Louis Armstrong Autograph: “Hello. I stumbled on your site while researching values for 78 records and an autograph of Louis Armstrong and his band at the time (late ’30s, early ’40s) and wondered if you could help me find a place that I could get a value on these items?”

Jazz Book Collection: “My father was a massive jazz connoisseur, collector and discographer but sadly passed away in April, Age 92. Attached is a list of his books, which we wish to sell.  We have done some EBay etc. research but would prefer a deal for the job lot via a dealer, or at least a select job lot. A number of the books have been signed by the authors and dedicated personally to my father.”

Hank Mobley, Blue Note 1568: Hi Al, Great blog! I post every once in a while. Here’s a recent eBay experience about 1568

I saw an auction for BN1568 with a price of $899. Did not appear to be a scam. I did the BIN and Paypal’ed immediately, which cleared instantly. That was a Saturday, asked the seller to pack carefully and to look into insurance. Followed up on Monday morning, asking about insurance cost.

Seller replied that she was “just informed of the value of the LP” and thus has to cancel the auction. Well, that obviously sucks, so I replied with a few points:

“What can I say?

1. The buy-it-now price was $900, which suggests to me that you had some idea of the value of the record. $900 for an LP is an immense amount.

2. It’s a non-official 2nd pressing, because side 2 only has the W63 address, not the New York 23 label.

3. When I’ve bought things on eBay before that seemed somewhat overpriced, I usually discovered upon receiving it that there were flaws to the item that made the price make more sense.

4. I’ve sold a good number of things on eBay, many of them were fixed price/buy-it-now and several sold very quickly.  I guessed that I had probably underpriced them, but I followed through with the transaction. But I followed through with the transaction. That’s the nature of a market.”

Anyway, seller hasn’t refunded my $ and HAS relisted it Hank Mobley, Blue Note 1568. 

Don’t mean to gripe or be long-winded. Maybe someone on the list can learn from this? Keep up the great work!

Lorraine Geller on Dot: Of course, no email grab-bag would be complete without a missive from CeeDee, who drops me an entertaining note about once a week. This one was on the Lorraine Geller LP on Dot, which we recently included in a post. It wound up selling for $932. CeeDee’s note was simple, but appropriate. It said:

“$$$ . . . but why?”

I shall leave it to you, good readers, to answer. As a comment, not an email, please.