In the good old days, listening to music meant peeling off the shrink wrap, opening the gatefold cover and reading lyrics and recording credits as a 12-inch piece of vinyl went around and around on a turntable.
The compact disc changed all that, and millions of Baby Boomers stored or gave away their albums and replaced them with CDs. An art form, and an age, was over.
Well, maybe not. It turns out that thousands of collectors have kept their albums and may be sitting on a nice pile of cash, depending on the albums they have and the condition they’re in.
“A surprising number of our customers are still very much into vinyl,” says Bruce Hirsh of Hinsdale’s Audio Consultants. “I’m not quite sure how to put this, but I think they’ve grown comfortable with the level of distortion records provide. A CD is too bright, too powerful for them.”
Used-record stores can be found in any major city; they operate largely as swap shops, where, depending on a dealer’s stock, you can get 50 cents to maybe $5 for an album you no longer want.
But if you want to move into the big leagues, there are record conventions held somewhere virtually every weekend throughout the year, where collectors and dealers come together to buy, sell and trade.
“The basic rule of thumb is you need the unusual stuff or collectors and dealers won’t pay for it,” said Bill Hale, owner of In A Groove, a used record store. “People should realize that a lot of the mainstream stuff that sold thousands or millions of copies will be something anybody can get any time.”
So does this mean your Beatles or Rolling Stones LPs from the ’60s are worthless? Hale says it depends on the pressing of the album you own.
“Some of these records were pressed 15 times and released every year for a decade or more,” he said. “If you have the original pressing, with the original color and label design and cover art work, that’s where the collectibles aspect comes from.”
Pete Gianakopoulos, manager of Oak Park’s Second Hand Tunes, agrees that the more obscure an album is, the better.
“Experimental bands, things like psychedelic rock bands from the ’60s that made maybe one or two albums–those are very collectible,” he says. “Most people don’t have first-generation copies of that stuff, if they have it at all.”
“Black music is very big right now,” Hale said. “A lot of the original black artists’ albums were sent overseas and weren’t really released here.”
John Murphy of Tinley Park’s Record Swap says that “basic rock, jazz and blues” are selling at the store, but that there is a glut of ’70s and ’80s rock that collectors need not bring in.
“We got Journey albums that have been here for six years that we can’t sell,” Murphy says.
If you’re looking to sell off some or all of your collection, here are three tips retailers suggest you do:
– Clean up your records before bringing them in.
– Sift through your collection and don’t bother bringing in items you and everyone else in college had and listened to.
– Check prices in published guides and magazines before trying to sell your albums.
One of the keys to getting the most for your albums is to make sure they look like new. Retailers won’t play your whole collection, but expect them to examine records out of their jackets to check for grit or scratches.
“A clean record that’s worth something to begin with should be worth at least $10 to $20 more,” Murphy says. “That’s probably conservative if the record is really rare and somebody has the choice between a dirty and a clean copy.”
“A record has to be in near-mint condition or you might as well throw it away,” said Jeff Tamarkin, former editor of the collector’s magazine Goldmine.
Some companies that will help you clean up include Discwasher, whose brush-and-fluid system sells for $20 and whose stylus cleaner goes for $7.95; L.A.S.T., or Liquid Archival Sound Treatment, which makes five products that range from $15.95 to $29.95; V.P.I., which makes a $500 home model of the Ultimate Record Cleaning Machine that is used by radio stations throughout the country; and K-A-B Electro-Acoustics, which sells the Nitty Gritty Record Master for $219.
Don’t break your back hauling cartons of records that had great commercial success unless they’re classics. Hale says Elvis is the only artist he knows who continues to be incredibly collectible.
“You’d think the death of some popular artist would create a big interest in his material, but that hasn’t been my experience,” Hale said. “When John Lennon was shot, there was a brief `blip’ on the screen, but that was it.”
“Your best bet is something more obscure, especially if the artist is in the mainstream,” said Tamarkin. “Bob Dylan’s second album, `The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,’ had four controversial tracks the label pulled a few weeks after it was released and substituted . . . four others. An album like that is extremely valuable.”
Price guides are available at book stores and possibly your local library. Hale recommends “Rockin’ Records” by Jerry Osborne, which is published by Jellyroll Publications.
Hale added you’ll need a guide to tell you whether you have an original pressing of a classic album. It will tell you what the color and pattern of the paper label on the record looked like or if there was a number or marking on the inner groove.
Gianakopoulos favors Goldmine. “Goldmine’s ads and listings feature prices based on what collectors are paying for a particular album at shows all over the country,” he said. “I feel the value rating of a record is more in line with what the market really is.”
Another component of collecting records is the visual impact the cardboard record jacket lent to the experience. Much has been written over the years about the planning and execution of album covers such as the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s” album, whose cover doesn’t have the same impact in the CD-sized configuration.
“Three issues that govern a record’s value are, first, its rarity,” Gianakopoulos said. “A close second would be the condition of the record, and third is the quality of the album jacket.”
If you still are holding on to a number of albums, retailers say to remove the shrink wrap, which shrinks even more over time and may warp your records or stick to the cardboard cover. Replace the wrap with loose-fitting plastic bags that will protect the jacket but not warp the record.
