The Value of Vinyl

[Infiniteloop]

I've just seen a signed, grey marbled copy of London Grammar's new LP 'Truth is a Beautiful Thing' sell on eBay for £146.99.

Glad my signed, grey marbled copy is still unplayed due to waiting for a new TT. - Though I doubt now that it ever will be.

 

[thescarletpronster]

I've just seen a signed, grey marbled copy of London Grammar's new LP 'Truth is a Beautiful Thing' sell on eBay for £146.99.

Glad my signed, grey marbled copy is still unplayed due to waiting for a new TT. - Though I doubt now that it ever will be.

Go on, play the bastard! That's what it's for. If some idiots are willing to pay stupid amounts of money for it and then not play it, worse luck to them.

 

[Gray]

Not that long ago, I bought a 'Collectors Edition' 4CD box set off Amazon (Tom Moulton remixes of Philly classics) for £12.58.

Today's price on Amazon £339 (+ £1.26 postage!) Not a mistake. (Unless you buy it)

 

[Deleted member 108165]

I've paid some silly prices for original new vinyl and the first thing I do is unwrap it and play the damned thing. Never have been and never wanted to be a collector, life's too short, enjoy the music.

 

[Al ears]

I've paid some silly prices for original new vinyl and the first thing I do is unwrap it and play the damned thing. Never have been and never wanted to be a collector, life's too short, enjoy the music.

+1

 

[chris_bates1974]

Such a strange word... It's only worth what someone wil pay for it. We frequently buy stuff that is poor value - more than we want to pay for it!

But, I think we are all starting to sound like a stuck record (ha ha, bloody ha) in that it is an oft lamented fact that vinyl is just far too expensive. The prices are utterly ridiculous.

Still love it though.

 

[Deleted member 108165]

That's just it, vinyl is not more expensive now than it was back in the 70's. It's called inflation baby *smile*

 

[Alantiggger]

It is kid-on..... (an other FAD)....CD is far better.

Folks with LOTS OF MONEY....... kidding the rest on.

All because the folks WITH Money (are NOW STUCK)..... wanna now be calling.... the shots LIKE.....

CD is better, as is DIGITAL Radio..... thes folkes with LARGE MONEY ......That KIND, well,

'THEY' just don't wanna Know is all ?

AS OTHERS SAY, JUST...... ENJOY THE MUSIC !

 

[MajorFubar]

You can understand why sellers of used records 'try it on'. Out of a thousand or more visitors who walk on by, you only need one to buy it. Looking at UK ebay, a copy of Decca's "Journey into Stereo Sound" 1958 demo record sold only just yesterday for a BIN of £30+£4 p+p, while other examples, with starts as low as a tenth of that, failed to attract even one solitary bid. Probably because like me some buyers loathe auctions. I'd rather just find a BIN and buy the sodding thing rather than watch something for 7-10 days, and gamble saving a few quid against the chances of being outbid by 50p in the dying seconds. But there are limits to the premium I'm prepared to pay for the privilege. Very little on eBay is so rare that another example won't turn up in a couple of months at most.

 

[Al ears]

You can understand why sellers of used records 'try it on'. Out of a thousand or more visitors who walk on by, you only need one to buy it. Looking at UK ebay, a copy of Decca's "Journey into Stereo Sound" 1958 demo record sold only just yesterday for a BIN of £30+£4 p+p, while other examples, with starts as low as a tenth of that, failed to attract even one solitary bid. Probably because like me some buyers loathe auctions. I'd rather just find a BIN and buy the sodding thing rather than watch something for 7-10 days, and gamble saving a few quid against the chances of being outbid by 50p in the dying seconds. But there are limits to the premium I'm prepared to pay for the privilege. Very little on eBay is so rare that another example won't turn up in a couple of months at most.

Very true.

Love the idea of "patience my ass, I'm going to buy something" ..... ;-)

 

[thescarletpronster]

Inflation from a £7 standard price in 1989 (when I worked in a record shop) would be about £15 now. General prices for a standard single LP seem to be about £18-£21 at the moment (they've come down a few quid over the past 3 years). Given that pressing runs are probably about 10% of what they were in 1989, that's actually not too bad. Obviously some LPs are stupid prices, £30 and more, but that seems to be milking markets that are dominated by older people who probably have more money and are avid fans of e.g. Neil Young, Paul Weller et al from decades back. But hey, that's capitalism for you, and don't we all love it.

What I really don't get is 20-somethings paying £20 plus for a record when they don't even have a turntable. What do they do? Serve hummus off it at parties? (I'm reliably informed that young people no longer snort drugs. I despair in the youth of today; I really do.)

 

[bigfish786]

Looking back at my early albums, that in the '80's I paid around £6:95 for, they mostly had eight or nine tracks on.

Most new albums I buy have 12 tracks and upwards.

the Stone Sour album I bought today has 15 tracks, is on double vinyl and cost 30 quid. So, when you take that into consideration it's not that bad.

What im finding more is these second hand vinyl stores are asking daft money for 30 year old records .

50 quid for a copy of Metallica- And justice for all is just bonkers

 

[MajorFubar]

Inflation from a £7 standard price in 1989 (when I worked in a record shop) would be about £15 now. General prices for a standard single LP seem to be about £18-£21 at the moment (they've come down a few quid over the past 3 years).

You're not really going back far enough though. At the peak of vinyl's popularity, there were so many records being sold they could afford to spread the profits thinly. By 1989, they were still quite cheap but that's mainly because they were propped up by the eye-watering prices they were charging for CDs. They can't do that now and they couldn't do it before either.

My brother still has his original 1973 copies of Dark Side Of The Moon and Tubular Bells, both with their Woolworths price stickers on the front: £2.99 each. That's about £33 in today's money. £66 for two LPs! That was normal, and was the reason cheap labels existed such Pickwick, Ronco, MFP, Stereo Gold Award, Chevron, and so on.

 

[thescarletpronster]

You're not really going back far enough though.

I couldn't really go back any further as I was going on personal experience and didn't know anything about prices earlier than that. I'm amazed that your bro was paying £2.99 in 1973 as standard price for an LP when I started buying in 1984/5 was £4.99–£5.29. Cheapos were cheaper, of course.

Anyway, to get back to the original question: Infiniteloop asked about the value of vinyl. I've just done a bit of quick research, and the current price seems to be around £800 per metric tonne.

 

[MajorFubar]

I'm amazed that your bro was paying £2.99 in 1973 as standard price for an LP when I started buying in 1984/5 was £4.99–£5.29. Cheapos were cheaper, of course.

Yep, which goes to prove they got cheaper in the period you quoted, but they weren't always. This is an el-cheapo LP of chart cover versions on EMI's budget 'MFP' label, pre-dating the Hallmark Top Of The Pops albums but largely the same thing:

If you're fortunate enough to be too young to know what the 13'11 means, that's thirteen shillings and 11 pence: £11.62 in today's money. And that was a budget album.

 

[nopiano]

I'm amazed that your bro was paying £2.99 in 1973 as standard price for an LP when I started buying in 1984/5 was £4.99–£5.29. Cheapos were cheaper, of course.

Yep, which goes to prove they got cheaper in the period you quoted, but they weren't always. This is an el-cheapo LP of chart cover versions on EMI's budget 'MFP' label, pre-dating the Hallmark Top Of The Pops albums but largely the same thing:

If you're fortunate enough to be too young to know what the 13'11 means, that's thirteen shillings and 11 pence: £11.62 in today's money. And that was a budget album.

13/11 is about 70p, so that's a lot of inflation! LPs were never cheap, were they?

To compare it roughly to wages, I earned £10 to £15/day at the hifi & record shop during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, which I often took as 2 or 3 LPs. I guess today that might be eight hours on say £8 an hour or £64, which is about three of today's £20 albums.

 

[MajorFubar]

13/11 is about 70p, so that's a lot of inflation! LPs were never cheap, were they?

To compare it roughly to wages, I earned £10 to £15/day at the hifi & record shop during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, which I often took as 2 or 3 LPs. I guess today that might be eight hours on say £8 an hour or £64, which is about three of today's £20 albums.

Yeah absolutely. At the time of that 'budget' Hits '68 LP, albums from the likes of the major artists such as the Beatles would be about £1.19s 6d: knocking on the door of today's £33. That's how a load of 'cheap' labels cropped up. But even the cheap lables weren't especially cheap.

 

[nopiano]

13/11 is about 70p, so that's a lot of inflation! LPs were never cheap, were they?

To compare it roughly to wages, I earned £10 to £15/day at the hifi & record shop during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, which I often took as 2 or 3 LPs. I guess today that might be eight hours on say £8 an hour or £64, which is about three of today's £20 albums.

Yeah absolutely. At the time of that 'budget' Hits '68 LP, albums from the likes of the major artists such as the Beatles would be about £1.19s 6d: knocking on the door of today's £33. That's how a load of 'cheap' labels cropped up. But even the cheap lables weren't especially cheap.

And at a musical level, it's inconceivable today that you'd get copies of current hits just to make it cheaper! That's what X Factor and file sharing have done for music!

Classical lovers have always been fortunate that many very good recordings get reissued at mid or budget price, and often form the backbone of a great colllection.

 

[paulkebab]

the oil crisis in the 70's which saw vinyl prices rise by a shocking amount. Myself, Major and others here will remember that time with despair as we didn't know when it would end. Every week album prices would rise and rise.. awful. If memory serves me the average LP price I was buying at went from about £2.10 to nearly £3.00 - it made me buy an LP for most of its content rather than just one track ( yes we used to do that too!).

 

[Deleted member 108165]

13/11 is about 70p, so that's a lot of inflation! LPs were never cheap, were they?

To compare it roughly to wages, I earned £10 to £15/day at the hifi & record shop during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, which I often took as 2 or 3 LPs. I guess today that might be eight hours on say £8 an hour or £64, which is about three of today's £20 albums.

£10 to £15/day *shok* you were rich beyond your wildest dreams. My first job in 1974 paid me the princely sum of £15 per week!

 

[Al ears]

It might be worth me mentioning that I have just seen one well-known online dealer advertising The Groundhogs - Scratching the Surface 180g LP for a miserly 12.99....... get it quick! 🙂

 

[thescarletpronster]

Yep, which goes to prove they got cheaper in the period you quoted, but they weren't always.

I'm not disputing that, but I'm surprised to find it out. I guess I was lucky that I discovered music and bought most of my records when they were relatively cheap.

(Ooh, the post composition interface has just changed.)

 

[MajorFubar]

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

 

[nopiano]

13/11 is about 70p, so that's a lot of inflation! LPs were never cheap, were they?

To compare it roughly to wages, I earned £10 to £15/day at the hifi & record shop during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, which I often took as 2 or 3 LPs. I guess today that might be eight hours on say £8 an hour or £64, which is about three of today's £20 albums.

£10 to £15/day *shok* you were rich beyond your wildest dreams. My first job in 1974 paid me the princely sum of £15 per week!

Yes, I think my first salary was about £64 take home for the month in 1973. It must have been about '75 when I started the Saturday job for a tenner a day (taxed, naturally - cough!).

 

[nopiano]

the oil crisis in the 70's which saw vinyl prices rise by a shocking amount. Myself, Major and others here will remember that time with despair as we didn't know when it would end. Every week album prices would rise and rise.. awful. If memory serves me the average LP price I was buying at went from about £2.10 to nearly £3.00 - it made me buy an LP for most of its content rather than just one track ( yes we used to do that too!).

I don't remember the impact on LP prices, but I do remember being terrified when petrol shot up to £1 a gallon. I thought I'd saved all those years to buy a car and now I couldn't afford to run it! Amazing how we adjusted.