Vinyl Records Value

What are my records worth? That’s a common question these days as record albums are making a comeback among both casual music fans and hard core collectors. People are aware that some records are valuable, but most people don’t know exactly which records people are looking for or why they’re looking for them.

Establishing vinyl records value is an inexact science, and there are a number of factors that go into determining whether a given record is something that will bring a lot of money from a collector or something that would best be used as a place mat.

In this post, we’ll go over a number of factors that may determine the value of a particular record. Keep in mind that there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration, and it’s quite rare for a record to be valuable based on one factor alone. It’s usually a combination of things that add to a vinyl record’s value, and other factors can sometimes turn a valuable record into one that isn’t worth all that much seemingly overnight.

The list of qualities that can affect a vinyl record’s value is constantly changing, and the list shown below should not be considered to be definitive. As this post on vinyl records value is going to be fairly lengthy, we’ll divide it into sections.

Vinyl Records Value Categories

Click any of the links below to jump to each category:

Age of the Record
Who is the Artist?
Overall Scarcity
Sealed Records
Autographed Records
Commercial vs. Promotional Issues
Small Label vs. Major Label
Label Variations
Mono vs. Stereo vs. Quadraphonic
Colored Vinyl and Picture Discs
Picture Sleeves
Acetates and Test Pressings
Foreign Editions
Limited Editions
Withdrawn Releases
Counterfeit Records
Reissues and Falling Prices
Condition of the Record
Finding Recent Prices
Conclusion

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Age of the Record

Many of the people we’ve spoken to about records over the years have the impression that “old records” must be worth more than new ones. While the age can have an effect on a vinyl record’s value, it’s one of the less important factors. Releases from early in the career of a famous artist may have more value than those from later in their careers, particularly if they didn’t become famous right away. A good example of this would be the recordings of Elvis Presley. While his first five records for the Memphis-based Sun label sold reasonably well for their day, their sales figures were minuscule compared to those of his later releases on RCA, making the Sun versions fairly valuable.

On the other hand, records by artists that are not of interest to collectors will have little value, regardless of age. There are many records in the easy listening genre from the 1950s, such as those by Ray Conniff or Percy Faith, that are now some 60 years old, but they still sell for only a couple of dollars in most used records stores, provided they bother to offer them for sale at all.

“Old records” may have some value, but as a rule, it’s not because they’re old. It’s because of something else.

Who is the Artist?

This should be obvious, but the artist in question will be a big factor in determining the value of a record. While tens of thousands of artists have released records since the invention of the medium, not all of them interest the public in equal measure.

Some artists are simply more popular as well as more collectible than others. Artists in the rock, blues, jazz, classical and soul categories tend to be more collectible than those in the easy listening, country, spoken word or comedy categories.

Some artists tend to have a longtime following, while others are popular only while they are actively recording. With the former, such as Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, blues singer Robert Johnson, or the Beatles, many of their records remain both valuable and highly collectible long after they stopped recording or even after their deaths.

Other artists may have had records with high values only during the time they were recording, with prices in the collector market dropping considerably after they finished their careers or when they passed away.

In the late 1970s, for example, Todd Rundgren and the Cars were highly collectible, but these days, there’s little interest in their recordings. On the other hand, records by the Beatles are selling for the highest prices ever and prices remain steady more than 50 years after they released their last album.

Exceptions to that exist; that can come in the form of artists who were never particularly popular, but who were influential in the industry. That’s true of artists such as Robert Johnson, the Velvet Underground, or the Stooges. None of these artists were very successful and their records sold poorly when new. All three were enormous influences on other musicians, however, and as a result, their records sell for surprisingly high prices today.

Still, as a rule, popular artists will have records with higher values than obscure ones.

Overall Scarcity

This factor is pretty straightforward when it comes to vinyl records value; records that sold well and are quite common are going to be less valuable than records that sold poorly or are hard to find. A lot of albums sold in the 1970s and early 1980s sold millions of copies when new, and as such, it isn’t difficult to find copies in nice, playable condition.

That being the case, such records aren’t likely to sell for very much money in the collectors market.

On the other hand, even records that sold well when new can become scarce in time, especially when one takes the condition of the record into account. Albums by Elvis Presley and the Beatles sold millions of copies when they were first released, but finding nice original copies of those records now can be difficult, as many have been thrown away or damaged through heavy play or abuse.

People have tended to take better care of their records in recent decades, so it’s a lot easier to find a nice copy of a 1980s album by Bruce Springsteen than it is to find a near mint 1960s album by the Rolling Stones, for example.

“Common” is also relative; records that sold well in the 1950s and 1960s still sold in substantially smaller quantities than those sold in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1950s, it was rare for even a popular album to sell much more than a million copies. By the 1980s, albums selling more than 5 million copies were relatively common.

What the “common vs. scarce” factor means is that the most valuable record by a particular artist may not be their best-known title, but rather one that was disregarded by the public and/or critics when originally released, making it relatively scarce today. A good example of this would be Music from the Elder by Kiss, released in 1981. Released after a string of best-selling albums, Music from the Elder had a different sound from their previous releases and offered no hit songs and no songs that regularly received airplay. As a result, the album sold poorly and soon went out of print.

The group went back to making records that were similar to their earlier releases and sales of subsequent albums were brisk, making the now hard-to-find Music From the Elder a collector’s item.

Sealed Records

One factor that’s of vital importance in determining a vinyl record’s value is condition, which we’ll discuss at length later. Because the condition of a record is held to be important by collectors, the ideal example of a record to own, in the eyes of many collectors, would be one that has never been played at all. Because of this, collectors will often pay a huge premium for sealed, unopened examples of records they are seeking.

When record albums were first offered in the late 1940s, they were sold without any external wrapping on the cover. Customers in record stores could remove the records from the cover and many stores would even allow them to play the records to help them make a buying decision. This led to problems with both theft and damage, and by the early 1960s, a number of large retailers started sealing their albums in plastic bags. Eventually, this practice was picked up by the major record companies, who began protecting their covers with shrink wrap.

In general, a copy of an album that is still in original, unopened shrink wrap will sell for a lot more money than one that is in opened condition, even if the opened copy has not been played.

The difference in price can range from modest to quite significant, depending on the artist and title. A sealed copy of a relatively recent release may carry a small premium over an opened copy, but older and/or more desirable titles may exhibit a substantially larger premium. Sealed copies of older albums by the Beatles might sell for as much as ten times the price of an opened example, for instance.

This is a case where age can affect vinyl records value, as the older an album is, the harder it is to find a copy that has never been opened or played.

Autographed Records

One factor that can influence vinyl records value is having the autograph of the artist on it. While autographed albums and single aren’t particularly common (while forgeries of them are), they usually do command a premium over regular copies of the record that are not signed.

Autographed records that are personalized, such as “To Jane, best wishes…” tend to sell for less money than those that simply have the artist’s signature on it. When it comes to musical groups and autographs, albums that are autographed by the entire group will sell for substantially higher prices than those with the signatures of some, but not all, members.

Autographed records with provenance, such as a photograph of the artist signing the record, tend to bring the highest prices of all.

Commercial vs. Promotional Issues

One factor that can affect vinyl records value is if the record in question is a promotional issue, as opposed to a commercial, or “stock,” copy of the record. Promotional, or “promo,” copies of a record are often identified in some way, and they often have a special label that indicates that the particular records was made for promotional, or radio station, use. While the labels on most records are colored, many promotional issues have white labels, which has led to the term “white label promo” being used among collectors.

Promotional copies of records are usually pressed before retail, or “stock” copies to ensure that they reach radio stations prior to the commercial release of the record. They are also pressed in relatively small quantities compared to stock copies of the same records. While an album may sell in the millions, there may be only a few hundred promotional copies made of that same record, making them collector’s items.

Sometimes, promotional copies of a particular record may be different from the stock counterpart. The promotional copies of the Beatles’ single “Penny Lane” had a different ending than the version of the song on the stock copies of the single, making these rare copies quite valuable in comparison to the million-selling stock counterpart.

On other occasions, a record may be issued only as a promotional item. Such albums may be live recordings, made for radio broadcast, or perhaps compilation albums, again intended to stimulate airplay. These “promo-only” releases are usually sought after by collectors, though the interest in them will be directly related to the interest in the artist. A promo-only Rolling Stones record, for example, will attract far more interest from collectors than one by Andy Williams.

As a rule, a promotional copy of any record will command higher prices in the collector’s market than the stock counterpart, though there are occasional situations where the opposite is true. Some records have sold so poorly in  stores that the promotional copies are actually more common than the stock counterparts. A good example of this is the Beatles’ first single, “My Bonnie,” which was credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. Promotional copies with a pink label, while relatively rare, are probably ten times more common than the stock copies with black labels, of which fewer than 20 copies are known to exist.

We have written an extensive article about white label promo records; you can read it here. (new window)

Small Label vs. Major Label

This issue of scarcity comes into play when one looks at whether a particular record was released by a small, regional label or a large national one. Larger labels have national distribution and multiple pressing plants, and popular records might be pressed in the millions. Smaller labels might press only a few hundred or several thousand copies of a particular record.

There are examples of records being initially released on small labels and then later released on larger labels when the small record company negotiated a distribution deal with the larger label in order to sell more records. An example of this would be the 1963 surf album Pipeline by the Chantays, which was originally released on the California-based Downey label. When the song became a hit, Downey struck a deal with the nationally distributed Dot records to have them release the album instead. Today, copies of the album on the Downey label are far harder to find than their Dot counterparts, and sell for higher prices.

Sometimes an artist will release records on a small label and then move to a larger one. In these cases, their earlier releases tend to be more collectible than their later ones. The country group Alabama released a couple of albums on the small LSI label under the name “Wild Country” before changing their name and moving to the large RCA label. As the records by the group issued by RCA sold quite well, they tend to sell for modest prices. The two albums on LSI, on the other hand, are quite rare and sell for several hundred dollars or more when they’re offered for sale.

Another example, also in the country genre, is the first album by Jim Reeves. His first album, Jim Reeves Sings, was issued in 1956 on the small Abbott label. When that album began to sell well, Reeves moved to major label RCA. While his RCA albums sell for modest prices, his lone album on Abbot has sold for as much as $1000.

Label Variations

A significant factor in determining a vinyl record’s value is the label on the record itself. A given album or single might have been released with several different labels on the disc itself, even among releases by the same record company.

Record companies often change the appearance of the labels used on their records. While it has happened less often in recent decades, changes in label art an appearance were quite common among the major labels during the 1960s and 1970s.

Records by the Beatles, for instance, were released by Capitol Records on a black label with a rainbow colored perimeter, a green label, a red label, a custom Apple label, an orange label, a purple label, and a new version of the original black label, all over a period of less than 20 years.

As a rule, collectors tend to favor original pressings, so for a given title, the most desirable label variation would be whichever one was in use on the day the record was originally released for sale to the public. There are exceptions to this, however. The red Capitol label mentioned above was commonly used in the early 1970s for a number of titles, but was never intended to be used for records by the Beatles. A few copies of the band’s Revolver and Yesterday and Today albums were accidentally issued with that label, and despite not being “original” issues, they do sell for quite a lot of money on the collector’s market.

Sometimes, minor differences on labels can make a difference, as well. The first copies of Meet the Beatles to be sold in America were rushed to the stores without including publishing information for the songs on the record. While later copies had either “BMI” or “ASCAP” after each song title, the very first issues of the album sold in stores lacked this text. While this might seem to be a minor matter, the difference in value between a copy that lacks the text and one that has it can be more than $1000, depending on condition.

As many albums by popular artists have remained in print for many years, or even decades, the label on the record in question is often a significant factor in determining that vinyl record’s value.

Mono vs. Stereo vs. Quadraphonic

A significant factor that can affect a vinyl record’s value is the format. Until 1957, records were sold only in mono. Between 1957 and 1968, records were usually sold in both mono and stereo, and between about 1972 and 1976, a few records were available in 4 channel quadraphonic sound. During the time when records were sold in more than one format simultaneously, one of the formats was usually pressed in smaller quantities than the other. Mono records were more common than their stereo counterparts in the early 1960s, for instance, but were the harder variation to find by 1968. Quadraphonic pressings were always intended for a niche market, and never sold in large quantities, except in the few cases where all copies of a particular title were encoded in quadraphonic sound.

While the value of a mono record in relation to its stereo counterpart will depend on when the record was released, quadraphonic copies are almost always worth more money than the same album in stereo.

The topic of mono vs. stereo is a complex one, and we have  covered that in detail in another article which you can read here. (new window.)

Colored Vinyl and Picture Discs

While most records are pressed from black vinyl, sometimes other colors are used. On rare occasions, a special process is used to create a picture disc, which has a photograph or other graphics actually embedded in the record’s playing surface. With few exceptions, colored vinyl and picture disc pressings are limited editions, and are usually far harder to find than their black vinyl counterparts.

Both colored vinyl pressings and picture discs have been issued as commercial releases and as promo-only releases. In the early 1960s, Columbia Records would occasionally press promotional copies of both singles and albums on colored vinyl (we’ve seen red, yellow, blue, green, and purple) in order to grab the attention of radio programmers.

In the late 1970s, picture discs were often pressed as promotional items and became quite popular among collectors. Most of these were pressed in quantities of only a few hundred copies.

More often, colored vinyl and picture disc records are issued as limited edition pressings, created to spur interest among buyers. Most of these titles are also available on regular (and more common) black vinyl.

As with everything else on this list, there are occasional exceptions to the rule. Elvis Presley’s last album to be issued while he was alive was Moody Blue, which was pressed on blue vinyl when originally released. A couple of months later, RCA Records began to press the album on regular black vinyl as a cost-cutting move, which would have made the earlier blue vinyl pressings relatively rare and desirable as time passed. Shortly after this decision was made, Elvis passed away, and the label made the decision to return to using blue vinyl for that album, and all pressings for the next ten years or so were issued on blue vinyl. In the case of Moody Blue, it’s the black vinyl pressings, which were only pressed for a short period of time, that are the rare ones.

We’ve written articles about colored vinyl and picture discs, and you can read it here:

Colored vinyl article (new window)
Picture disc article (new window)

Picture Sleeves

While vinyl record albums usually include printed covers, most 45 RPM singles do not, as they were generally issued in plain paper sleeves. It was not uncommon, however, for singles to be issued in special printed sleeves bearing the title of the song, the name of the artist and perhaps a graphic or photograph. These are known as picture sleeves or title sleeves, and most of the time, these picture sleeves were available only with the original issues of the records. While not intended as limited edition items per se, picture sleeves were designed to spur sales and were often discontinued once sales of the record began to increase.

For various reasons, some picture sleeves are harder to find than others, and there are a number of records, some by famous artists, where certain picture sleeves are rare to the point where only a few copies are known to exist. Some picture sleeves, such as “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones, which was withdrawn prior to release, can sell for more than $30,000.

Others are rare, but not to that degree. The picture sleeve for the Beatles’ single “Can’t Buy Me Love” were commercially available, but were only printed by one of Capitol Records’ pressing plants, making it available only for a short time and only in the eastern United States. It’s one of the rarest commercially available Beatles picture sleeves, and mint copies have sold for more than $1000.

This is one of the factors that pretty much has no exceptions; a record with a picture sleeve is always more valuable than the same record without one.

Acetates and Test Pressings

While the majority of records are standard issues that were manufactured with the intention that they be sold in stores, some are pre-production versions that were made for in-house use at the record companies prior to making the stock pressings.

Acetates, or lacquers, as they are more properly known, are records that are individually cut on a lathe by a recording engineer. The recordings are cut on metal plates that are coated with soft lacquer. Acetates are the first step in the process of making a record, as they can be plated with metal and used to make stampers for production of the copies sold in stores.

They can also be played on a turntable and are often used to evaluate the sound of a song or an album prior to putting it into formal production. While acetates can be played as one would play any regular record, they don’t wear particularly well and will become quite noisy after only a few plays.

On rare occasions, acetates have been sent to radio stations as promotional items when regular pressings were not yet available.

As acetates are cut one at a time, they are understandably rare, and command a high value in the market place as they are both rare and unusual.

Test pressings are a bit more common than acetates, and are made to test stampers prior to mass produced production runs. They are usually the first pressings made from a set of stampers, and can be distinguished by their labels, which will differ from those used on stock pressings. Test pressings may have blank white labels or they may have special labels that indicate that they are test pressings. These custom labels usually have blank lines printed on them so that the people working with them can write the title and artist on the labels by hand.

As with acetates, test pressings are usually used for evaluation purposes by record company personnel, though they are occasionally sent out as promotional items. As they are rather unusual and limited in production to just a handful of copies, test pressings are highly regarded and sought out by collectors. Sometimes, test pressings may contain different versions of one or more songs from the commercially released albums. This can also add to their value.

Test pressings of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 album Born to Run were sent to radio stations in a cover that had the album title in a different font from commercial releases. These so-called “Script Cover” pressings of the album have sold for more than $1000.

We have written a more in-depth article about test pressings and acetates. You can read it here. (new window)

Foreign Editions

Records pressed in foreign countries are often of interest to record collectors. While most collectors are interested in records from the country where they live, a lot of them are interested in owning anything unusual by the artists that interest them.

Most record albums are designed by record companies in either the United States or Great Britain, and most releases from either country are nearly identical. Other countries, however, have been known to create dramatically different versions of records from the U.S. or UK counterparts.

Sometimes, foreign pressings may have different titles, or different covers from the more common versions from the U.S. or UK. On other occasions, record companies in other countries may choose to press albums on colored vinyl.

Many albums from Japan from the late 1950s through the early 1970s were pressed on dark red vinyl. Japanese pressings were also issued with a paper sash, or “obi,” that wrapped around the cover and provided information for the buyer in Japanese.

These pressings are highly regarded by collectors for both their unusual appearance and their sound quality.

If an artist is not from the United States, collectors will often seek out records from the artist’s country of origin. While many American Beatles records are worth a lot of money, so are those from Great Britain, as the band released records there prior to releasing them in the U.S.

Prices for foreign (non-U.S.) records can vary widely, depending on age, condition, and all of the other factors mentioned in this article. In general, collectors in the United States will always be interested, to some degree, in any foreign record by artists whose records they collect.

We’ve written a detailed article about Japanese records. You can read it here. (new window)

Limited Editions

While scarcity can be a major factor in a vinyl record’s value, intentional scarcity can affect it even more. While limited edition pressings of albums are a relatively new thing, they are now quite common, with record companies intentionally limiting releases to a few hundred or a few thousand copies.

In past decades, when records were the predominant format for selling music, record companies were content to sell as many copies as possible of a given title. In recent years, records have become more of a niche item, and record companies are somewhat hesitant to spend the money to master, press, and distribute them. By producing only a limited number of a given title, and by making it publicly known that production will be limited to xxx number of copies, the record companies have a greater likelihood of having a particular title sell out quickly, rather than sitting on a shelf for a period of months or years.

Sometimes, these limited editions are individually numbered, while most are not. Sometimes, a limited number of copies of a given album will be pressed on colored vinyl, with a larger number pressed on black vinyl. In some cases, such as with the soundtrack album to the 2010 film Inception, all copies are colored vinyl and they are numbered as well.

Limited edition pressings by most any artist will have some value above the original selling price, as record companies are unlikely to issue limited edition pressings if there is no established market for them.

The exception to this would be records from companies that do not ordinarily release records, such as the Franklin Mint. Over the years, the Franklin Mint has released a number of recordings as limited edition sets, usually spanning many volumes. Most of these recordings were also pressed on colored vinyl and the sets were marketed in mass media to consumers who were not record collectors. These recordings have little value unless they are offered in complete sets, some of which came with as many as 100 records.

Withdrawn Releases

Occasionally, record companies release an album or single, only to change their mind and withdraw it from general release. This can happen for a number of reasons, ranging from a corporate decision that may or may not have anything to do with the record itself, a decision by the artist to change the product after release, or even an announcement by prominent retailers that they will refuse to sell the record as released.

Regardless of the reason for withdrawing the record from circulation, such releases will naturally be scarce, hard to find, and in demand among collectors. More often than not, withdrawn releases will also command substantial prices on the collector market.

Listed below are a few examples of record albums which were withdrawn from the market shortly before or shortly after being released to stores.

Angel – Bad Publicity – The 1979 album Bad Publicity had a cover that depicted the band having a raucus party in a hotel room. After only a handful of copies had been issued as promotional items, the album was withdrawn, retitled to Sinful, and released with completely different artwork showing the band in white suits against a white background.

Prince – The Black Album – In 1987, Prince intended to release an untitled album that had an all-black cover on which neither a title nor the name of the artist appeared. The so-called “Black Album” was withdrawn prior to release at the request of Prince himself, for reasons that remain unclear to this day. A few copies have leaked out over the years, and they have sold for as much as $25,000.

The Beatles – When retailers complained about the original cover art for the Beatles’ 1966 album Yesterday and Today, which showed the band sitting on a bench with broken dolls and raw meat, Capitol Records ordered all copies returned from stores and radio stations. The cover was replaced by a picture of the band sitting around a steamer trunk.

This so-called “Butcher Cover” is perhaps the best known record in all of record collecting, and copies have sold for thousands of dollars.

We have written an extensive article about the Beatles Butcher cover. You can read it here. (new window)

Counterfeit Records

Whenever there’s a commodity that is worth money to people, there are unscrupulous people who try to take advantage of them by forging that commodity. Paintings have been forged, currency has been counterfeited, and unfortunately, so have many rare records.

While there are many factors that go into determining vinyl records value, perhaps none is more important than the need for the record to be an original pressing and not a counterfeit pressing created at a later date to resemble the original issue.

Counterfeit records first appeared on the market in the late 1960s or early 1970s and while the early attempts were rather obvious and fairly crude, technology has improved in recent years, making many counterfeit records difficult for the layman to identify. The practice isn’t limited to rare or valuable titles, either, as a number of mass-produced titles were counterfeited in the late 1970s. These titles were sold by chain record stores alongside the legitimate record company issues.

If a record routinely sells for a lot of money, there is a good chance that the title in question has been counterfeited. Many albums by the Beatles, along with other popular artists such as the Yardbirds, Elvis Presley, and Pink Floyd, have been counterfeited. In a few cases, such as the Beatles album Introducing the Beatles, counterfeit copies may actually outnumber the real ones.

It goes without saying that a counterfeit copy of a rare record will have limited value when compared with an original pressing.

We have written an extensive article about counterfeit records. You can read it here. (new window)

Reissues and Falling Prices

One factor that can significantly affect a vinyl record’s value is the availability of reissues. In the 1950s through the mid-1970s, record companies kept close tabs on whether an album was selling well or poorly. Poor selling albums were usually removed from the catalog and existing copies were sold at a discount. Starting in the 1980s, record companies took a different approach, and reduced the prices of slow-selling records, keeping them in print but offering them for sale at a lower price point.

Collectors often become interested in records that have gone out of print, and the prices for these no longer available titles can get quite high, depending on the artist and title. In these cases, collectors are usually paying high prices simply to hear the music. Record companies do pay attention to such market trends, and today, it’s quite common to see newly-pressed reissues of albums for sale that haven’t been available on the market in decades.

In the case of some albums, which may have only been originally for sale from small record companies, these reissues might actually sell more copies than the original album. When an album is reissued, the original vinyl record’s value usually falls in the marketplace. While some collectors remain interested in owning an early or an original pressing of a recently reissued album, there are others who are only interested in hearing the music, and will be happy to own a reissued version of the album instead.

Reissues can often affect a vinyl record’s value dramatically, and sometimes, the price of original pressings can drop as much as 90% when a formerly rare album again becomes available as a newly-released record.

Condition of the Record

While all of the factors listed above are important when it comes to evaluating a vinyl record’s value, perhaps none is as important as the condition of the record. Most mass produced records sold over the past 60 years or so have been poorly cared for by their owners. They may have been played on low-quality equipment, stored outside of their covers, and handled by their playing surfaces, rather than their edges.

Record changers, which were phonographs that were capable of playing up to a dozen records in sequence, were popular in the 1960s and 1970s and were particularly prone to adding scratches and abrasions to a record’s playing surface. Many covers were poorly stored, leading to ring wear or splits in the covers. Furthermore, owners often wrote their names or other information on the record’s cover or label.

Collectors are interested in buying records in the best possible condition, and ideally, they’d like to own copies of all of their records in the same condition in which they were originally sold – mint and unplayed, with pristine covers.

Finding a copy of any record that is more than 20 years old in such condition is quite difficult, and the value of a record can vary widely depending on its condition. In the case of many records from the late 1950s and early 1960s, finding worn and nearly-unplayable copies of a particular record might be relatively easy, while finding one in mint condition may be nearly impossible.

In the case of such records, a mint copy might sell for 50 times as much money as a worn-out copy of the same record.

When it comes to a vinyl record’s value, condition is paramount, and worn copies of a record usually sell for modest amounts of money except in the cases of items that are rare to the point of being unique.

In the case of records that are common to moderately rare, any copy that isn’t in nearly new condition may have little to no value at all.

While some collectors are willing to accept “filler” copies of a rare record in poor to average condition until they find a better copy, most buyers prefer to buy only once, and will hold out for the best possible copy they can find.

What does all of this mean? It means that if you’re someone who has a box of “old records” and you want to know about those vinyl records’ value, you’ll likely discover that they’re common titles in average to poor condition and they’re likely not worth very much money.

On the other hand, if you have a rare record that is also in exceptionally nice condition, you’ll likely be able to sell it for a premium price.

Finding Recent Prices

Starting in the late 1970s, the easiest way to find out about vinyl records value was to consult a price guide. Over the past 40 years, a number of books have been published every other year or so that list the value of certain types of records. There are price guides for rock albums, jazz albums, classical albums, 45 RPM singles, country records, and soundtrack and original cast recordings. There are also specialty price guides for records from Japan, records by the Beatles and records by Elvis Presley.

While these guides have served collectors and sellers fairly well, the books are bulky, somewhat expensive, and have a tendency to become outdated rather quickly. That’s not to say that they aren’t useful; on the contrary, they serve as valuable references. Furthermore, even the outdated price guides can offer insight as to how a vinyl record’s value has increased over time. It’s amusing to look at price guides from the late 1970s to see how albums that might sell for $1000 today were once listed as having a value of $35 or so.

Record price guides are still published today and they’re still useful tools. On the other hand, there are also some online tools that can provide some more accurate and up to date information regarding vinyl records value. Several sites, for example, monitor the sales of records on the eBay auction site and archive them, making it possible for you to see what a particular records might have sold for yesterday, or last month, or even five years ago.

As there are millions of records for sale on eBay, including multiple copies of most records at one time, the marketplace is somewhat of a buyer’s market, which means that the prices of most records sold on the site are somewhat lower than they might be in a record store or in a private transaction between two collectors.

Still, the millions of record sales on the site each year do provide some good insight into overall vinyl records value, and can also show trends over the past decade or so. This makes it easy to see if a particular record is increasing in value over time or going down as interest sometimes wanes.

While there are a number of different sites that track and archive record sales on eBay our favorite is:

Popsike.com – This site is free to use for a limited, but unspecified, number of searches. After a certain number of searches, you’ll be asked to register, which is free. If you exceed a further (unspecified) limit, you’ll be asked to subscribe. Currently, the cost of subscribing to Popsike is about $35 per year, though most users will never use the service enough to reach the threshold that requires paying a subscription fee.

Popsike’s home page has a few lists of popular searches, as well as lists of recent sales in certain popular categories, such as blues, Beatles, classic rock, jazz, and classical. You can search by artist or title and you can sort results by price or date of sale. Popsike has listings for record sales on eBay going back to 2003, though they note that their database is neither definitive nor exhaustive.

Discogs.com – This site offers records for sale along with photos, release dates, and other information regarding records of all kinds.  It’s free to use as a reference; to buy or sell records at the site, you must create an account.  One useful feature of the site is that all listings for titles that have previously been sold on the site list the average and highest prices for previous sales.  This makes the site useful for finding the approximate value of a particular title.

Vinyl Records Value Conclusion

We hear from people all the time – “I have some records. What are they worth?” With most commodities, the answer is a fairly simple one. If you have an ounce of gold, it’s worth a certain amount of money. The same applies to a barrel of oil.

That’s not the case with records, however. Vinyl records value is determined by a number of factors, including condition, scarcity, the name of the artist, and a host of other things, both obvious and obscure.

Because the value of a particular record is tied to so many factors, it’s difficult to give a general answer as to its value without knowing all of the particulars about that particular pressing.

The quickest way to find out is to check with Popsike for a quick glance at recent sales. Keep in mind that these prices reflect retail sales, and not the amount of money that you’d receive if you’re selling to a store or a reseller. Keep in mind that the highest prices are paid for copies in near mint condition, which may or may not apply to the records you currently have in your possession.

Record collecting is a fascinating hobby, however, and the many factors that can go into determining vinyl records value are among the things that keep the hobby interesting to collectors.

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Vinyl Records – The Appeal of Record Collecting

Despite the predictions of many just a few short years ago, vinyl records are still selling well in the twenty-first century. This would have surprised a lot of people in the late 1980s, when vinyl records were in serious decline as a working format, partly due to the introduction of the compact disc earlier in the decade.

Like many things in popular culture, vinyl records have gone out of style only to become popular again.

It’s pretty obvious that records are back in a big way, as many stores that only sold compact discs a few years ago have replaced almost all of them with vinyl records. Not only that, but the selling prices of collectible records have not only remained steady, but have actually increased at a time when most people get their music via digital downloads.

Why are vinyl records making a comeback? What is the source of their appeal? Why are record collectors so passionate, and what, exactly, do they collect? In this article, we’ll cover the history of the phonograph record, including its decline and resurgence and explain the many reasons why people are once again lining up to buy vinyl records.

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33 1/3 Long-play Vinyl Records
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33 1/3 Long Play (Lp) Vinyl Records

In order to avoid writing a novel, we’ll skip the early history of vinyl records, as the early ones were made from wax, celluloid, and shellac. The modern “vinyl” record as we know it dates to the late 1940s. Record companies were looking for a format to replace the 78 RPM record, which had the limitations of fragility and a short playing time.

A collection of similarly-themed 78 RPM records, known as an “album”, was bulky, heavy, and expensive to produce, and the record companies were looking for more viable, cost-effective alternatives.

RCA opted to go with the seven inch, 45 RPM record, which had one song on each side, and they developed a special player that would allow listeners to cue up a stack of them to be played in series. These “albums” were sold in small boxes that were quite a bit smaller than their 78 counterparts and were cheaper to make and ship and were far less prone to breakage. Consumers were still expected to handle a stack of records in order to listen to a collection of songs from the same artist, which was a bit of a nuisance.

Columbia Records went with an alternative format, which they trademarked as the Lp®, for “long-play.” This format, which we’ll refer to from now on as the LP, played at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute, using a ten inch (and later, twelve inch) disc. The LP format offered much longer playing time; they typically played for about 12-15 minutes for a ten inch disc and up to 25 minutes for the twelve inch size.

The records were made from various materials early on, but the industry eventually settled on polyvinyl chloride, which came to be referred to as “vinyl.” With that, vinyl records as we know them were born and the first long-play albums were released in 1948.

Each company was committed exclusively to their own format, but Columbia’s LP format won the format war fairly quickly, and both Columbia and RCA soon licensed their technology out to other interested parties. The 45 RPM record did eventually replace the 78 RPM disc, and by the late 1950s, production of 78 RPM singles ended.

It took a few years for the industry to move from the ten inch disc to the twelve inch format that remains popular today. Part of this had to do with the manufacturing process, which was largely geared towards pressing ten inch 78 RPM discs. It was only logical to continue to make LPs in that size, but by 1954, nearly all U.S. record companies had phased out their production of ten inch LPs.

Popularity of Vinyl Records in the 1950s

Throughout the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, record albums were somewhat of a niche item, with most music being sold in the form of singles.

Part of the reason for this was the price; new albums in the mid-1950s sold for about $4, which equates to about $35 today. By 1960, some stereo records were being sold for as much as $6.98, which works out to about $56 in present-day dollars.

There’s a reason why so many albums from the 1950s are hard to find today – they sold in minuscule quantities, due to their price. If you were a lucky teenager in the 1950s, you might have received an album as a birthday or Christmas gift, but if you wanted to actually buy music, you likely bought singles.

Record companies knew this, which is why a lot of rock and roll artists of the 1950s didn’t release any albums at all. Most of the albums sold in that decade were of the jazz or easy listening variety. The emergence of Elvis Presley in 1954 would soon change that, and by the time the Beatles arrived in a big way in early 1964, albums began to be big sellers.

Stereo Vinyl Records

Record companies had long been trying to find a way to commercially sell recordings in stereo. In 1956, commercial reel to reel tapes came to market, and introduced stereo to the consumer marketplace. The tapes and the equipment to play them were quite expensive, and the pre-recorded reel to reel tapes had to be duplicated one at a time, which made mass production tedious. The major record companies began to aggressively pursue technologies to allow them to manufacture vinyl records in stereo, as they could be more easily mass-produced.

The first stereo records came to market in late 1957, though for the next ten years, monaural (or “mono”) records continued to dominate the market. Stereo records were sold for a dollar more than their mono counterparts, making them more suitable to well-heeled buyers of jazz and classical recordings.

Most of the stereo albums released in the 1950s were in those niches, and popular and rock and roll titles in stereo from that decade are rather scarce today and usually sell for a significantly higher price than their mono counterparts.

An added expense for stereo record buyers was the fact that they also had to buy a new record player that was equipped to play the stereo vinyl records as well as a second (or replacement) amplifier and an additional speaker. This was beyond the financial reach of a lot of buyers, who continued to buy records in mono, and that is one of the many reasons why so many early stereo records are quite rare today.

Throughout the 1950s and into the mid-1960s, record companies were quite conscious of the quality of their products, taking great care in every step of the process from recording the music to pressing the discs to printing the covers. Most of the major labels produced a product made from high-quality vinyl that looked great and sounded great, too.

Decline of Vinyl Records

Over time, the retail price of vinyl records didn’t really keep up with inflation, making albums more affordable by the early 1970s. By this time, the format of the stereo LP had become universal, and nearly every home had a stereo player. International problems involving the petroleum industry in 1973 led to some manufacturing issues, and consumers noticed a significant decline in the quality of the vinyl records on the market.

The quality of the vinyl used in the manufacture of records declined noticeably, with many companies using recycled vinyl that often contained visible impurities. Warped records were common, especially with the short-lived “Dynaflex” vinyl records produced by RCA that weighed little more than half as much as their records of just a few years before.

Changes in technology, as well as strong interest from the public in a higher-quality product, led to the development of the digital compact disc. The CD, as it became known, was both smaller (at 5 inches) and thinner than a record album, and less prone to problems in sound quality as a result of mistreatment by the user. Introduced in 1982, the CD began much as the stereo LP did, with high priced media and playback equipment.

The record companies weren’t sure how much the public would be willing to pay for compact discs, but they know how much they cost to make and how much they’d have to charge retailers who wanted to buy them at wholesale. Rather than set a suggested retail price for the compact disc, they allowed the market to set the price, which quickly settled in the $18 range (about $44 in 2017 dollars.) Given that the suggested list price for a record album at that time was $9.98, the record companies realized they were sitting on a potential goldmine, and quickly went about trying to phase out vinyl records altogether.

They did this by aggressively promoting the compact disc format and taking advantage of the CD’s longer playing time. Albums would be released in both formats, but the CD would often contain one or more extra songs that were not on the LP counterpart.

In addition, the record companies started refusing to accept returns on defective LPs, forcing retailers to absorb the cost. In time, the combination of these two factors caused many retailers to stop stocking vinyl records altogether.

By 1990, vinyl record albums were available almost exclusively through subscription record clubs, and by 1995, the format was declared by the industry to be virtually dead, with total sales worldwide in the range of just a couple of million units. Considering that in the mid-1980s, some titles had sold more than ten million records alone, this was effectively the end of vinyl records, and after more than a century, many people felt the medium’s time had come.

Vinyl Records Resurgence

The record companies enjoyed a lot of success after they succeeded in removing records from the marketplace, but in the late 1990s, the popularity of the digital and easily-downloaded mp3 format, nearly destroyed the industry. People were buying CDs, “ripping” them to their computers and sharing them online with the whole world. Consumers no longer saw a reason to buy music when they could simply download it from the Internet for free. The rise of file sharing sites such as Napster caused industry profits to plummet.

Over time, the record companies realized that people would also pay for digital downloads, and Apple’s iTunes store and streaming Websites such as Spotify proved that it was possible to get people to pay money for downloadable music. In the meantime, something odd happened – the small companies that were licensing titles from the major labels and releasing them on vinyl started to see an increase in sales, as did stores that sold used vinyl records. It seemed that people who bought music missed the ability to buy a piece of music and actually hold their purchase in their hands.

Over the past decade, the major labels have slowly returned to releasing titles in the form of vinyl records, and today, oddly enough, virtually every new release from a major artist is available in LP form, and much to everyone’s surprise, they’re selling.

In fact, sales of vinyl records in 2015 reached totals that hadn’t been seen since the mid-1980s, with some 40 million units sold. Pressing plants worldwide are running at capacity, often running 24 hours a day in order to meet demand.

In addition, audio equipment manufacturers are once again selling mass-produced turntables and people are buying them. Many of the buyers are under the age of 30, and were born at a time when it was nearly impossible to buy new vinyl records at all. Demand is there across the spectrum, and out of print and collectible titles are selling for more than ever. Ringo Starr’s personal copy of the Beatles’ 1968 LP known as the White Album recently sold for $790,000. That’s a lot of money for an artifact of a format that was regarded as dead a few decades ago.

Collecting Vinyl Records

It’s surprising to see how many new fans are coming to record collecting today and that includes relatively young collectors who are seeking out vinyl records that were made before they were born.

People have been collecting records since they were invented. Though most people who collect vinyl records today are interested in the modern-era LP or single, there are still collectors who are interested in early 20th century cylinder records and 78 RPM singles.

Most of the interest in 78s is in the area of rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. The former didn’t sell particularly well when they were new and are thus fairly rare today. The latter were pressed at a time when the industry was phasing out the format. For most singles pressed after 1955, the 78 version is harder to find today than the 45 RPM equivalent.

There are a number of reasons why people collect vinyl records; there’s no “one size fits all” answer. Still, there are a few explanations that seem to apply to the majority of collectors.

Vinyl records are tangible – Obviously, there’s some appeal to buying something and being able to physically handle it. Buyers are more likely to regard their purchase as something of value when it’s a physical object than they are if it’s merely something that they downloaded.

Advantages of physical size – Vinyl records are bigger than compact discs, which makes it easier to read song titles, lyrics, and liner notes than it is on a compact disc. Even people with exceptional eyesight have long complained that reading the small booklets enclosed with compact discs is difficult. The larger size of record albums also allows for better appreciation of cover photos and graphics, which often represent a lot of time, money and effort on the part of the artists who created them.

Bonus items – Vinyl records occasionally included bonus items such as stickers or posters, which are generally too large to fit in a compact disc case. Back in the 1970s, albums often came with posters, and millions of teenagers had the posters from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon hanging on their wall. With the resurgence of vinyl records, buyers can once again enjoy that experience.

Visual appeal – While vinyl records pressed from black vinyl aren’t particularly interesting, record companies occasionally press records using colored vinyl or even press albums as picture discs, where the record is made from clear vinyl covering a photo or image.

Improved sound – This argument has been going on for decades, but a lot of listeners prefer the sound of vinyl records to that of digital downloads or compact discs. We’ve found that in blind tests, where the listener doesn’t know which source they’re hearing, they usually choose the record over the compact disc as the one that sounds the best to their ears.

Many listeners have felt this way ever since the compact disc, and during the decade or so when records were largely unavailable, a lot of these listeners simply didn’t purchase new music anymore. With the resurgence of vinyl records, they’re buying again. Some of the titles that were issued in the 1990s as CD-only releases are now being issued as vinyl records for the first time ever and they’re selling well.

Improved sound, even for records – With vinyl records selling for a premium price today, record companies are now showing an interest in producing a quality product that they haven’t shown since the early 1960s. Great care is now being taken in transferring the master tape to the lacquers used to make stampers, a process called “mastering.”

When reissuing titles from the 1950s through the 1970s, the record companies are making an effort to use the best-available tape sources, rather than digital copies made for compact disc use. Finally, the companies that press the records are making an effort to use quiet, high-quality vinyl compounds that allow the records to be played with a minimum amount of surface noise. As a result, the vinyl records produced today are among the best every made in the nearly 140 year history of the medium.

Attachment to an artist – While most buyers of vinyl records are interested in hearing the music recorded on them, many collectors are interested in a particular artist. These collectors often seek to obtain a copy of every single or album by their favorite artists, including foreign versions that might have different song lineups, different covers, or some other visible difference from the version sold in their home country.

For collectors of very popular artists, such as Elvis Presley or the Beatles, this type of collecting could potentially result in a collection consisting of thousands of albums if the collector sought out every conceivable variation.

Types of Vinyl Records That People Collect

While most collectors are interested in albums, there’s a lot of interest in singles, too. In the early days of rock and roll, many artists released singles that were never issued on albums. A few artists released singles exclusively, and there are some genres of rock, such as rockabilly and 1960s garage rock, that are represented almost exclusively by 45 RPM singles.

While albums are popular with collectors, some genres are more popular than others. Rock and roll is far and away the most popular, followed by jazz, classical and soul and rhythm and blues. While there is a bit of interest in other areas of music, such as country or movie soundtracks, interest in those areas seems to be on the wane.

Although the most popular titles in jazz and classical music are still available today as current releases, collectors seek out original pressings, as they generally sound better than modern reissues. The reason for that is that many of the original tapes used on albums in the 1950s and 1960s are long lost, and current pressings are made from tapes that are several generations removed from the original tapes, resulting in a loss of sound quality.

Certain classical titles, usually stereo pressings from the late 1950s and early 1960s, regularly sell for hundreds of dollars. A number of jazz titles from the 1950s, particularly those on the legendary Blue Note label, sell for thousands of dollars in mint condition.

The specific types of music that people collect does tend to shift over time as collectors become older and new ones start the hobby. In the 1980s, rare rock and roll records from the 1950s brought premium prices, while many rare titles from the British Invasion era of the 1960s could be purchased at affordable prices. Now, as the collectors of 1950s rock have grown older, the prices for those recordings has dropped, while the prices of many 1960s rock LPs, particularly those of the Beatles, have risen dramatically in price.

While the kinds of vinyl records that interest collectors are often defined by the kind of music they offer, there are certain types of records within those genres of music that attract particular attention in the collector market:

Artists

People collect all kinds of vinyl records, and they collect them for all kinds of reasons. The primary reason, however, is an interest in a particular artist. Most collections start out based on interest in one artist in particular, though many collectors are interested in more than one artist. From there, many collectors seek to obtain a copy of every album or every record by that particular artist.

Each individual collector defines what will comprise their collection. Some might be happy with a copy of every one of the artist’s albums so they can listen to them. That comprises a basic collection.

Others might be interested in owning a copy of every album, plus a copy of every album from every country that released that album, plus a copy of every different variation (mono and stereo, or black vinyl and colored vinyl, for example) of that album known to exist.

Still other collectors might want simply anything related to their chosen artist, whether it’s an album, a single, an 8 track tape, a magazine, a gold record award, or an autographed copy of an album. There’s no single set of rules for what makes up a particular collection, but it almost always stems from an interest in a single artist.

By far, the most commonly collected artists are the Beatles and Elvis Presley. While Elvis isn’t as popular as he once was, rare and unusual Elvis records still sell for thousands of dollars. The Beatles’ popularity seems incapable of waning, and a surprising number of people who weren’t even born when the band broke up collect Beatles records.

Audiophile Records

The early days of stereo in the late 1950s introduced us to “audiophiles”, who were people who were interested in well-recorded sound and who went out of their way to purchase records that produced a realistic, you-are-there listening experience.

In the late 1950s, record companies made an effort to produce vinyl records that emphasized stereo separation in their recordings, and these recordings often in the classical genre, are highly sought out today.

Many jazz and rock records are also well-recorded, but the listening experience of these recordings was often marred by the fact that the records themselves may have been poorly pressed, either due to errors in mastering or in the use of poor quality vinyl in the pressings themselves.

Beginning in the late 1970s, a few small companies sought to correct this problem by licensing the master tapes of highly-regarded titles in the rock, jazz and classical genres and releasing them as high-quality pressings made with improved mastering techniques and better vinyl. These records, produced by such companies as Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and Quality Record Pressings, are collectively referred to today as “audiophile records.”

Another trend in audiophile records that became popular in the late 1970s was direct-to-disc recordings. These limited edition pressings were recorded live in the studio, direct to the cutting lathe, without the use of recording tape. Bypassing the tape completely resulted in a much better sounding finished product, though direct-disc recordings could not be mass produced since only a limited number of pressings can be manufactured from the finished lacquer disc produced by the cutting lathe.

In addition, few artists are interested in recording live in the studio without overdubs, and the need to record an entire side of an album without stopping makes the entire process rather time consuming. Most direct-disc recordings have been by jazz artists.

Audiophile records are usually intentionally produced in limited quantities, restricted by relatively limited demand in the marketplace and by time-limited contracts with the record companies.

Due to the limited-edition nature of the products and the extra care involved in their manufacture, mass-produced audiophile records tend to sell for a premium price when new, and often for substantially higher prices once they go out of print and are no longer available for general sale.

Bootleg Records

Bootleg records are vinyl records produced without the consent of either the artist or the artist’s record company. While bootleg recordings have existed since the 1930s, the modern industry started in 1969, when a few enterprising individuals discovered that the copyright laws then in effect in the United States did not prohibit anyone from releasing any previously unreleased material by any artist.

This led to the release of thousands of albums over the next five years by hundreds of different artists, usually in the form of previously unreleased studio material or live, “in concert” recordings, with the quality of these records varying dramatically based on the quality of the source tapes used.

Some bootleg records were sourced from tapes made from high-quality FM stereo broadcasts, while others were made from recordings made at live concerts using smuggled tape recorders or copies of copies of copies of studio recordings that had been passed around for years by collectors.

Several manufacturers became well-known for their quality bootleg records, including the Trademark of Quality and Amazing Kornyfone labels, both of which were operated out of California.

When bootleg records first appeared in the late 1960s, many mainstream stores carried them, but Congress quickly changed the copyright laws, which sent the manufacturers “underground.” After that, bootlegs, as they came to be known, were mostly sold via specialty stores or mail order, and by the end of the 1980s, the market for bootlegs as vinyl records effectively came to an end as compact discs took over that market..

Collectors are interested in bootleg records, as they often provide an opportunity to hear recordings that their favorite artists, for whatever reason, have declined to release legally. Many bootleg records were issued on colored vinyl, and all of them, by definition, were limited editions, making them fairly rare once they became unavailable. Certain titles on the Trademark of Quality label have sold for more than $1500, and many routinely sell for $100-$300 today.

Colored Vinyl Records

Most of the vinyl records ever pressed are black in color. While the vinyl compound normally used to manufacture records isn’t naturally black, it can vary in color and all of the variations are relatively unattractive. Pigmentation is added to make the records black, and the reason that most records come in that color is because it’s the cheapest way to make them.

Vinyl records have been occasionally manufactured using colors other than black over the years, and when RCA first introduced the 45 RPM record in the late 1940s, their original intention was to use different colors for records in different genres. Country music records were pressed with green vinyl, and classical records were red. This didn’t last long, and within a year or so, RCA was pressing black records, just like everyone else.

In the early 1960s, Columbia Records, then the nation’s largest record company, began occasionally pressing records on colored vinyl for radio station use. Radio stations often received dozens of records per month with the hopes that they’d play them, and the record company decided that anything that drew attention to their product would be helpful. Columbia and associated labels pressed hundreds of colored vinyl 45 RPM records in the 1960s, representing artists as diverse as the Yardbirds, Bob Dylan, Andy Williams, and Eydie Gorme.

In the late 1970s, a few record companies began pressing copies of some of their best-selling titles on colored vinyl as limited edition releases, which sold for a premium price. Titles by Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, Rush, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and dozens of others became available for a short time on vinyl in a wide variety of colors – blue, red, orange, yellow, white, purple, green and even multicolored “splatter” vinyl.

While collectors liked these pressings, they didn’t sell well enough to justify continuing to press them this way on a regular basis, though record companies have continued to occasionally offer colored vinyl records as limited-edition releases. With very few exceptions, colored vinyl records will generally sell for more money than their black vinyl counterparts. They often sound as good or better than black vinyl pressings, due to fewer impurities in the vinyl, which would be visible in a colored vinyl disc.

Many collectors will purchase both a black vinyl and a colored vinyl pressing of the same album and use the black one to play. They’ll just put the colored vinyl copy on the shelf as part of their collection.

Monaural Records

Prior to 1957, all records were monaural, or “mono” as they popularly came to be known. All of the information recorded on the disc was contained in a single channel of information, and the records were intended to be played on a hi-fi system with a single speaker. In 1957, stereo records were introduced, offering two channels of information, and providing a more realistic listening experience.

Stereo records required a special stylus on the phonograph, a stereo amplifier, and two speakers for reproduction. Stereo records could not be played on a turntable or record player that was designed for monaural records without being damaged. Buyers who went shopping for albums at their local record store would have to not only look for the title they wanted, but also for the format, mono or stereo, that their own playback system required. Stereo records cost more than mono records, and retailers hated having to stock multiple variations of the same titles, as it added to inventory costs.

In the late 1950s, mono records outsold stereo records by a ratio of about 50:1. Over the next decade, however, that ratio changed, and by 1967, stereo records were outselling mono records by a similar ratio.

In the early days of stereo, most amplifiers were powered via vacuum tubes, which were relatively expensive. Starting in the early 1960s, these tube amplifiers were slowly replaced in the market by transistorized, “solid-state” equipment, much of which was imported from Japan. As the equipment became more affordable and more widely available, more buyers began to buy stereo records instead of their monaural versions.

Retailers of vinyl records hated the fact that they had to stock most titles in both mono and stereo, and in the early days of stereo records, that format was often available on a special order basis only. By the late 1960s, a switch had taken place and as fewer people were buying mono records, they eventually became special order items themselves.

It took about ten years for the sales of stereo records to overtake the mono versions, but by 1968, the sales of mono albums in the United States had dwindled to the point where the record companies no longer regarded them as commercially viable. The last mono releases by major record labels in the U.S. came in mid-1968, and some titles by major artists released at that time, such as the first three albums by The Doors and the first two by Jimi Hendrix, are highly sought after today in their mono versions.

Every since the decline of mono records in the late 1960s, collectors of artists who were issuing records at that time have sought out the mono pressings of their albums, which became increasingly scarce as the decade went on. Mono albums by the Beatles from 1964, for instance, are fairly common today, but their two releases from 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, are both quite rare in mono.

In the past five years, a number of mono titles by major artists that were originally released in the late 1960s have been reissued, but collector interest remains strong for original pressings.

Original Pressing Records

While there are exceptions to this rule, original pressings of a particular album often sound better than later issues. This has a lot to do with the tapes used to master the record, as magnetic tape tends to deteriorate over time, both from age and from repeated use. With popular albums from the 1950s and 1960s, the master tapes have often been archived, with current pressings made from copies of those tapes or even copies of copies. In some cases, the original tapes are damaged to the point of no longer being useful and in a surprising number of cases, the master tapes are simply lost.

When the tapes aren’t useful or are no longer available, record companies have to find alternative sources to master their records and the result is usually a record that doesn’t sound as good as the original pressing. Because of this, collectors are often willing to pay a premium for original pressings of classic or highly regarded albums, as they sound better than later pressings.

There are some exceptions to this, particularly if the album was originally release by a record company that wasn’t known for using quality vinyl, but as a rule, original pressings will sell for higher prices than later issues of the same title.

Picture Disc Records

Picture disc records were introduced as somewhat of a novelty in the early 1930s, as an attempt to attract the attention of the buyer by way of changing the appearance of the record itself. A picture disc is a record that appears to have an image or graphic on its very surface.

Picture discs are produced by taking a round graphic or image and laminating it with colored vinyl using a traditional record stamper. While the resulting product may look like a photograph, it will play on a turntable just like other vinyl records, though the sound quality may not be as good as traditional pressings.

Picture discs first appeared on a few 78 RPM records in the 1930s, but weren’t particularly common at that time, probably due to the difficulty in manufacturing them. A company called Vogue Records brought them back in the 1940s, and every record Vogue produced was a 78 RPM picture disc. Financial issues soon forced the company out of business, and picture discs disappeared until the early 1970s.

By the 1970s, production methods had improved, and in 1977, picture disc albums returned, though they were usually issued only as promotional items. As some of these promo-only titles began to change hands among collectors for sizable sums of money, the major record companies began to issue titles commercially, usually as limited edition releases.

Titles issued as promotional releases in the 1970s include Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Willie Nelson’s Stardust. Commercial releases from that era include The Beatles’ Abbey Road and the debut album by Boston.

While there were a lot of titles released in the late 1970s in this format, consumers balked at paying prices that were 50% higher than those of regular pressings for records that were relatively noisy and often prone to warping. Since that time, American companies have only occasionally released picture discs, though the format has remained popular in Great Britain all along, particularly for singles.

While most picture discs are round, a few have been issued over the years cut to unusual shapes. The grooves on the records are round, of course, so the records are still playable, but shaped picture discs, while infrequently issued, are usually popular with collectors.

Promotional Records

Promotional records are those created to generate sales of a particular album, usually be being pressed especially for radio use. In the 1950s, a few record companies began to send copies of records to radio stations, usually with special labels that were marked “promotion copy – not for sale.” These vinyl records were marked this way in order to distinguish them from the inventory that was intended to be sold to the public.

After a few years, the industry more or less settled on a standard practice of using white labels to distinguish their promotional issues, and such copies of a particular record are often referred to by collectors as “white label promos.” Promotional copies of any record were usually limited to a few hundred copies, where commercial, or “stock” copies of an album might eventually number in the millions.

Because promotional copies of vinyl records are relatively rare, collectors will often pay a premium for them. As a bonus, promotional copies of any record are usually pressed before the stock copies, so they’ll often sound as good, or better, than the copies sold in the stores. In some cases in the 1980s, promotional copies of albums were actually pressed on high-quality vinyl that was better than that used for for stock copies.

Occasionally, record companies will press special editions of a single or an album for radio use only, with no stock equivalent. These “promo-only” releases are usually sought out by collectors and they have a tendency to sell for prices that reflect their relative scarcity.

Sealed Records

Until the mid-1960s, records sold at retail in the United States were not shrink-wrapped at the factory to protect the vinyl prior to purchase. In fact, in the 1950s, many record stores allowed customers to listen to a record prior to purchase in order to determine if they wanted to buy it.

Problems with theft and damage led to the introduction of protective plastic packaging for albums. Initially, this packaging consisted of a loose-fitting plastic bag that was heat-sealed, but later the industry switched over to tight-fitting shrink wrap.

By shrink wrapping their records, stores were able to assure buyers that the product they were buying was new and untouched by human hands since it left the factory. Of course, most records purchased at stores were immediately opened and played by the buyers as soon as they got home from the store.

Today, many collectors of vinyl records will pay a premium, and sometimes a substantial one, for an example of an out of print title that is still sealed in the original shrink wrap, in order to own an example of an unopened, never-been-played record by their favorite artist. The amount of the premium that one might have to pay in order to acquire a “still sealed” example of any album will vary according to how hard the album is to find in general and how much demand there is for that particular artist.

A still sealed copy of an easy listening album by Ray Conniff from the 1960s, for example, will likely sell for no more today than it did when new. On the other hand, a sealed original 1960s pressing of some titles by the Beatles have been known to sell for thousands of dollars.

As a general rule, a sealed copy of any album will sell for a minimum of twice as much as a used copy in mint condition.

Singles

A lot of collectors are interested in collecting singles, whether they’re the common 45 RPM variety or the less common 78 RPM version. Many music buyers started out buying the songs they heard on the radio as singles before graduating to buying albums.

Part of the reason for that was price; singles are a lot cheaper than albums. Although the market for 45 RPM singles has mostly gone away in the age of compact discs, a lot of collectors are interested in the format.

A surprising amount of recorded music to have been released in the past 60 years was only released as a single. Many of these are obscure releases from small, independent record companies, and these records usually fall in the genre of rockabilly, country, and 1960s-era garage rock, where a band scraped up a bit of money, recorded a single song, and pressed a few hundred copies for friends and relatives. Some of these obscure singles sell for thousands of dollars today.

Another aspect of collecting singles is that many of them were issued with picture sleeves, which usually depicted a photo of the artist along with the song title. Over the years, many of these sleeves have been lost or they might have only been issued with the first few thousand copies of a particular title. Because of this, many picture sleeves from the 1950s and 1960s are quite rare today, with many of them commanding prices in the hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars.

Even picture sleeves by popular artists such as the Beatles or Elvis Presley, while not rare in the absolute sense, can sell for quite a bit of money due to collector demand exceeding supply. While some collectors are interested in singles exclusively, most collect both albums and singles.

Soundtrack Records

While not as popular as they were a few decades ago, soundtrack albums are a niche in which a few collectors of vinyl records specialize. Most of them are interested in the music of specific composers, many of whom did the bulk of their work writing scores for films and stage musicals. Composers such as Bernard Hermann, Alfred Newman and Max Steiner have long been popular with collectors.

The soundtrack albums that tend to attract the most attention are those by well-known composers for films that weren’t popular with the public. This usually led to a relatively short time in print for the soundtrack album, making them hard to find a few years later.

The soundtrack albums for popular films, which were likely to sell well, such as The Sound of Music or My Fair Lady, on the other hand, are quite common as used records and don’t draw much attention on the collector market. On the other hand, soundtracks for obscure foreign films, many in the horror genre, are quite popular.

Perhaps the most valuable soundtrack album ever was the 1954 release of The Caine Mutiny, featuring a score by Max Steiner, which was withdrawn from the market shortly after (or possibly shortly before) its commercial release. Only a handful of copies are known to exist, and copies have changed hands for as much as $6000 in recent sales.

Collecting Vinyl Records Conclusion

As with any other area of collecting, there’s no set of rules regarding what kinds of vinyl records people collect or why any particular individual collects them. The one common factor, of course, is the music, and the love of music is what usually drives people to the hobby in the first place. One of the nice things about record collecting, unlike stamp or coin collecting, for instance, is that vinyl records can actually be played and enjoyed as they were intended to be enjoyed – to reproduce the music itself. Any other enjoyment that one might derive from collecting vinyl records is a bonus.

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Vinyl Records Glossary

If you’re a record collector, and you’re new to the hobby, you may encounter a number of terms in your searches for vinyl with which you’re unfamiliar.

To help, we’ve compiled this vinyl record collecting glossary of terms that you may find it helpful to know:

10” – Ten inch record. This size (25 cm) was used for both 78 RPM singles, made from the 1910s through the late 1950s, as well as long-play albums during the first years of album production (roughly 1948-1955.)

12” – Twelve inch record (30 cm). While this size is most commonly used for modern record albums (post-1955), this size record is also used occasionally for singles and extended-play (EP) recordings.

16 2/3 RPM – A playback speed for certain record albums, most commonly used for talking books for the blind. The slow playback speed allows for extra-long playing time, though the sound quality suffers as a result. Most of the people who own record players that are capable of playing 16 2/3 RPM records have never actually seen one, as they are not common.

180 gram – Weight of some modern era (post-1990) record pressings, usually those titles pressed as “audiophile” records. Most 12″ records pressed in earlier eras weighed between 125-150 grams. The heavier weight of these modern pressings is thought to provide better sound and less likelihood of warping.

200 gram – Weight of some modern (post-1990) record pressings, used by some manufacturers of “audiophile” records. 200 gram records are not seen as often as 180 gram pressings, and there is considerable debate in the audio community regarding the benefits of the additional 10% in weight, including the question of whether the added weight provides any benefits at all.

33 1/3 RPM – The speed used for nearly all long-play (LP) record albums from 1948 to the present day. This speed allows for longer playback time than the earlier 78 RPM pressing, and records at this speed usually offer up to 20 minutes of program material per side (though we’ve seen a few that played as long as 35 minutes, with reduced volume and sound quality.)

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45 RPM – The speed used since 1949 for most 7″ records, and occasionally for 12″ singles. Since the mid-1990s, a few record labels have reissued older recordings that were originally pressed at 33 1/3 RPM at the 45 RPM speed for improved sound quality, though this requires using more discs. A single disc album at 33 1/3 will usually take up two discs when pressed at 45 RPM.

78 RPM – Speed used from the 1910s through the late 1950s for 10″ singles. This format was rendered obsolete circa 1960 by the 45 RPM, 7″ single. Occasionally 78 RPM speeds have been used for certain promotional singles, usually as a marketing gimmick. Records pressed at this speed have had no commercial application for the past half century.

7” – Size of singles (usually one song per side) since 1949. These records normally play at 45 RPM, though a few have been released over the years that played at 33 1/3 RPM.

Acetate – Also known as a lacquer, an acetate is the first step in the record manufacturing process. An acetate is a lacquer-covered metal plate upon which the music is encoded via a lathe. You can read more about acetate records here.

Album – Originally a collection of 78 RPM, 10″ singles, collected in a binder. When the long-play album, containing a number of songs on a single disc, replaced 78 RPM albums in the early 1950s, the name remained.

Today, an “album” usually refers to a collection of songs recorded together and released as a single entity, usually one one disc, but sometimes released as multiple-disc sets.

Long-play albums were originally 10 inches in size, but modern albums are 12 inches in size.

Audiophile Record – Records pressed specifically to attract the attention of buyers who want (and are willing to pay for) albums with higher sound quality than regular mass-produced pressings.

Most audiophile records are pressed on more expensive vinyl that has less surface noise, and are mastered using tapes that are as close as possible to the original master tape. These pressings are usually on heavier (180-200 gram) vinyl and are sometimes cut at 45 RPM, rather than the standard 33 1/3.

Many audiophile records are intentionally released as limited edition pressings and sell for a premium price when new.

You can read more about audiophile records here.

Binaural Record – Short-lived early attempt to press records in stereo. These records required a special tonearm with two cartridges. Due to the awkwardness of the playback process and the expense of buying a special turntable or tonearm, these records were not commercially successful.

You can read more about binaural records here.

Bootleg Record – An album of previously unreleased material, pressed and released to the market without the knowledge or permission of the artist involved or their record company. Most bootleg records consist of previously unreleased studio recordings or live performances by popular artists.

You can read more about bootleg records here.

Bossa Nova – A form of music that originated in Brazil in the late 1950s, and popular through about 1967 or so. The music incorporated elements of samba and jazz and introduced the world to artists such as Sergio Mendes and Joao Gilberto. Many popular American artists (Frank Sinatra, Eydie Gorme, Stan Getz, and others) had success recording Bossa Nova.

Cheesecake – Term usually used to describe album covers that prominently feature attractive women, often in risque poses or dressed in minimal attire. Most often found on albums from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Colored Vinyl – Term used to describe any record pressed from a color of vinyl other than black. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, some record companies routinely pressed records on colors other than black as a matter of course. Over time, colored vinyl records became limited to either promotional use or as limited edition releases.

You can read more about colored vinyl records here.

Counterfeit – A reproduction of a record, created by unscrupulous individuals with the intention of fooling the buyers into believing they are buying the genuine item. Most often found today with exceptionally rare titles, though in the 1970s, counterfeit copies of new releases were often mass produced and frequently found their way into major record stores.

You can read more about counterfeit records here.

Cover – The paper, cardboard, posterboard, or (rarely) plastic outer covering provided by the record company to hold a single or album. Covers usually have printed titles and often have a photo of the artist, as well as a listing of the contents of the record inside.

Cover Mouth – The portion of the cover that opens to allow for insertion and removal of the record. For albums, this is usually the right side of the cover as you look at the front. For 7″ singles, the opening is usually at the top.

CSG Process (also known as Haeco-CSG) – Short-lived process used from roughly 1968-1970 to compensate for vocals with too much volume when stereo records were played back on mono record players. CSG-encoded records were pressed during the time when monaural records were being phased out of the market.

This encoding solved the problem it was trying to fix while introducing others and was not popular with record buyers. Over time, record companies stopped using CSG encoding as the percentage of record buyers with stereo turntables increased to the point where it became unnecessary.

Cut Corner – A record album with a cover that has part of one of the corners cut off. This was done to indicate that the album had been discontinued (remaindered) and sold at a discount and that it was ineligible to be returned to the store for a refund. While many rare records are often found with cut corners, as many of them sold poorly when new, collectors usually prefer to buy copies that do not have a cut corner.

Cutout – Known in the book industry as a “remainder,” a cutout is a record that has been deleted from a record company’s catalog and is being sold at a discount to get rid of inventory the record company no longer wants.

Cutout albums are usually defaced in one of three ways – a drill or punch hole through the cover, removing a corner from the cover, or cutting a notch in the cover with a saw. These mark the records as being ineligible for a refund and while the covers are defaced, the records inside them are usually fully intact.

Dead Wax – The area immediately outside the label of a record that contains the runout groove and matrix numbers, but no recorded music. The dead wax area of a record is usually 1/4″-1″ wide.

Deep Groove – A ring found in the label area of some pressings from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s. This ring was an indentation, usually about 3″ in diameter, that was caused by certain types of pressing equipment. As record companies phased out that equipment by the mid-1960s, pressings with a deep groove may be indicative of original pressings, rather than later reissues.

Direct Metal Mastering (also known as DMM) – A process used in the manufacture of record albums where the music is cut to a solid metal plate, rather than a softer lacquer. There are advantages and disadvantages to this process, though many listeners prefer the sound of DMM pressings to the lacquer alternative. This process was often used in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and many records mastered using this process prominently have the letters “DMM” somewhere on the cover.

Direct to Disc – A process where the recorded material is performed live and recorded directly to acetate or lacquer, without first being recorded to magnetic tape. While the process produces better sound quality, direct to disc recording requires that an entire album side be recorded live in one take with no breaks. Direct to disc records are also, by necessity, limited edition pressings, as only a few lacquers can be cut at one time.

Double Album – An album containing two records, rather than the customary one.

Drill Hole – A hole drilled through the corner of an album (or less frequently, through the label) by a record company to indicate that the album has been discontinued and may not be returned for a refund. Most records with drill holes were sold at deeply discounted prices.

Duophonic – A proprietary system used by Capitol Records in the early 1960s to simulate stereo on material originally recorded in mono. Duophonic usually added a bit of a delay between the two channels and added reverberation to give a stereo effect to mono recordings.

Duophonic was created when record companies discovered that some buyers would only purchase stereo records, and it was an attempt to sell mono material to those buyers.

You can read more about Duophonic and other “fake stereo” pressings here.

Dynaflex – A short-lived manufacturing process used by RCA Records from 1969 to some time in the mid 1970s. To save money, RCA developed a process to press records using less vinyl than they’d been previously using. The result was a record that was exceptionally thin, more flexible than other records, and much more prone to warpage, though less prone to damage in shipping. On their record covers and inner sleeves, RCA promoted Dynaflex pressings as an improvement in the product.  Buyers disagreed, and often disparagingly refer to Dynaflex as “Dynawarp.”

Dynagroove – Not to be confused with Dynaflex, Dynagroove developed by RCA Records in 1963 to improve the sound of their records on low-end playback equipment. This process increased bass in quiet passages while attempting to reduce high frequency distortion. Unfortunately, this only worked on phonographs with inexpensive conical needles and not more expensive elliptical ones. Owners of more expensive turntables thought the “new” process sounded much worse than the old one.

Audiophiles were unhappy with the process and the resulting sound, and RCA discontinued it about 1970 or so.

Exotica – A type of music introduced in the mid-1950s, usually attributed to pianist Martin Denny. Exotica attempted to introduce music from Asia, the Orient, and Africa to Western listeners, and the music from this short-lived fad often included tribal chants, gongs, and the sound of birds or insects to augment the music.

The popularity of music in the Exotica genre led to lots of backyard parties with people drinking Mai Tais while standing amidst Tiki torches. By the early 1960s, people had moved on from listening to Exotica when they discovered Bossa Nova.

Extended Play – Also known as an “EP”, this term is usually used to describe a 7″ single that plays more than one song per side. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, record albums were quite expensive, and priced at the equivalent of about $50 today.

Record companies occasionally took a 12 song album and sold it as three 7″ records that had four songs each, with pricing that allowed buyers to buy one disc alone or all of them.

Extended play singles were sometimes released as standalone releases of one disc with three or four songs. While the format was quite popular in Britain, it never really caught on in the United States.

In the modern (post-1965) era, an extended play record usually describes a 12 inch record with more than two songs but fewer songs than one might find on an album.

Foxing – The appearance of brown spots on picture sleeves or album covers as they age.   Foxing can occur on all kinds of paper, but it’s most visible on white paper.  For unknown reasons, foxing is quite common on album covers from Japan, and probably seven out of ten Japanese albums have some evidence of it.

Foxing is not an indication of wear or mistreatment by a previous owner.  An album cover can be in mint, untouched condition and still exhibit foxing.  It is simply an artifact of the aging process.

Garage Rock – Raw, unpolished rock and roll from the mid-1960s, inspired by relatively inexperienced musicians who often rehearsed and sometimes recorded in their home garage. Examples include the Castaways, the Sonics, and the Standells.

Gatefold Cover – A record cover that is intended to fold open like a book. Often the inside of a gatefold cover will include lyrics, liner notes, or additional photos of the artist.

Gold Record Award – A framed, gold-plated record, usually with an accompanying plaque, created to commemorate sales of $1 million (later 500,000 copies sold.) In the United States, “official” gold record awards have an RIAA logo, indicating that that organization has certified the sales of that particular record.

These awards are usually given by a record company to the artist, the producer, and other people who were instrumental in helping the album achieve that particular sales milestone.

Hype Sticker – A paper or plastic sticker attached to the shrink wrap or cover of an album, usually with the intention of drawing attention to one or more songs on the album in order to increase sales. Sometimes a hype sticker will indicate that the particular record is pressed on colored vinyl, contains a poster, or is in some way special.

In-House Record Award – A gold or platinum record award that does not have an RIAA certification on it; usually created by record companies to award to their own personnel, rather than to be giving to the artist.

In the collector’s market, in-house awards usually sell for lower prices than RIAA-certified awards.

Inner Sleeve – A paper or plastic sleeve included with a record album that is intended to protect the disc from coming in direct contact with the cover, as the rough surface of the cover might damage the record.

While many inner sleeves are plain paper or plastic, sometimes inner sleeves contain lyrics or other information about that specific recording. On other occasions, record companies used inner sleeves to advertise other albums that might be of interest to the listener or to provide technical information about stereo recordings (1950s) or quadraphonic recordings (1970s.)

Insert – Any piece of paper included with an album other than a poster or inner sleeve. The most common use of inserts is to provide the listener with lyrics to that particular album.

Instrumental – A recording of music that contains no vocals. This applies to most jazz, classical, and surf music recordings.

Jukebox EP – A 7 inch extended-play record manufactured exclusively for use in jukeboxes. Jukebox EPs were primarily made in the 1960s and 1970s, and were usually pressed in stereo and often included a hard cover, similar to an album cover.

A typical jukebox EP would include three songs on each side and come with a small paper reproduction of the album cover and a half a dozen paper “title strips” to be inserted in the jukebox so that customers could select them for play.

Label – The round piece of paper in the center of a record that lists the name of the artist, the name of the album or song, the name of the record company, and other information that may be useful to the buyer or listener.

Lacquer – Another (and more correct) term for an acetate.

Live Album – Usually, an album that contains a recording of an artist performing in an “in concert” setting before a live audience. Occasionally, a recording of a band performing in a studio collectively as a band, rather than recording vocals and instruments individually.

Live albums are often released as either contractual obligations or to provide fans with something to buy during an unusually long delay between releases of studio albums by a particular artist.

Many modern live albums are not entirely live and may contain multiple overdubs added to the live recording in the studio at a later date. A few live albums released over the years weren’t live recordings at all, but were simply studio recordings with overdubbed audience sounds.

Living Stereo – Name used by RCA Records from 1958-1963 for their stereo recordings, which often had a rich, and unusually lifelike recording quality. Many albums from the Living Stereo period in both classical and popular genres are highly valued by collectors.

LP – Technically, a trademarked term by Columbia Records (correctly printed as “Lp”) in the late 1940s to denote their then-new long-playing record format, which could theoretically play up to 26 minutes per side at 33 1/3 RPM.

Popularly, the term is most often used as a slang reference to a record album. (“Have you heard the new Metallica LP?”)

Marbled Vinyl – A record pressed from multicolored vinyl with the vinyl distributed in such a way that the record resembles marble.

Matrix Number – A stamped or handwritten number in the dead wax area of a record. Matrix numbers tell pressing plant employees which record they are making. Matrix numbers may also include an indicator as to which of a series of sequential stampers was used to make a particular record.

Monaural – A method of recording in which all of the music is contained in a single audio channel, and which may be heard through a single speaker. Until 1957, all records were monaural. From 1957-1968, most albums were sold in both mono and stereo.

You can read more about monaural records here.

Multicolor Vinyl – A colored vinyl record that is comprised of two or more colors of vinyl on a single disc.

Obi – On Japanese albums (and some singles), a paper strip, usually about 2 inches wide, that wraps around the cover. The information printed on the obi is almost always in Japanese and includes information for the buyer that may not be printed on the cover.

Historically, many buyers discarded the obi shortly after purchase, as they are easily torn. In some cases, the presence (or absence) of an obi can dramatically affect the price of the record.

Original Cast Recording – A recording of the music, score, or songs from a play, performed by the cast of that play.

Picture Disc – A record pressed from two layers of clear vinyl with a paper image or photo sandwiched in between. Picture disc albums are usually limited edition or promotional items and are often packaged in covers with a die-cut window so that buyers can see the record itself.

The sound quality of picture discs is usually not as good as conventional pressings.

You can read more about picture discs here.

Picture Sleeve – A paper sleeve included with a record (usually a 7 inch single) that has a photo or image printed on it. Picture sleeves usually also list the artist and the name of the songs. Picture sleeves are usually limited in production and many are quite collectible.

Pirate Pressing – A record that contains material that has previously been released commercially but is pressed without authorization from the artist or the record company responsible for that material.

Often casually referred to as “bootlegs,” though that term actually refers to something else entirely.

You can read more about pirate pressings here.

Platinum Record Award – Similar to a gold record award, a platinum record award is a framed, silver-plated record, usually with an accompanying plaque, created to commemorate sales of 1 million copies of a particular album. In the United States, “official” platinum record awards have an RIAA logo, indicating that that organization has certified the sales of that particular record.

Play Hole – The hole in the center of a record that allows the record to fit over a turntable spindle. The hole and spindle keep the record properly centered on the platter so that it will play correctly.

Poster – A photographic insert included with an album that usually folds out to a size that is larger than the album cover itself. Occasionally included as a bonus with some titles, posters can often become quite rare with time, as many buyers hung them on the wall after purchase and failed to put them back in the album cover when they took them off of the wall at a later time.

Progressive Rock – A style of music popular from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s that featured long solos, fantasy lyrics and inventive song structures. Bands such as King Crimson, Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Gong are examples of progressive rock bands.

Promo-only – A record release that was created to be distributed to radio stations or other promotional outlets, but was not intended for commercial sale. Promo-only releases often consisted of previously unavailable live material or compilations of recordings by a given artist intended to promote airplay.

Sometimes, promo-only titles contained the same material as commercial releases, but may have been in a different format from the commercial title, such as being pressed as a picture disc or on colored vinyl.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some albums that were commercially available only in stereo were released to radio stations in monaural as promo-only pressings.

Promotional Copy – A copy of a record that was pressed for distribution to radio stations or other promotional outlets, but were not pressed for retail sale. Most promotional copies of records have some print or indication on the label that they intended for promotional use, such as “Promotion Copy – Not for Sale” or some similar wording.

Promotional Stamp – A rubber stamped or machine stamped indicator on a record label or cover that indicates that the record is intended for promotional use only. Promotional stamps are usually used when record companies wish to use retail copies (“stock copies”) of records for promotional use.

Prototype – A record that was manufactured as an example of a potential release that was ultimately not released in that form. Prototype records are often pressed in very limited quantities and some are literally unique.

Examples of prototype records might be one-of-a-kind colored vinyl or picture disc pressings.

Provenance – The ability of a seller to demonstrate previous ownership or history of a particular record. Usually of interest to people buying unusual, one-of-a-kind items or items that are represented as being autographed by a particular artist.

Psych – Short for “psychedelic rock,” a short-lived style of rock music that was popular from roughly 1966 to 1970 that featured unusual chords, odd instrumentation, and frequently, long instrumental jams.

Psychedelic rock records were largely an underground phenomenon and many titles were privately pressed releases by artists that did not have national recognition. A number of psych records sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars today.

Examples of psych artists include the 13th Floor Elevators, Mystic Siva, and the C.A. Quintet.

Punch Hole – A hole punched by machine through the corner of an album cover. Unlike drill holes, which were rough holes made with an electric drill a punch hole is a clean hole made by a machine. Punch holes are generally larger than drill holes and were most often used by record companies to indicate that the record was intended for promotional use.

Capitol Records frequently used punch holes to designate their promotional copies. Capitol sometimes used single punch holes and sometimes a series of very small holes that spelled out either the word “free” or the word “promo” in the corner of the cover.

Quadraphonic – A short-lived audio format during the early to mid-1970s that presented music in four channel sound, as opposed to the two channels of stereo.

Quadraphonic music was available in 8-track tape, LP, and reel to reel tape formats and required a four-channel amplifier (or two stereo amplifiers), four speakers, and a turntable, reel to reel tape deck or 8-track player capable of playing back quadraphonic records or tapes.

There were at least three different quadraphonic formats for records, and all were incompatible with the others. Format wars and equipment costs prevented the quadraphonic format from becoming popular.

Collectors are interested in quad records and tapes as the mixes are often dramatically different from the stereo versions of the same albums. In the case of a few quadraphonic records, the recordings are completely different from the stereo versions.

R&B – Short for “rhythm and blues” a term used by record companies in the 1950s to describe music that was primarily marketed to African-Americans. In record collecting, R&B can describe anything from Ray Charles to Robert Johnson to Motown.

Radio Show – A program of live concert performances, audio documentaries, or programs of music and interviews with recording artists intended for radio broadcast only. Syndicated shows such as the King Biscuit Flour Hour, Metalshop, Innerview, and Off the Record are examples of syndicated radio shows.

The live shows are often sought out by collectors of a given artist, and those recordings have often been the source material for bootleg records.

Rechanneled Stereo – Also known as “fake stereo,” rechanneled stereo was an audio format developed by various record companies in the early 1960s to accommodate buyers who refused to purchase any records that weren’t available in stereo. See also: Duophonic

Rechanneled stereo records often created a stereo effect from monaural recordings by using frequency separation, audio delay, and added reverb to make monaural recordings sound “kind of like” stereo, usually with poor results.

Records released in rechanneled stereo usually indicated it on the cover, saying things like “Electronically reprocessed to simulate stereo.” Rechanneled stereo records nearly always sell for lower prices than their mono counterparts.

You can read more about rechanneled stereo here.

Record Grading – A description of a record in terms of its physical condition in order to accurately describe it to potential buyers.

Most record grading is done using the Goldmine system of Mint, Very Good, Good and Poor, with a + or – used to denote grades in between. Some sellers, particularly those based in the UK, use the Record Collector system which uses Mint, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair and Poor.

Record grading is highly subjective, due to the many ways a record can be worn or damaged.

Reissue – A later, rather than original, pressing of a record. Record companies used to delete titles that were no longer selling well, but they would occasionally return a title to print if they felt it was warranted by potential sales.

Such a later pressing is known as a “reissue,” and they’re almost always less desirable to collectors than original pressings.

ROIR – A Record Of Indeterminate Origin. Another term for a bootleg recording.

Saw Mark – A cut in an album cover, usually near a corner, literally made through the use of a saw. Used to mark a record as discontinued and to indicate that it may no longer be returned for a refund.

Sealed – A record that is still encased in shrinkwrap or a factory applied bag. Record companies begn sealing records in the early 1960s in order to prevent vandalism in stores and to assure buyers that the record inside was new and pristine.

Sealed copies of out of print titles often command a premium price among collectors.

Seam Split – A tear along an edge of an album cover, usually caused by the record inside or by improperly inserting or removing the record from the cover.

Shaped Record – A record in any shape other than round. Most often found in picture discs. Shaped records start as round records but are cut using a die shortly after being pressed. Shaped records may be triangular, square, rectangular, hexagonal, octagonal or cut to a custom shape.

Single – A record containing one or two songs, usually sold on the basis of one song alone. Most often found in a 7 inch size playing at 45 RPM, singles have also been sold in 10 inch (78 RPM) and 12 inch (33 1/3 or 45 RPM) sizes.

Soundsheet – Also known as a flexi-disc, a flexible record pressed from ultra-thin plastic. Soundsheets have historically been inserted in magazines or newspapers.

Soundtrack – A recording of a score, music, songs, or dialogue from a motion picture.

Spindle Mark – A physical mark or impression on a record label caused by an inaccurate attempt to place the record on a phonograph or turntable. An abundance of spindle marks, even on a record with little apparent wear, may indicate that the record has been played excessively and may exhibit unwanted noise during playback.

Splatter Vinyl – A record pressed from multicolored vinyl where the vinyl is spread across the record in a scattered, random pattern, rather than swirled, such as with marbled vinyl.

Spoken Word – A recording of someone speaking or reciting printed material, as opposed to singing.

Stamper – The metal plate used to press a record from a “biscuit” of vinyl.

Stamper Number – A number, written or stamped into the dead wax area of some records that indicates which of a sequential series of stampers was used to press that particular record.

Many collectors prefer earlier stamper numbers, either because that record was made closer to the album’s original release date or because records pressed from lower-numbered stampers often sound better than records pressed from higher-numbered stampers.

Not all record companies used user-recognizable systems for denoting stamper numbers, though there are exceptions:

Stamper numbers are easily identified on records by RCA, where the matrix number ends with a dash, a number, and the letter “S.” Example: “-1S”

Other record companies, such as Parlophone in the UK, used a coded system to identify stampers. You can read more about that system here.

Stereo – A recording format where the recorded material is presented in two distinct channels of sound, one on the left and one on the right. The de facto audio standard for records since 1968.

Stock Copy – A copy of a record that was pressed for commercial sale to the public, as opposed to a promotional copy, which was pressed for use by radio stations.

Surf Music – A style of rock music made popular during the early to mid-1960s. Surf music was originally instrumental, and featured distorted guitars with lots of added reverberation. Dick Dale and bands such as the Surfaris and the Chantays specialized in this type of music.

Instrumental surf was later augmented by adding vocals, with the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean being good examples.

Test Pressing – A copy of a record manufactured expressly for evaluation purposes by record company personnel or the artists or producers involved in the recording of that record. Test pressings are often indicated with custom labels that say “test pressing” or blank labels with no information at all.

Test pressings are often identical in sound to later stock copies of that same record, though sometimes test pressings appear on the market that contain earlier versions of songs or songs that were eventually discarded before the album was released.

Timing Strip – A strip of paper, usually 2 to 4 inches in width and about 12 inches wide, that appears on the covers of promotional copies of many albums from the 1960s and 1970s.

This strip usually listed all of the song titles on the album, publishing information, and the running times of the songs.

Sometimes a timing strip included a checkbox next to each song title that allowed a radio station’s program director or disk jockey to indicate which songs they preferred to use for airplay.

Title Sleeve – A paper sleeve for a 7 inch single that has the name of the artist and the title of the song(s) printed on it, but not a photograph.

Similar to a picture sleeve, but without the photo.

UHQR – Ultra High Quality Record, a proprietary type of record pressed by JVC in Japan in the early 1980s. The UHQR was distinguished by its then-heavy 200 gram weight and its unusual “flat” profile in that the record had uniform thickness across its entire surface, where most records were thicker in the middle than they were at the edges.

Only a handful of JVC-pressed UHQR titles were ever released, and as far as we know, such titles were only released by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, Reference Recordings, and Telarc. All are highly collectible.  The trademarked term UHQR is now owned by Acoustic Sounds, which has recently released a number of titles in that format.

Vinyl – Within the record collecting community, “vinyl” has multiple meanings. It can refer to the physical material used to manufacture a record, but it can also refer to the record format generically, as in, “I’m not going to buy Abbey Road on compact disc; I prefer to buy it on vinyl.”

Wax – Slang for vinyl; usually used by older collectors. “Red wax” and “red vinyl”, for example, are synonymous.

White Label Promo – A promotional copy of a record distinguished by having a white label with promotional indications on it (“Promotion Copy – Not for Sale”) that is distinctly different from the stock copies of the same record, which were sold with colored labels.

You can read more about white label promo records here.

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Vintage Vinyl Records

After a twenty year period of relative scarcity and public indifference, sales of vinyl records are back and have been increasing annually for more than a decade. Nearly all new releases by popular artists are now available in vinyl format, as well as in downloadable form or as compact discs.

While sales of new vinyl records are increasing as more people become familiar with the format, buyers are also turning towards vintage vinyl records as a way of adding to their record collections. In fact, there are currently more than five million records for sale on eBay, and most of those are vintage vinyl records.

The appeal of new records would be immediately obvious – you get a pristine copy of your favorite artist’s newest release. But why would people want to buy vintage vinyl records? What is the appeal of vintage vinyl records to the average buyer or collector?

In this article, we’ll explain why so many buyers are interested in vintage vinyl records and why, for many collectors vintage vinyl records are the only kinds of records that they will buy.

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Sound Quality
Extra Features
Different and/or Better Artwork
Different Versions
Availability
Increasing Scarcity
Collectability
Price Advantages
New Discoveries
Vintage Vinyl Records Conclusion

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Sound Quality

There are many reasons why the average record buyer or collector would be interested in vintage vinyl records, and we’ll get to all of them in this article.

Any reason for preferring vintage vinyl records over new ones is valid, of course; buyers are free to buy whatever they personally like. For many buyers, however, the main reason for buying vintage vinyl records rather than new ones is the sound quality.

The source material for nearly all commercially released recordings is magnetic tape. While a lot of recordings made in the past 30 years were made using digital tape, which can be copied repeatedly without degradation, most of the recordings ever made (and many new ones) used analog tape.

Analog tape does not age well; over time the sound can degrade due to improper storage. Poor storage can cause the coating on the tape that contains the recording to flake off, rendering the tape useless.

Of course, copies of analog tape can be made, just as with digital tape.

Unlike digital tape, however, the sound quality of analog tape gets worse with each subsequent copy. A copy of an original tape will not sound as good as the original. A copy of that copy will sound worse, and so on.

The appeal of vintage vinyl records in this regard is that original pressings of albums were made from tapes that were new at the time the records were pressed. Newly-pressed copies of those same records may be mastered using tapes that are copies of copies of copies.

In the case of some older albums from the 1950s and 1960s, the original master tapes may no longer even exist, and new pressings of these older albums may have been mastered from the best source that’s currently available. While those sources may be quite good, they’re likely not as good as the tapes that were used to press the albums when they were first released 40 or 50 years ago.

While current record manufacturing techniques are quite refined and the quality of the vinyl used in modern pressings is quite good and is capable of producing exceptional sound, the final product is only going to sound good if the record was mastered from a good source.

In the case of some classic albums, the record companies have taken good care of the original master tapes, and current pressings of albums by a lot of artists from the 1950s and 1960s sound just fine. Albums by the Beatles, for example, still sound great, as EMI Records has taken good care of the tapes over the years.

In other cases, the results can vary widely. Columbia Records did not take particularly good care of the master tapes for Simon and Garfunkel, for example, and even though their albums stayed in print for many years after their original release in the 1960s, their albums tended to sound worse and worse over time.

If you’re buying vintage vinyl records and get early pressings of whatever albums you’re seeking, you’ll know that the records were mastered from tapes that were new at the time the records were made and that the tapes used to master the albums were not copies of copies or copies.

In many cases, vintage vinyl records simply sound better than new ones.

Extra Features

Many classic albums are again available in the vinyl format, making it easy for buyers to grab albums by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, or the Beatles. With the rise of Internet marketing, you can even have new copies of albums these and other artists delivered to your door.

While those new pressings have their advantages, many of them will not include the extra features that once accompanied albums. It was once fairly common for albums to include such extras as postcards, lyric inserts, custom inner sleeves with liner notes or lyrics, or even postcards.

Here is a partial list of albums that originally included a poster when they were new:

• Beatles – The Beatles (aka The White Album)
• David Bowie – Space Oddity
• Black Sabbath – Master of Reality
• Jimi Hendrix – Smash Hits
• Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
• George Harrison – All Things Must Pass
• Cream – Goodbye
• Grand Funk – Live Album
• Ricky Nelson – More Songs by Ricky
• Jimmy Clanton – Jimmy’s Happy/Jimmy’s Blue

Other vintage vinyl records included different sorts of inserts. The 1977 Kiss album Love Gun, for instance, included a special insert that could be assembled to form a cardboard gun. The second album by Country Joe and the Fish included a board game. Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon came with two posters and two stickers.

We’re an American Band by Grand Funk included a set of stickers and the record was pressed on yellow vinyl, as well. Tim Buckley’s Greetings from L.A. had a section of the cover that was removable and could be used as a postcard. This was also true of Duty Now for the Future by Devo.

Live at Leeds by The Who came with a set of 12 different paper inserts, including a reproduction of their contract to perform at Woodstock.

While vintage vinyl records often included these sorts of interesting extras, most recent reissues do not, usually because of cost concerns. That was also true years ago; many vintage vinyl records that included such things as posters often included them only for a short time after the record was originally released, making them somewhat scarce today.

Even original copies of vintage vinyl records that did include such extras as posters can be hard to find complete today, as many of those posters were removed from the album cover and hung on the buyers’ walls. Eventually, those posters all came down from the walls, but they rarely found their way back into their album covers.

Part of the fun of shopping for vintage vinyl records is to find those albums that came with extras and trying to find a copy that’s complete.

Different and/or Better Artwork

Album art is another reason why a buyer might prefer vintage vinyl records to new ones. Of course, an album, by sheer advantage of larger size, will provide better artwork than a compact disc, and certainly better than a download, which comes with no artwork at all.

But there are advantages of vintage vinyl records over new pressings when it comes to artwork, as well. We’ve previously discussed how master tapes can be lost, forcing record companies to settle for not-as-good reproductions. The same is true of album artwork.

Artwork gets created, and then stored in file cabinets, and sometimes the artwork in those file cabinets gets misplaced, thrown away or accidentally destroyed.

When that happens, new artwork has to be created, usually by using an existing album as source material. This can result in new pressings with album covers that have poor quality artwork. The cover art may be the wrong color, or the images may be blurrier than they were on the original.

A good example of this is Bob Dylan’s 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. At some time in the past, the original artwork for the album was lost, and copies of the album made since the 1970s have a blurry, faded photo of Bob Dylan on the cover. Collectors of vintage vinyl records would likely prefer to find an original pressing that had better artwork. In the case of Blonde on Blonde, original 1966 pressings included a photo of actress Claudia Cardinale on the inside of the cover which was later removed for legal reasons.

Most albums sell best when they’re first released, and as sales tapered, record companies would often change cover art to save money. In some cases, vintage vinyl records were released with gatefold covers that were eliminated in later pressings due to cost concerns.

The album that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks made before joining Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham/Nicks, is a good example. When first released in 1973, the album had a gatefold cover and then went out of print due to poor sales.

Another example is the 1970 LP Let It Be by the Beatles. That album was originally issued with a gatefold cover, but the album went out of print in the mid-1970s. When it was reissued in the 1980s, the album was released without the gatefold cover. Collectors of vintage vinyl records will likely prefer the original version.

The 1971 LP L.A. Woman by the Doors had a cover with a cellophane “window” on the front with the images of band members on it. The yellow paper inner sleeve gave the clear cellophane a yellow appearance. Newer pressings of this LP simply have the image of the band printed on the front cover against a yellow background.

A few years later, after the duo became famous, the album was reissued, but without the gatefold cover. There are many similar examples, and while some current reissues of such albums do include the original cover art, collectors tend to prefer the gatefold covers that often came with vintage vinyl records.

Different Versions

While a surprising number of classic albums are now available again in the LP format, they’re not necessarily available in all of the different versions that may have previously been available. Vintage vinyl records released between 1958 and 1968, for example, were usually released in both mono and stereo. In the early to mid-1970s, many albums were also briefly available as four-channel quadraphonic pressings.

Mono and stereo versions of the same album usually had different mixes, and the two albums often sounded considerably different from one another. Sometimes, the mono version of a particular record might lack backing vocals that could be heard on the stereo version, such as in “Pleasant Valley Sunday” by the Monkees or “Blue Jay Way” by the Beatles.

Sometimes, the mono and stereo versions of the same album might feature different versions of one or more songs. The quadraphonic pressing of Volunteers by the Jefferson Airplane has different versions of several songs from the stereo version. This is also true of The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East, a 1971 live album that has two different versions of songs on the quadraphonic version than those found on the stereo version. One of those songs, “Whipping Post, takes up all of side four!

Record companies discontinued releasing albums in both mono and stereo in 1968. Over the previous three or four years, more people had been purchasing stereo turntables and began to show a preference for stereo records over mono records. When sales of mono LPs reached the point where making them as a separate product from stereo records was no longer economically feasible, record companies discontinued them.

Since the elimination of mono records in 1968, most albums that were originally available in both stereo and mono have only been available in stereo versions. There have been a few mono reissues in recent years of titles by prominent artists, but for the most part, collectors who are interested in having albums by their favorite artists from that era in both mono and stereo are going to have to find the mono version by buying vintage vinyl records.

Some vintage vinyl records were originally available as limited edition colored vinyl pressings or picture discs. While it’s true that some of these records have been reissued this way, most vintage vinyl records that were originally sold that way are not available in those formats as new pressings today.

Availability

Sometimes, the reason people are looking for vintage vinyl records is a simple one – a matter of availability. While there are lots of albums currently available in the vinyl format as new releases (one large retailer currently lists 19,802 new vinyl titles in stock) that hardly represents the entirety of what collectors or music buyers might be seeking.

When companies choose to reissue older albums, they’re interested in sales. If they aren’t sure that they can sell several thousand copies of a given title, then they’re not going to spend the money to press the records.

That’s fine, if you’re interested in albums by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley, or Rush, or Led Zeppelin. But if you’re interested in any one of a thousand other artists, you may be out of luck and vintage vinyl records will likely present your only opportunity to buy that music in the vinyl format.

Fortunately, not all artists are equally collectible, and finding vintage vinyl records by the majority of artists isn’t that difficult, nor is it that expensive. It would be nice if every album ever released was currently available for purchase as new vinyl, but market economics make that highly unlikely. If you’re a fan of Rosemary Clooney, Martin Denny, or Gary Lewis and the Playboys, you’ll likely have to settle for vintage vinyl records.

Increasing Scarcity

It’s a mistake to assume that if something is readily available, it will always be readily available. That’s certainly the case with vintage vinyl records. There was a time, not all that many years ago, when one could usually find boxes of records at yard sales, flea markets and thrift stores.

While vintage vinyl records still occasionally show up in such places, they do so far less frequently and in far smaller quantities. It’s been several years since we’ve seen vintage vinyl records for sale at any yard sale. While we do still occasionally see them at thrift stores, we don’t see them as often, and certain genres, such as jazz and rock, rarely turn up there anymore.

There was a time when we used to see albums by Led Zeppelin or the Beatles at thrift stores, for example, but these days, everything seems to be easy listening. Part of the reason is that people who have such records usually don’t want to donate them to charity; they’d rather give them to friends or family members or sell them on eBay.

Buyers are aware of this, and they know that you’ll have better chances of finding the vintage vinyl records that you want if you buy them now, rather than waiting until later. We know many buyers who would rather spend their limited funds on vintage vinyl records than new ones, simply because the older titles they’re looking for may not be available a year or two from now.

Collectability

As with any other limited commodity, people collect records, just as people collect stamps, coins, or Picasso paintings. While there are certainly new releases that are collectible, particularly as many new releases are limited editions, most record collectors have collections that consist largely of vintage vinyl records.

That’s certainly going to be the case with anyone who collects any major artist – the Beatles, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, or the Rolling Stones, for example. These are artists that are well-established and who released their first records decades ago.

Collectors who are interested in those artists and others of the same era will almost always be interested in obtaining original pressings of at least some of those records. Sure, you can buy the entire Beatles catalog, right now, in the form of new, still sealed records.

But purchasing or owning a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that was pressed and released in 2018 isn’t the same thing as owning a 1967 original pressing. There’s an indefinable quality to vintage vinyl records that appeals to collectors, and we’ve met many collectors who were interested in owning original copies of rare albums, even if they were in poor condition.

They might have a new copy to play, but the still like having original copies of vintage vinyl records on their shelf and they might very well have a beat up 1967 pressing of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the shelf, right next to a new one that they bought last year.

Price Advantages

There can certainly be price advantages to buying vintage vinyl records rather than buying new ones. For the most part, second hand records will cost less than new ones. A new copy of just about any album is likely to be priced at $20 or more, where used records can often be purchased, even in stores, for less than $10, and sometimes for $5 or less, depending on title.

Furthermore, it’s still possible to buy vintage vinyl records at thrift stores, flea markets and yard sales, though as we mentioned above, vintage vinyl records are less common in such places than they used to be.

It goes without saying that collectible vintage vinyl records are not going to be less expensive than new ones. A mint original pressing of that Sgt. Pepper LP by the Beatles is certainly going to cost a lot more than a new copy of a current reissue.

That’s true of many collectible albums, but the truth is that most of the records ever made are not particularly collectible, and records that are not particularly collectible usually comprise the bulk of anyone’s record collection.

We personally own about 2000 albums, and while we do own a number of rarities, we also own hundreds of vintage vinyl records that would likely sell for less than $5 in any marketplace. That’s not to say that we don’t like those records, but not all records, not even all good ones, are valuable.

That might be because they’re records that are largely unknown, records by artists who have mostly been forgotten, or albums that sold so well when they were new that no copies of them are particularly valuable today.

If you’re buying collectible records, you’ll pay more for original pressings than you will for new ones. But if you’re just buying music in general, buying vintage vinyl records will likely save you a lot of money over buying new ones, and that’s assuming that new copies of the titles you’re seeking are even available.

New Discoveries

A final advantage of vintage vinyl records over new ones is the ability to affordably discover new music by artists you might otherwise not have heard.

With the price of new vinyl records averaging about $20 per title, few buyers are likely to grab a title by an unknown artist on a lark, just to see how they sound. Most buyers don’t have enough disposable income to buy records by artists with which they are unfamiliar, so they stick with what they know.

But as we have previously mentioned, most vintage vinyl records are priced affordably, and any well-stocked store that sells second hand records will likely have hundreds or even thousands of affordably priced vintage vinyl records.

The same is true for thrift stores, flea markets, and yard sales. When you find records that are for sale at more affordable prices, you are in a better position to buy something with which you aren’t familiar just to see if you like it.

We’ve purchased countless records over the years that were unknown to us at the time, but had covers that suggested that they might be interesting and prices that were reasonable. Some turned out to be great finds and others not so much. But that’s part of the fun of buying vintage vinyl records – you never know what you’re going to find and sometimes, you end up discovering new artists and genres of music that you might never have bought new.

Vintage Vinyl Records Conclusion

There are reasons for why people buy anything and that applies to cars, houses and vintage vinyl records. While there are lots of good reasons to buy new ones, there are also a lot of compelling reasons to buy vintage vinyl records.

Vintage vinyl records are often more affordable than new ones. There are thousands of titles that aren’t available new anymore and are only available for purchase as vintage vinyl records.

There are many cases where vintage vinyl records offer better sound than newer releases, and that’s particularly true of older recordings where the master tapes may be damaged. Some vintage vinyl records may have originally been sold with posters, booklets or other extra features that newer reissues don’t include.

And finally, vintage vinyl records can offer you the opportunity to find and discover new music and artists that you previously knew little about.

There are times to buy new records, and you’d certainly want to do that if the album in question is a new release. After all, there aren’t going to be any “vintage” versions of an album that came out for the first time last month. But for many buyers, vintage vinyl records offer a lot of advantages over new ones.

While we do have a few new titles in our store, most of the records that we sell are vintage vinyl records.

Click here to view our selection of vintage vinyl records.