FAQs

You can try eBay, Radio Shack, or check Audio Asylum for other sources.

Short flippant answer: Whatever the market will bear. The longer answer you deserve: There are several pricing guides, the most well known being the Goldmine Record Album Price Guide and Goldmine Price Guide to 45 RPM Records. These guides can be purchased at larger bookstores (Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.) as well as on-line at Amazon.com. Use eBay's search engine to look up recent sale prices. If you use eBay to check the prices, pay careful attention to the stated condition of the records and the feedback of the seller.

The actual value will depend on the scarcity, desirability, condition of the cover, the inner sleeve, inserts (if any) as well as the vinyl itself. Some records are truly rare due to a half-hearted promotional effort, an error in the pressing, or the record (or CD) had the content changed after an initial release.

Links to excellent treatises on grading and appraising records can be found at The Record Collectors Guild (www.recordcollectorsguild.org). As a general guide, buyers of collections will not pay top prices because the buyers of collections are offering the "convenience" of taking records off the seller's hands. Buyers of collections will often offer less than 20¢ per record under the assumption that a large percentage of the records will be unsalable due to cracks, scratches, mold, etc.

If you have a collection to sell, we'll pass along your information to the dealers who come to our Record Collectors Anonymous shows. (We do not make any money out of the transaction. We do this as a service to our dealers.) It will help you and the dealers if you can be as specific as possible about your records:

• Quantity
• Type of albums (classical, jazz, folk, spoken word, Broadway, rock, show biz, etc.)
• Condition of the records or CDs, inner sleeve, inserts, covers, etc.)
• Contact information for the dealers (a name, phone, address (e-mail or snail mail because some of our dealers haven't gone digital), best time to call, etc.)
You can contact us at info@recordcollectorsanon.com and we'll pass along the information.

Let me count the ways:

• Vinyl is closer to the analog sound that the recordings try to reproduce. By not digitizing sound through sampling, a record is closer to the original sound because an analog recording does not artificially create overtones or beats absent from the original.
• Album covers and inserts are cooler, collectable, and readable.
• Turntables are just cooler to watch than a CD player where the mechanisms are hidden.
• Vinyl has a longer life than CDs. Vinyl has lasted over 50 years. CDs are expected to deteriorate within 15 to 20 years.
• DJ's can't scratch/spin CDs to accompany hip hop or rap performers. (This fact alone might drive classical music lovers to demand the government to impound records.)
• Record albums contain the original material, inserts, sleeves, liner notes etc. CDs were designed to hold 80 minutes worth of music on the presumption that the longest piece of recorded music was Beethoven's Nineth Symphony. Because Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" album is a few seconds longer than 80 minutes, the CD version of "Blonde on Blonde" is actually a few seconds shorter than the two record set.
  Similarly, in the interest of space, the CD of Robert Hunter's "Amagamalin Street" is missing a song found in the 2 record set. The liner notes to the "Amagamalin Street" CD mentions the song and briefly describes the song's contents. The Grateful Dead's two-LP album "Reckoning" (Arista A2-8604) was squeezed onto one CD in 1987 by eliminating the Dead's cover of Elizabeth Cotten's "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie." The Duncan Browne "2fer" - "The Wild Places/Streets Of Fire" (Castle UK 888324) is an even more egregious case: parts of the song "Streets of Fire" were chopped out and the last song from the original album was omitted. If you want a CD version, you may have to digitize the album yourself.

Let me count the ways:

• Longer playing time. You don't have to keep turning the CD over.
• Damage resistance. Scratched CDs often sound as good as a CD just out of shrink wrap.
• Lighter. Records weigh about 7.5 times the weight of a CD. (CDs weigh about 16 gm (.56 oz). Standard, non-audiophile LPs weigh about 120 gm (4.2 oz). Audiophile LPs are a third heavier and often identified as "180 gram" records. Weights cited here are approximate and are not based on statistically valid sampling.)
• You can hang CDs from your rear view mirror and blind other drivers.
• Duplication is faster and easier.
• CDs often contain extra goodies: extra audio tracks, video tracks, alternate takes etc.

You can get useful tips from Pedipsen's Lumber Room, The Turntable Factory, and the Audio Asylum. Because oil will oxidize and harden and parts will wear out whatever turntable you get may need to be refurbished. The usual sources: garage, estate and tag sales present many opportunities. There are many on-line sources eBay, Turntable Factory, or check the classified ads at Audio Asylum.

Yes. Known as "Inner Track Distortion", this is a perennial subject of discussion among audiophiles.

• Alignment: The alignment of the stylus of the turntable differs from the alignment of the stylus which cut the record master. (See more about alignment below.) Linear tracking tone arms come closest to matching the way record masters were cut, but audiophiles claim that the fidelity gained in the tracking precision of linear tracking turntables is lost in the rumble caused by linear tracking turntables using a direct drive instead of a belt.
• Speed: The quality of analog sound is proportional to recording speed. Because the tangential speed of records is greater at the edge and slower toward the center of the record, the sound of the outer track should be more faithful to the original than the track near the record label.

Alignment is a term which can cover the shape of the needle as well as the orientation of the needle relative to the groove. You can see that the angle of a pivoting tone arm makes with the groove depends on the location of the groove. The closer to the center, the steeper the angle made by the tone arm and the groove. This changes the orientation of the needle (stylus) relative to the groove. The longer the tone arm the smaller the difference the angles the tone arm forms with the outer and inner tracks.

Alignment can also refer to the orientation of the stylus relative to the perpendicular. This alignment will also change as the tone arm moves from outer to inner grooves. This effect can be minimized by correctly aligning the cartridge in the head shell.

For more detailed (and knowledgeable) discussions on this topic search for "Inner Groove Distortion", "Linear Tracking", and "Alignment" on Audio Asylum (www.audioasylum.com/audio/vinylbbs.html)

"CD rot" (also known as "CD bronzing") is a gradual deterioration of the CD's data-carrying layer. The rot appears as transparent spots when the CD is held up to the light. Symptoms may also include color changes in the label side of a recordable CD, the ink used on the label side appears to "bleed through" to the playing side, increased "static" noise, or the CD player has tracking problems.

The transparent spots are actually holes in the aluminum layer that reflects the light of the CD player's laser, The aluminum layer is protected from scratches and oxidation by a thin layer of lacquer under the CD label. Physical abuse or because the lacquer is improperly applied or physically or chemically damage can affect the underlying aluminum. (Some have described the oxidation as "rust," but the correct chemical term for aluminum reacting with oxygen is "corrosion".) People are cautioned about using labels on their own recorded CDs because the adhesive on the back of the label has been accused of eating away the lacquer.

It should be stressed that the CD's recording surface is further from the clear side than the label side so that scratching the label or cracking the lacquer by writing on the label side will result in problems.

To see what CD rot looks like, check Mark L. Irons' article "They don't really last forever". Read a user's lament about the deterioration of his CD-Rs.

The physical marks and the recordings are both known generically as "cut-outs" because the CD or record was “cut out” of the music label's catalog. The clipped corners, single slit in one of the sides and the hole punch near a corner of a jacket not only signify a product cut from catalog, but also were used on copies sent to DJs and record reviewers. (These cutouts were essentially, "promo copies.")

When companies decided to delete titles from their catalog, all their accounts would be given an opportunity, for a limited time, to return those titles for full credit. The record jackets were then defaced before the records were sold to special "overstock" or cutout distributors who would then resell the records to retailers at a deep discount. The defacement marked the records so retailers could not return the records to the original manufacturer for the the full price refund.

The collectability of cutouts depends on whether someone is collecting the media or the artwork and inserts. The notches and holes do not affect the media so the sound quality is unaffected by the marks. These recordings are often found in the bargain bins of music stores and in flea markets. One contributor to the Allmusic.com blog was moved to nominate Joe Henderson’s "The Milestone Years", as "Cut-Out of the Year": the box set, with an original listed priced of $124.98 was available for an average price of $30.

Thanks to Art Zimmerman for help with this entry.