“Hello Al, from Larry Cohn in NYC. Like you I have been collecting jazz LPs for decades and was surprised by the major rise in prices beginning in the 1980s, largely spurred by Japanese collectors. However, I don’t think we can take as seriously the recent eBay phenomenon.

You quote assidiously the latest realized prices for eBay auctions, but please bear in mind that in most cases the fight between two or three naive collectors is the reason for the result. This is proven out by your noticing that the same LP, sometimes even in better shape, will go for a significantly lower price in the next (or next after that) eBay auction, simply because one or more of the participants in the prior dogfight has already been satisfied and is no longer bidding.

The current eBay group of buyers is not reflective of the general population and it would be foolhardy to either appraise or even just assume that one’s collection was ‘worth’ these sometimes-astronomical figures. This explains the recent price for Song For My Father, which surprised you at north of $300, for a record that I assure you over the years has sold in the $75-or-less range because, like The Sidewinder, it was a hit and had many pressings in both mono and stereo. Even The Sidewinder gets high prices on eBay that are clearly artificial.

“Basically, not ALL copies of these hits were played and played and trashed — significant quantities still exist in great shape after 40 years, given the tens of thousands of originals pressed and sold or distributed to deejays/writers and others on the comp list (who often tucked a copy away unplayed/untouched. My point is simply this — just because an LP sells for a huge price perhaps once or twice is just meaningless.

In the case of all of these albums, including the rare $1,000-plus Jackie McLeans that keep popping up, there are significant, though perhaps no more than 200 or so, copies of each out there in collections around the world in near mint or even “mint”  (unplayed) condition. There have to be at least 100 serious Japanese collectors alone (add to this the many Europeans), who long ago filled these blank spaces with near mint copies.

The fact that newer and younger collectors using the current eBay technology are so antsy that they will pay upwards of triple to five times the value of a needed LP does not reflect the general market or population. Most collectors, and I include you and myself, were content to build our collections gradually over a period of years and not go nuts to have the immediate gratification of obtaining a mint rare LP overnight. I have found that “the hunt” is truly satisfying, both psychologically and obviously from a pocketbook standpoint. Of course, the hundreds of near mint/mint copies per title I am referring to are currently tightly “locked up” in collections.

But my point is this: If astronomical prices alone were enough to “unlock” all these goodies, then around 1983 virtually all the albums would have been dumped by their original owners, since the Japanese dealers and collectors were paying upwards of $500 to $2,000 for many titles which previously sold routinely in the $20-$40 range. This dwarfs the recent eBay price increases by a factor of ten. Yet copies, no many, but some in dribs and drabs, the majority of the desirable titles continue to pop up — the supply was not exhausted in 1983 before the Japanese economic downturn curtailed some of this nonsense for awhile. AND, those hundreds of copies per title hoarded away by Japanese collectors in the 1980s obviously still exist and perhaps someday will be made available as those same collectors age and tire of the hobby.”