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.
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. One factor that can influence vinyl records value is having the autograph of the artist 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. They are also pressed in relatively small quantities compared to stock copies of the same records. Sometimes, promotional copies of a particular record may be different from the 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. A promo-only Rolling Stones record, for example, will attract far more interest from collectors than one by Andy Williams.
Some records have sold so poorly in stores that the promotional copies are actually more common than the stock counterparts. 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.
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 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. As the records by the group issued by RCA sold quite well, they tend to sell for modest prices. Another example, also in the country genre, is the first album by Jim Reeves. His first album, Jim Reeves Sings , was issued in on the small Abbott label.
When that album began to sell well, Reeves moved to major label RCA. 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 s and s.
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 about 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 s for a number of titles, but was never intended to be used for records by the Beatles. 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.
Until , records were sold only in mono. Between and , records were usually sold in both mono and stereo, and between about and , 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 s, for instance, but were the harder variation to find by 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. While most records are pressed from black vinyl, sometimes other colors are used. 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 late s, picture discs were often pressed as promotional items and became quite popular among collectors. You're looking for a gram blue vinyl copy not hard to spot with a 6-eye label.
Columbia switched to a 2-eye label in , making the former versions more valuable. Only are known to have been pressed, and mint copies are as rare as hen's teeth. Look out for that artwork and you could be in for a treat. Collectors pay crazy sums of money for the most sought-after records, which include this dancefloor-filler by Washington DC's The Cashmeres.
Pristine first pressings of the LP are the most coveted and fetch the highest prices. Monterose — J. Monterose is top of many a jazz record collector's wishlist. Jolly What! Only copies of the cover that features the Fab Four were produced, making this particular version of the LP one of the rarest Beatles albums.
Helene Smith — Sings Sweet Soul! Fewer than copies of Floridian Helene Smith's LP were pressed, and even fewer are thought to exist these days, bumping up the value no end. We reply to emails in minutes and hours, not days. See the padlock symbol shown by most browsers when you checkout. Your information will not be shared. And you can un-subscribe with one click at any time. UK album chart. Bring your Elvis Presley Record collection to us 5 days a week - click here. Elvis Presley. Shown below are our available and recently sold out items.
For our full Elvis Presley discography Click Here. Search within Elvis Presley. There's owning a vinyl by your favourite artist, and then there's owning a vinyl that was owned by your favourite artist. This cut-out stereo copy of Prince and the Revolution's musical masterpiece was part of Prince's own personal collection and came with two newspaper clippings inside — a British one from and a French cutout from Stereo copies of this album by rock and roll artist Del Shannon are extremely thin on the ground — only 80 are thought to have been pressed.
A record with almost legendary status among Northern Soul vinyl collectors, Your Love is Getting Stronger by the Four Voices is as valuable as it is revered. This classic featuring cover art by Andy Warhol bombed on release, and only 30, copies were pressed. Nowadays, rare first pressings are mega-valuable. Look for a copy with a peelable banana sticker covering Eric Emerson's torso.
This album by renowned Delta blues harmonica player Frank Frost is ultra-rare. Many Rolling Stones fans would rate Let It Bleed among the band's best albums, and what makes this version so special is its multi-coloured pressing.
It's thought that this design was only created to be given to executives at the London Records label. The most wanted pre-war Blues record in vinyl collectordom, Sweet Home Chicago by Robert Johnson is exactly the sort of thing you wish you could discover in your grandpa's dust-covered collection.
Due to a printing error, 16 copies of this limited edition version of the Legacy of Brutality LP by New Jersey punk band Misfits turned out pink — the remaining are either white or red. The title of this album was designed as an insult to recording studio Chung King and only copies were produced by the band Judge.
Thanks to its scarcity, this album by the hardcore quintet tends to go for thousands of dollars if in mint condition. A very small number of copies of this classic single by west coast garage rock band The Sloths exist, and only one has come on to the market in recent years. Like the other Blue Note classics featured in this round-up, Hank Mobley's eponymous album is tremendously valuable. Only several hundred copies were printed, some of which feature an error on the label. One of the rarest jazz LPs, a very small number of copies of Roland Kirk's album on King Records were ever pressed.
The holy grail of rap records, this early hip-hop single from influenced everyone from the Beastie Boys to De La Soul, and features cover art by Jean-Michel Basquiat, adding to its cachet. Elvis' classic Can't Help Falling in Love sold over a million copies in the US, and the standard 45 rpm singles are ten a penny. The limited edition 33 rpm singles on the other hand are worth a fortune.
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