The Value of Vinyl

[thescarletpronster]

I guess it's just the case that whichever is the mainstream format the labels and retailers can make it the most competitively priced.

That's what I'd have thought, too, and that's why I'm surprised: LP would have been the mainstream format in the eary 70s, but in the mid-80s cassette was probably more popular than LP. Because of that I'd have thought that LPs would have been comparatively cheaper in the early 70s than they were in the mid-to-late 80s. Perhaps your brother's £2.99 LPs were brought after the fuel crisis had got into full swing – I hadn't thought about that being a factor.

When I bought my first CD in 1987, premium records were about £6.99, but premium CDs were £11.99, which is £32 in today's money.

Yup; CDs were definitely a rip-off in those days. No wonder the record companies were pushing them so hard. Sure, they brought lots of benefits, but the cost of production was so much lower than LPs that there was a ton of clear profit in it. I bought my first CD in 1991 (wasn't released on LP), and it cost £15.99 – that price is forever etched into my brain...