was $123.50. This is one where I feel like the market has gotten away from me. I didn’t realize that the Blue Notes with the blue label from the United Artists era had attained this level of cachet among collectors. I never valued them greatly, because when I started collecting, they were in print and you could pop on over to Sam Goody and pick one up for $4.99 or so.

Gideo Nxumalo, Jazz Fantasia, Renown South Africa. A few years ago I took a flier and bought two boxes of records, sight unseen, from one of my readers in South Africa. There were several original Blue Notes in the boxes, as well as this record and a few others originally issued in South Africa. When I was putting my piles together for Carolina Soul, I saw that this record had sold for a lot in the past, plus it had the autograph. I put it in the pile to sell without ever listening to it. Mistake? The album was listed in VG condition for the record and cover and sold for $515.

Cannonball Adderley and the Poll-Winners, Riverside 355. This was an original deep-groove mono pressing. The record and cover were listed in VG condition. The final price was $16.50. This is a great record, featuring Wes Montgomery, amongst others. I normally don’t write about records that sell for $16.50, but it has always baffled me why these great Adderley Riverside records from the late 1950s and early 1960s are not more valued by collectors. The music is consistently fantastic, but most of the Cannonballs in this auction (doubles) sold for a similar price, at least the Riversides. As for the one Blue Note, Somethin’ Else, that one sold for $798 in VG+ condition. Are there just too many of the Riversides available, or are people less interested in Cannonball for whatever reason. To me, he’ll always be one of the true greats.

The post Jazz Collector, Back on eBay first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]>

To answer some of your post pressing questions. Yes, those are many of my records on the current Carolina Soul eBay auction. Seeing the actual listings makes it pretty clear to me one of the reasons why Jason and I weren’t able to strike a deal: We were grading the condition of the records on a different curve. That wasn’t the only reason, but it must have played an important factor. As a collector and former seller on eBay, I was grading the records quite a bit differently than Jason and his team, who are admittedly more in touch with today’s marketplace. Some of the obvious examples are ones I’ve written about here. Like the Jutta Hipp and Zoot Sims record on Blue Note and the Donald Byrd on Transition. I know that I got those records from the Bruce M. West collection in Baltimore, and I am pretty sure those records weren’t played more than two or three times. When I listened to them, once each, they were clean. In my collection, I had graded the vinyl condition at M- or VG++ at worst.

On the current auction, the condition of the Jutta Hipp vinyl is listed as VG. So is the Donald Byrd. Yes, I was surprised. My sense is that overall Carolina Soul is much more cautious and conservative in their grading than I would be, both as a collector and a seller on eBay. I don’t question them because they know their business, they are much closer to the market, and they know what issues other collectors may have with certain records. So, if I were to offer advice to anyone thinking about bidding on the records, go with their grading and not my descriptions here at Jazz Collector. But I think it is safe to assume that they are pretty conservative graders so, hopefully, auction winners will be pleasantly surprised.

The other factor in our failing to make an outright deal was that I modified the package that I was offering. To be clear, we had never made an agreement on the phone or on email. It was always going to be based on me deciding on the final package and Jason and Nate coming to view the records personally. It was conceivable they could have driven all the way from Durham to The Berkshires and driven back with nothing. It was also conceivable they could have driven back with a van full of records.

In the final package, I pulled out some of the Blue Notes and Prestiges that I had originally intended to sell, including most of the 10-inch pressings. Got cold feet looking at the covers. I also pulled back all of the Mosaics after The Lovely Mrs. JC reminded me that many of them were birthday presents and, also, she thought they looked really nice on the shelves in our living room. So, what I originally thought would be 6,000 or even 7,000 records, was probably around 5,500. And the balance between original collectibles from the 1950s and 1960s vs very nice records from the 1970s and 1980s (as well as nice reissues), skewed a bit differently than I had originally expected.

To answer some other questions and comments:

I have never talked about specific prices, either buying a collection or, in this case selling a portion of my own collection. I feel like it would be disrespectful to the people I’m doing business with. Perhaps I’m going too far in even talking about the amounts of records in the way that I do. The reality in this case is that the only people who know what was in the package are Jason, Nate and me, so I don’t even see how the asking price would be illuminating or even relevant. But, either way, I’m not talking about it.

Similarly, I feel like I share quite a lot of myself here on the site. I go as far as I feel comfortable and I generally try to be honest with my feelings and not too guarded. Sometimes I realize I’ve shared more than I wanted and I pay the price for being too open. That’s why I appreciate supportive comments such as the ones by Daryl, Lennib, Peter, Clifford and others. Thank you. It’s also why I try to take the high road when someone is consistently negative.

Regardless of my feelings about being open or being guarded, the records are on sale for all of the public to see and for Popsike to record for all eternity. Except that not every record in the current auction is from my collection. Plus, there are some records that have been held back and will be on future auctions.

I still love Moanin’. Great solos, and I’ve always liked the way that Lee Morgan hands off to Benny Golson with a phrase that he repeats. I mention this on the radio show I taped last week. Still waiting for final approval from the station on when/if it will air and when/if it will be available on the internet so I can share it here. Stay tuned.

In his way, KC Ken finally apologized. Apology accepted.

I am not going to be obsessively watching the auction or writing about it obsessively. I feel comfortable that I am in good hands with Carolina Soul and feel like I’ve built a nice rapport with Jason. But when I do write about it again, which I will, at least the pictures I use will be from the actual collection, such as the picture of Byrd Blows Beacon Hill that goes with this post.

Finally, Shades of Redd. I may be going through an existential crisis, but I haven’t lost my mind quite yet. So, yes, I am keeping my original pressing of Shades of Redd. My Japanese reissue as well. And a United Artists pressing.

. . . but we couldn’t agree on the price. It was as simple as that and it was all very amicable. Jason and Nate were great and we had a nice, easy rapport. Jason shared pertinent information about his business model and what he and Nate thought they could get for the records. I didn’t want to let the records go for the amount they offered and we were too far apart for a compromise. So, sitting in my living room with Jason, Nate and The Lovely Mrs. JC, I suggested we turn to Plan B. I would go through the records yet again, this time with the idea that we would do a consignment deal.

If I haven’t done so already, I should make perfectly clear that money was not the primary motivation for me. If I wanted to maximize the value, I could sell the records on eBay myself, or even do something here on Jazz Collector, where I could avoid paying eBay fees. But one of the main decisions I made was that I don’t want to be in the jazz vinyl retail business. What I really wanted was to pare down the collection and reduce it by a significant amount. This meant including a lot of really valuable records, but also a lot of records that would not necessarily be worth the effort on Carolina Soul’s part to sell on eBay. I understood.

When I realized that I wasn’t go to pare down the collection in the amount I wanted, I reset my priorities. I was never looking to make a financial killing, but when I was hoping to sell a large part of the collection outright, I loaded the package with a significant amount of the real high-end stuff. A few examples: Thad Jones and Sonny Clark on Blue Note. I had original pressings and later pressings, either Japanese or United Artists. In the original package, I included the originals for Carolina Soul. In the revised consignment deal, it was the later pressings. Blue Train: I had a New York 23 and a West 63^rd. For the package deal I included the New York 23; for the consignment deal it is the West 63^rd. Miles Davis on Blue Note: in the original package I decided to keep the 10-inch and sell the 12-inch. When it became consignment, I kept them all.

I was willing to sell a bunch of high-end records because it will give me a sense of how well the consignment process works. It was a hard call, but I included all of my doubles. I tell you, when you are holding an original copy of Soultrane, Blue Train or Saxophone Colossus in your hands and you know that you searched for years for those records, it is very hard to part with them, even if you have another copy. I’m sure Ruldolf can attest to that as well. Also, there were very rare collectibles that I just don’t listen to: The Donald Byrd on Transition and Jutta Hipps and Grant Greens on Blue Note are examples of that. My Jutta Hipp with Zoot is so clean, I’m hoping we may be able to set a new high for that record.

What’s next? I haven’t heard from Jason for a few days, but per our last email, the records may be going up for auction this week. I gave him carte blanche to list them as he wants, to grade them according to his standards, to use whatever language he wishes to describe them. After all, he’s the one in the business of selling rare jazz vinyl on eBay, and he’s done pretty well without me so far. Stay tuned.

The post A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 6 first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]> https://jazzcollector.com/features/a-new-adventure-in-jazz-collecting-part-6/feed/ 18 9161 https://jazzcollector.com/features/a-new-adventure-in-jazz-collecting-part-5/ https://jazzcollector.com/features/a-new-adventure-in-jazz-collecting-part-5/#comments Fri, 14 Apr 2023 12:45:37 +0000 https://jazzcollector.com/?p=9158 On Feb. 4, 2023 I turned 70 years of age. Yada, yada, yada . . . on Feb. 7, 2023 I sent an email to [...]

On Feb. 4, 2023 I turned 70 years of age.

Yada, yada, yada . . . on Feb. 7, 2023 I sent an email to Carolina Soul Records to see if they would be interested in buying a portion of my collection. So, yeah,  you could say turning 70 was a bit of a tipping point for me. Why did I reach out to Carolina Soul as my first choice? We’ve all been watching over the past few years as they have come out of nowhere to be one of the premier sellers of jazz vinyl on eBay. They seem to grade the records fairly, they must have a strong coterie of loyal customers, they get good prices, and they keep getting these pretty amazing collections of jazz records. I also figured, with the money they’ve collected in some of these auctions, they might have the wherewithal to actually pay cash up-front for the records. Plus, there were a few comments on the Jazz Collector site that pointed me in their direction, alluding to their reputation for being “very favorable” on consignment payouts, as Clifford mentioned the other day a comment on the first article in this New Adventure in Jazz Collecting.

The next day I got an email from Jason Perlmutter, the founder and owner of Carolina Soul, which basically said “let’s chat.” We did chat a couple of days later and I told him what I was thinking: That I was ready to sell a good portion of my collection; that I expected a fair price, given the quality of what I had; that I would prefer an outright sale versus consignment; that the number I had in mind for what I expected to get in return was pretty high based on my extensive knowledge of the market. I asked him if he was intimidated by the number and he said he wasn’t, which was a good sign. I also got nice vibe from him. He seemed like a nice guy and someone I would be happy to do business with.

We made a second date for me to show him the collection on FaceTime. This was before I had decided what I would be prepared to sell and what I would keep. I told him up front that I was keeping virtually everything by certain artists – Coltrane, Rollins, Bird, Bill Evans, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday – but I had doubles of most of their collectible records and they would be included in the package. I also said I was keeping all of my 78s, not just because I like them, but because the market for them is so limited.

All in all, I estimated I would be prepared to sell 6,000 to 7,000 records, which would still leave me with a core collection of about 2,000 records, including my Beatles collection and other non-jazz records. I also let him know that this was a fairly momentous decision for me, which he well understood, and I suggested he move pretty quickly before I had a chance to change my mind. Jason’s reply: “Thanks, Al. Based on what you’re saying, I ought to make plans to visit ASAP!”

There we go with another exclamation point!!!

So, we started making plans for Jason to drive in his van from Durham, North Carolina to The Berkshires in Western Massachusetts for the possible sale of 6,000 to 7,000 records. How did he end up with 700 records in his van as he began the journey back home? Stay tuned.

The post A New Adventure in Jazz Collecting, Part 5 first appeared on jazzcollector.com.]]>

Looking back, it seems I’ve been going through this existential angst about what to do with my collection ever since I started Jazz Collector back in 2003, and probably well before that. I am sure, among this audience, I am not alone, but I’m fairly unique in that I  have this forum to share and explore my experiences, as I am doing yet again. I learn a lot about myself from doing Jazz Collector and from paying attention to the comments on the site.

In this case, I go back to a post I did on June 20, 2022 titled Back in Action. This was another one of those angsty posts in which I shared that my long-term plan for retirement was to spend more time doing Jazz Collector and to go back to selling records on eBay, a la Rudolf and some of the other regular contributors to the site. There were a lot of thoughtful comments on that post but one especially hit a nerve. It was from Mark and this is what he said:

“I think the last thing I would want to do when I retire is sell jazz records online! I mean perhaps selling a few key high end pieces would make sense, but in reality I would rather just consign the whole collection to a big name eBay dealer or store. It also seems that collecting taxes and such is more and more of a thing these days on Discogs and eBay.”

The exclamation point really caught my attention. And I thought: “Is this really what I want to do, how I want to spend my time? Taking pictures of records, putting them online, taking bids, boxing records, going to the post office, shipping them all over the world, dealing with potential complaints about the condition or the slow mail delivery, paying eBay and PayPal fees, paying taxes.”

I realize I’m putting it in a negative light because at one time not so long ago the answer to the general idea of selling records on eBay would have been yes, that would be an interesting way to spend my time. As I wrote yesterday, it could be a lot of fun enjoying the records as part of a process to thin out the collection and only keep records that give me joy.

But, as the reality of retirement kept creeping closer, I realized that was no longer my frame of mind, that I was much closer to feeling like exclamation-point Mark rather than feeling like any previous version of myself. So I had this all in the back of my mind as I was putting the records back in storage, reorganizing my collection once again, hauling records back to New York, and wondering what the hell was I going to do next.

So what was it that finally tipped me over the edge to reach out to Carolina Soul Records? Stay tuned.

I trace the roots of this latest chapter in The Great Jazz Vinyl Countdown back to a post I wrote on Jazz Collector on July 28, 2022. It was simply called Updates. In this midst of writing about a bunch of records on eBay, I went off topic based on a comment from our friend Maarten Kools — the idea of spending time with the records and enjoying them while also enjoying the process of thinning them out. Then, I wrote this: “If someone would have the wherewithal to buy one of the world’s greatest jazz collections in one shot, you know where to find me.”

The next day I received an email. The sender said he did, indeed, have the wherewithal to buy a collection like mine. Henceforth, I will refer to this individual as KC Ken, short for Kansas City Ken, which is neither his real name nor real location. Anyway, I checked him out on LinkedIn and it didn’t take more than a minute to determine that yes, he did have that kind of wherewithal. I wrote back and suggested we chat.

I will spare you the gory details, but eventually he agreed to buy about 1,000 records at what I considered to be a fair price. The good thing, from my end, was that it did not include any original Blue Notes or Prestiges, or Coltrane, Rollins, Bill Evans, Clifford Brown, etc. I would even keep most of my doubles. But KC Ken did have certain requirements and one was that the records all be in M- or better condition. They also had to be original pressings from the 1950s up to 1970.

In order to put together the right package for KC Ken I had to do an enormous amount of work. Hauling hundreds of records out of storage, bringing hundreds of  records from New York to The Berkshires, pulling records off the shelves, throwing my collection into shambles, looking at every single pre-1970 record in my collection, putting together lists that he could peruse. It was nearly a three-month project that was both time consuming and arduous. By the time we finally reached a deal in mid-October, I was really ready to part with the records, no second thoughts.

Then, one day after we did a virtual handshake on the phone, KC Ken reneged. Said he changed his mind. Fair enough. He was certainly entitled to do what was best for him. I felt he should have apologized for putting me through all of that work and then backing out of the deal. I guess he didn’t think so, because he never did apologize. At the time, I figured, maybe it’s for the best. Maybe I wasn’t ready to part with that many records yet. Maybe I was better off not sending so many nice records to a person who had a lot of money, but perhaps not a lot of class.

So, I hauled hundreds of records back to storage, moved hundreds of records back to my apartment in New York, put an icepack on my sore back, reorganized my collection once again, and put this misadventure with KC Ken in the rear-view mirror. But, in some ways, the die had already been cast. I was mentally ready to part with records, this just wasn’t the right deal or the right person.

So what changed between mid-October and early February, when I reached out to Carolina Soul Records? Stay tuned.