Prices of Records/Vinyl in 2025

@viridian - to each his own. I saw on Discogs that those copies of DSOTM you mentioned are just as if not more expensive than the UHQR version. I wonder if that is because of rarity or sound quality. Maybe both? I'll stick with the UHQR.

I guess in my mind the things that should be collected are those with no other use except looking at them and touching them like art, stamps, coins, antiques, books (comic & otherwise), etc. I believe it is a waste to have things sitting around that nobody gets to use/enjoy while it is stored somewhere. I consider it hoarding when the items are worthless and never used. That's called trash. 

I don't collect anything except I have some old baseball cards that I found out are worthless (even though I did at one point put them in plastic sleeves) because they aren't perfect or near it. Some were probably flipped back in the day.

My biggest pet peeve is car collectors who don't drive them, with the exception of old rare ones that I would consider art. Mr. Porsche would roll over in his grave if he saw all the garage queens under covers with trickle charges sitting atop crates. They are meant to be driven and enjoyed. At least on a weekend or seasonal basis. 

@whart - I would never buy a record just because it sounds great if I didn't like the music. I guess collectors would to just have it in their collection. I think that is the case with a lot of non-jazz lovers who have to have a copy of Kind of Blue they never play. Sad.

@sokogear -I agree. Not sure if there was something in one my posts that prompted you, but when I was coming up-- call it 1970--there was a lot of attention paid to "audiophile spectaculars" eventually the HP "List," all those direct to disc records that were great sounding but rarely adventurous, etc. I'll admit to being part of the fold of audiophiles in that period, including a lot of the original MoFi stuff (which, after some time and some studied comparisons/shoot-outs, did not hold up so well). 

I finally got out of that mindset, and  though I bought records like a drunken sailor when vinyl was declared a "dead" medium, I eventually started to get serious about music I liked and tried to find the best sounding pressings. Many times, it's just different shadings of a master that has flaws--I would say I have more "multiple copies" of records that are challenged sonically, in the search for the one that sounds like real instruments to me.

At this point, I'm no longer on an upward climb- I have more than enough records to listen to here for the rest of my life. I do like the obscure, the forgotten, the "how did this never show up on my radar?" experience. It's all a learning curve for me and an enjoyable one that involves not only the composition and performance, but the "why?" of it--how could some of these simply recorded records made in the days before large multi-track, outboard processing, etc. sound so good? One answer I got from a label chief was that the bands were able to play a song through without the need to overdub. Another was that the very nature of the primitive equipment (by today's standards) made for far less post-production. I'm not sure there is a single answer-- everybody has their own "mission" in this endeavor. Mine for the last couple decades has been exposure to more, different music, and deep dives into catalogs I never heard of back in the (analog) day.