What will you pay for a new LP?


When I started collecting LP’s in the 60’s I paid $2 to $4, choosing from a bin at the neighborhood market. Considering the limited space, they had a surprisingly good selection including Rock & Roll, my preference at the time. A kid then, I had decent cash flow from a paper route.

Records (I don’t care for the term “vinyl”) have gone up in price since then like everything else. In today’s dollars, those $2 or $4 Long Play records cost $17 to $35. You can get unlimited streaming for less than that. Used records can be cheap(er) but collector grade are expensive.

New releases seem to range from $17 to $25 for a standard 150gram and $35 and up for 180/200g reissues. Audiophile labels can go much higher, the Mobile Fidelity One Step 45rpm series list for $125. Colored vinyl too.

I have an ample LP collection and only buy a few new releases each year. I like to play what I have and don’t hear much new music I want to own. I buy a reissue occasionally to replace a noisy record but it’s a gamble on fidelity, sometimes the sound is not as good as the original was.

I did get a wild hair and bought a 45rpm One Step, kinda choking on the $125 price. I wanted to see what the fuss is about and determine if it was worth it. It does sound impressive-and quiet! I was disappointed to find a noisy patch on one record, which the vendor replaced without question and without requiring me returning the bad sample. Will I buy another one? Maybe, if they offer something I really like.

What are your thoughts on album purchases?


128x128bslon
Original 1950’s-60’s Mint copies of Blue Note LP’s sell for up to (depending on title) thousands of dollars. You can get a new reissue (mastered by Kevin Gray, pressed at QRP) of many of them for $50-$65 (the Tone Poet series, done by Joe Harley---formerly of Audioquest---in collaboration with Blue Note President---and electric bassist---Don Was), $25 for those in the new "Classic" series.

I started buying LP’s in 1962, $2.99 for mono, $3.99 for stereo. What are those prices adjusted for inflation over the years? Regular (non-audiophile) LP’s of new releases now commonly sell for $20-$25, and are in general better made than were LP’s issued in the last half of the 70’s and into the 80’s. Even in the 60’s and early 70’s LP’s were not as well made as they could have been. Warps (VERY common, bordering on ubiquitous), noise, skips, mis-labels, mis-pressings, etc.---all very common. I was constantly returning defective LP’s to my local record stores back then. One label that was better than most was the Warner Brothers family (which included Reprise), a label whose artist roster was also better than most. Look for their series of loss-leader double LP samplers, available mail order only in the late 60's and 70's, a buck a disc!

IMO now is a great time to be an LP buyer, even if just starting out. The young people involved in this vinyl boom are the most passionate music lovers of their generation. I see teenagers and their parents shopping together in Music Millennium, a beautiful sight to behold! When I lived in Portland during 1976-7---prior to the introduction of the CD of course, most the main floor and mezzanine of Music Millennium was dedicated to LP’s. After moving to L.A. in ’78 and then returning for a visit in 2010, Music Millennium’s LP racks had been relegated to the mezzanine, the entire main floor given over to CD’s. By the time I had returned to Portland in 2016, half the main floor and the entire mezzanine was again filled with LP’s. And it is in those sections of the store that most of the activity is currently going on, the CD isles largely vacant. Those not buying LP’s are also---generally speaking--- not buying CD’s.
@bdp24

Music Millenium is a jewel of a record store with record bins almost over-flowing and the walls covered with LP’s. It’s nearly sensory overload, but in a good way. Quirky Portland is lucky to have it and even luckier it’s endured.
There can be some treasured finds in used records there. A recent purchase was Julie London’s Julie Is Her Name double LP Japanese pressing—$12! A U.S. pressing at Better Records in similar A++ condition was around $500. I guess if you just had to have it…
I have 2,000 lps, mostly in pristine condition. I’ll pay up to about $40. But I prefer to brouse the used store and pick up albums in great shape for $5 - 15 then carefully clean them, LAST preserve them and add to my collection.
" A recent purchase was Julie London’s Julie Is Her Name double LP Japanese pressing—$12!"

bslon-great score.  I have the 1958 mono pressing. Great album with my favorite guitarist-Barney Kessel

Whenever I go to a show, I bring the album to hear "Laura"
Perfect example of an album recorded during  the "Golden Years"