Record Players
Ever wonder how much your vinyl collection is worth? The vinyl sellers at Old Spitalfields Market are here to help you find that black gold.
Bev Nipps, Paul Green and Darren Reed have about 70 years experience of selling vinyl between them. Regular sellers at the Vinyl Market on first and third Friday in every month, here are their tips on finding turntable gems.
The condition has to be mint
Think of it as like an antique — the value goes down the shabbier it is. When it comes to scratches, it varies. With sixties vinyl, scratches don’t matter so much because it’s a thicker groove. But if it’s eighties, you might as well throw it away.
Bowie is one of the best
His second album, The Man Who Sold the World, is very rare – but only if it’s the cover with him wearing a dress. A buyer would spend £2000 on that. Or his first single, when he was David Jones and the King Bees, is worth £2000-3000.
"Because vinyl was quite unusual in the nineties, some of those records can be valuable"
The devil is in the detail
A copy of Sergeant Pepper with the wide spine is worth £250 because it was released in a smaller edition, for example. Or there were only 200 blue copies made of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee. Those are very valuable. Knowing details can also help with buying the wrong thing.
Reissues look the same as the original, for example, or the inner sleeve might be different, or the bar code.
Be like The Kinks: a dedicated follower of fashion
Rock n’roll is going through a hard time. No-one is looking for it. Elvis Presley is one of the biggest sellers but people aren’t buying him. The kids don’t know it.
Big band and swing, however, is having a moment. Customers in their twenties are playing records on gramophones.
Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s valuable
The public are sometimes convinced they have the crown jewels and then it’s just a load of Top of the Pops compilations.
Beatles singles sold by the millions, for example, and there are far too many copies of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ by Band Aid on the market. When it comes to hits, you need something unusual for it to be worth something.
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