I, like some have duplicates of records I love that I suspected were going to be in short supply, not so I can resell them, purely so I have a backup copy when I wear through my first one.
Other than that, I don’t keep any copies sealed, one of the most wonderful feelings is when you get a really rare sealed copy, ripping off the seal and putting it straight on the player while knowing you’ve just destroyed half it’s value but absolutely loving that first playback and each ensuing one just can’t be beaten.
I’ve sold 2 records from my collection, one was handed down from my father of some japanese lounge singer on a brazilian press, it meant nothing to me at all, but had a signed postcard and I knew the value would be there for someone else, so sold it to some guy in the US. It made no sense me keeping it.
The second I had a beautiful early 1900’s His Masters Voice collection of a classical rendition, it was a stunning leather bound boxset with around 8 shellacs in superb condition that I picked up at a boot sale for £1 as recognised it was a beautiful piece of history. I put that up for auction on eBay and went to a buyer in Germany.
I made a good amount off both of those, but didn’t dictate price, it was set by the bidders. I didn’t even set reserves. My intention was that someone who loved it should own it rather than me.
But my collection is purely for listening, and once I’m gone, I hope my nephews may be interested in it for their own collections as well rather than just selling to make a quick buck.
But, there is still joy in recognising the value of some of the items in my collection.
So I listened to “Beyond Skin” last night. Double LP, very thin pressings, both in sleeves and still get into a normal thickness single album cover. A magnificent recording.
An extraordinary album musically, explores what it means to Nitin Sawhney to be a UK born Anglo-Indian (in reality neither one nor the other), and contrasts India’s nuclear bomb tests with Oppenheimer’s famous quotation from the Hindu text Bhagavad Gita in opposition to nuclear weapons (“Now I am become death, …”).
It contrasts with a solo dance piece by Anglo-Indian choreographer Akram Khan (Sawhney and AK occasionally work together), exploring exactly the same theme.
Years ago I lived next door to the daughters of Norman Hutchinson and he lived in a house just behind, that was the home of Indian Nationalism and visited by the likes of M Gandhi. As a young child he was deposited in an orphanage in Kolkata. It transpired he was the son of a Scottish Lord and one of his Indian staff. His artistic talent was discovered by the patron of the orphanage, Lady Mountbatten, the wife of the last Viceroy of India and close friend of the Princess Elizabeth. He became a famous painter, he was even commissioned to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth, but it caused a scandal and was rejected. He never met his father and his mother lived in poverty in a Kolkata slum.
So some albums have a lot of meaning, some we just like the music, some you just have to have, but I just don’t get the money side of LP collecting. Even if I could afford it, it makes no sense to me.
And for those who are focusing on the dollar value, that’s why I also have the word “Interesting” in my title!
Found this one in the used bin. it had at one point been in the record library of the radio station where my dad was an announcer back in the day. I recognize the handwriting of the music director.
a while back I bought a bunch of albums at a local auction. Been cataloging them and adding them to my library. There are a bunch of metallica/Dio metal albums that I’m not really interested in, but that are original pressings and have some value. (probably a dozen or more at $100/each or thereabouts.)
But this one almost made me spit coffee on my computer when I looked it up on discogs. One for sale out there for $75,000 (+$4 shipping). Took a screenshot. Thought I’d struck it rich. Appears to be a typo tho.
I buy LPs for the music and listening experience, hoping it won’t take a huge bite out of my wallet. Some end up costing a bit more than I’d like to pay, others come it at considerably less. I don’t dwell on it too much and just listen to the music.
I have been adding my collection to Discogs, basically as to maintain an inventory to minimize purchasing duplicates. Unfortunately Discogs randomly drops entries, with no explanation. It also serves as an inventory for insurance purposes. Discogs does allow me to sort by value and shows I have 500 LPs valued at $100 and up. Discogs shows the average item value is $35.58 for a collection of 7,911 items. I’m still adding LPs to the database.
It was a crazy collection. Tons of metal. Besides Metallica and Dio, there was Sabbath, Judas Priest, Queensryche, Accept, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, Lillian Axe, Krokus, 45 Grave. Some I’ve heard of, some not at all.
Then there was the Wagner (which kinda fits), but also Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Tchaikovsky, Christmas with the Christy Minstrels, and the soundtrack to My Fair Lady.
If that was aimed at me, I sort of did in using the record unit on a reflection area. Building a house in London arrow d a record collection is almost as expensive as the record collection.
Those are real treasures. IMO the best current (and for me general) Mozart conductor, who’s interpretations of other composers also always is a must have for me.
The energy and transparency of those opera interpretations is stunning, the sound quality fascinating. Daniel Qvortrup of Audio Note UK consulted the recording and provided the monitoring chain.
Although a digital recording, the quality is near an analog one, the vinyl definitely worth having for sound quality reasons. Unfortunately those boxes in best condition are nowadays offered for 1-2k each and especially the red one is extremely rare. I hunted over a year for a reasonable price of my last one.
I talked to Qvortrup about those recordings, he’s also a fan and still searched for his last one.
He made parallel analog recordings and the Sony engineers realized it sounds superior, but said it can’t be done due to Sony‘s further processings for the final media which is not prepared for analog. What a pity!
Predominately LPs, but many CDs as well, especially those items that were either not available on vinyl or not available on listenable vinyl. By the later statement I mean, for example, older BlueNote records that had not been reissued on vinyl, CDs were popular and they were put out on CD in the late 80’s through the early 2000’s. Early blues, Charlie Patton and Elmore James for example, where the CD reissues were an improvement over vinyl available at the time.
Regarding photos, I could probably publish some photos, but as my collection is scattered across multiple locations, with some items boxed up, there would not be much point. I’ll try to assemble a few photos in the next several days to provide a general idea.
Whilst they may be fine recordings, they had very mediocre reviews, as much for Currentzis’s direction. The earlier ones apparently suffer from Russians singing Italian, with the (English) exception being Guglielmo sung by Royal Opera stalwart and Italian specialist Christopher Maltman, a baritone/bass with a voice like a foghorn.
We suffered slightly the other day from a Verdi cast mostly east of the Baltic, including a Mongolian Nabucco, although Alexander Vinogradov (below - left) is a superb baritone/bass and with a large Italian repertoire.
The Don Giovanni gets a European/Italian cast, two of whom I think were in a 2017/18 Magic Flute I saw at ROH, a mostly youthful second-tier cast.
So I suspect fine audiophile recordings, and 11 out of 10 should be reserved for the real thing!
I know Currentzis is seen critically, too, mainly because being accused to repeat or imprint a similar style to too many different works, but one really has to check that out personally. Most common interpretations just are plain boring and dusty in comparison, it’s the same if you compare Vivaldi 4 seasons of the Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca with most others or Beethoven’s symphonies of Paavo Jarvi with the Bremer Kammerphilharmonie with others.
It’s not always the most enlightening to go after reviews, at least if you don’t know for sure the reviewers taste and open mindedness.
Musicians’ opinions alone are often so different from critics’, especially when it comes to comparing older, classic interpretatiins with newer, more daring ones.
