The Music Lover's Guide to Record Collecting

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Part One: Collecting and Collectors

An Informal History of Record Collecting

I was lucky. I got my start in record collecting in what was a golden age—probably the last one there ever was. Looking back today on the 45s and LPs I carefully plonked down my pocket money for, it seems incredible to believe that such fabulous treasures could be picked up so readily, that the store owner didn’t go home every night and kick himself to death for letting another priceless gem slip by for the cost of a can of soda.

You’ll forgive me if I don’t say exactly when this was, because it really doesn’t matter. All who pick up this book and can blissfully recall their own early days in the hobby will know the answer intuitively, because that’s when they, too, got involved. A golden age, a time when there was magic in the air and glory in the grooves, and every record that hit the streets was another of the greatest ever made.

Of course it was, because why else would they have started collecting? There were, after all, so many more important things they could have been doing, like improving their grades or cleaning their rooms, or washing behind their ears every day. But no. Instead, selfiessly heroically, they sacrificed the pleasures of a normal, happy childhood to embed themselves in the minutiae of music. And, just as we look back on our school days, convinced that the establishment was at its social, creative, and educational peak during the years in which we attended, so we look back on that other most formative moment in childhood, the discovery of music, with the same sense of wide-eyed wonder. Could things ever be so great again?

It might have been the mid-‘50s, when Elvis was on Sun, or the early ’60s, when Vee-Jay had the Beatles. It could have been five years later, when every garage was a psychedelic shack, or a decade after that, when new wave ruled the roost. It may have been the early ‘90s, with the Sub Pop Singles Club blasting classics through the mailbox, or the infant 2000s, with whatever nonsense it is that kids listen to these days, but I’ll tell you one thing, it isn’t music. . . I’m sorry. I just turned into your parents.

Whenever it was, record collecting is possibly the only (legal) hobby around that offers a shortcut to your soul. Others—excellent schoolwork, tidy rooms, and clean ears among them—may be more aesthetically beautiful or educationally fulfilling. But records, particularly pop (rock, funk and punk, soul and ska, jazz and techno, call it what you will) records, can make you laugh or cry without your ever knowing why, can make you get up and dance or run off to be sick, can force you to experience the entire range of human emotions, and—this is the clincher—can do it so quickly that almost before the moment’s begun, and certainly before you can begin to analyze it, it’s over. Until the next time you hear the same song.

Sometimes it isn’t even the music we connect with. Or rather, it isn’t only the music. The label itself can have a resonance that mere words can never begin to explain. Perhaps this is why many collectors, desperately searching for a particular song, will nevertheless reject a copy on a foreign, or even domestic, reissue label. For it isn’t merely the song they are searching for. It is the artifact itself, the tangible embodiment, if you will, of whichever experience or emotion that dictated their need for the record in the first place.

It could be a classic RCA Victor release, with Nipper the dog and the gramophone horn. Maybe it’s an old black British Parlophone or Columbia single, the Beatles or Cliff Richard, the giant silver 45 logo a trademark of quality that has never been matched. The checkerboard of Chess, the wholesome crunchy promise of Apple, the lascivious lips of the Rolling Stones, the bespectacled pig of TMQ. And, if a logo’s worth a thousand words, then the slogans are worth many more: Sounds great in stereo. If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a fuck. All rights of the producer and of the owner of the record work reserved.

Remember when, in the first flush of youth, a new record wasn’t simply something you’d spin a few times, and then file away, carefully alphabetically, in an archive-quality protective shrink-wrap jacket? The days when the first thing you did was rip away the shrink-wrapping . . . onto the floor, then into the trash. Out with the record, all fingers and thumbs (you’ll wipe away the fingerprints on the front of your sweater tomorrow), onto the turntable, drop down the needle, up with the volume.

Then you’d sit with the sleeve and read every word. More than that, you’d absorb them. Every lyric, every credit, every last iota of information sucked in as if you were the kind of sponge your teachers had despaired of your ever becoming in the classroom—and they were right, because that kind of stuff didn’t matter half as much. So what if Wellington won Waterloo? Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Stig Anderson wrote it, and they won the Eurovision Song Contest. In 1974, that was a lot more significant than some dusty old battle.

Old-timers deny it, but it’s the same today. No matter that information now zips around the planet at the speed of thought, and that the average eight-year-old knows more about pop idols’ lives than his or her parents even cared to imagine. Album jackets are still a mine of arcane information and secret knowledge, the thrill of a new acquisition is still as physical as it is aural, and fingerprints can still be removed with a quick swipe down the front of a sweater.

Maybe some things have changed. No matter how garish and arty they may look, CD labels simply don’t have the resonance of the old vinyl counterparts, all the more so since they revolve so fast you can’t even try to discover if you can read things in circles.

Remember the old UK Vertigo label? If every record company had selected a mass of black-and-white concentric circles for its logo, the entire psychedelic movement might never have happened. Or, it might never have ended. Comedians Cheech and Chong, during one of their early-‘70s routines, referred to playing Black Sabbath at 78 rpm and seeing God. To American listeners, accustomed to Sabbath releases appearing on staid old Warner Bros., the remark was little more than a throwaway that could have been applied with equal validity to any band in the world.

To British listeners, however, it wasn’t a joke. Play one of Sabbath’s Vertigo records at 78, keep your eyes firmly focused on the spinning disc before you, and seeing God would be the least of the revelations in store. When Vertigo dropped the design in 1973, urban myth insisted that the government had forced it to, because someone went mad just watching the logo spin.

It probably wasn’t true—the story was spread by the same people who claimed the B-side of Napoleon XIV’s They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!, the catchily titled !Aaah-Ah Yawa Em Ekat Ot Gnimoc Er’yeht, was banned by British radio because someone else went insane trying to decipher the lyrics. The possibility that radio rarely plays records that are simply the A-side spun backward never crossed anybody’s mind—not in those naive days before the evils of backward masking were exposed in the media. (And wherefore backward masking today? Surely someone, somewhere, has figured out that if you hold down the CD player’s rewind button and listen very carefully, the multimillion rpm gobbledygook has to have something suitably wicked to say?)

It is true, however, that record collecting isn’t what it used to be. Turn back the years, to as recently as the mid-’70s, and record collecting as a formal hobby barely even existed. Yes, people did collect records; yes, there was already a thriving network of specialist stores whose sole business was to buy and sell rare music. Even then, records had value; even then, dealers were well aware which would sit gathering dust on the shelves and which would fly out the door the moment they were put on display.

But they gained that information through experience. There were no publications on the subject, or if there were, they were obsessive little discographical creations run off in small-run private editions, barely available and prohibitively priced (by the standards of the day). Goldmine, today regarded as the foremost record-collecting publication in the US, was little more than a fanzine, sold at record fairs, swap meets, and via mail-order subscriptions; Record Collector, its UK counterpart, was barely a gleam in its creator’s eye.

Price guides were nonexistent. The first, Jerry Osborne and Bruce Hamilton’s self-published 33 , and 45 Extended Play Record Album Price Guide, appeared in 1977. Grading was an unfathomable mystery (okay, so some things haven’t changed), and a book like this would never even have been written, let alone mass-produced, by a major American publishing house.

Things began to change around the end of the 1970s. The Price Guide had something to do with that. For the first time, a book was available that not only unlocked the mysteries of a rare record’s worth, it also went some way toward explaining why such a record was valuable. But equally important was the music industry itself, and the sudden realization that it wasn’t simply marketing music and musicians. It was also marketing a product, and the better that product looked, the more likely it was to be sold.

The concept was road-tested in the UK. British 45s had traditionally been issued in generic paper sleeves since the dawn of recorded history. During 1976—77, an increasing number of limited-edition picture sleeves were the first manifestation of this new mood, and they proved an instant hit. Singles in picture sleeves sold. So more picture sleeves began appearing. Soon they stopped being limited editions. Soon they stopped even attracting attention. By the early ’80s, if you wanted to be noticed, you didn’t have a picture sleeve. People started collecting those records as well.

The advent—again in the UK—of the first commercially available 12-inch single raised the temperature even further. Embarking on another of their frequent raids on the Who’s back catalog in fall 1976, but searching for a new way of persuading people to buy it (again), Polydor reissued the Who’s 1966 classic Substitute on LP-sized vinyl and found itself with the group’s first Top Ten hit in five years. A few weeks later, Ariola-Hansa issued the first single by German disco band Boney M. in the same format. Daddy Cool shot to No. 6.

By the turn of the year, and certainly by the following spring, 12-inch singles were pouring out of every label in the land, usually bearing the magic words limited edition. Some of them even were, but it didn’t seem to matter either way. Bands that might never otherwise have had a shot at a UK chart single suddenly found themselves rubbing noses with the richest, most famous hit-makers in the land—New York new wave acts Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, and the Ramones were all promoted early on with the format, while new disco releases were scarcely given a second glance unless they appeared in the large format.

Gimmick followed gimmick. Colored vinyl was next, and this time it was a transatlantic conspiracy. The technology had been around since the days of the 78 and was especially rife in the US during the early ’50s. But only a handful of labels had even tried to bring it into the rock age, most recently such enterprising UK independents as Stiff and The Label. Now the majors got to work, utilizing the same limited-edition tactics that had worked so well with the 12-inch, and reaping precisely the same rewards. It didn’t even matter that, in many cases, the limited-edition colored vinyl seemed far more common than the regular, boring, black variety. By early 1979, a band without a strangely shaded single was a band without a prayer.

Suddenly record companies were falling over themselves trying to create the next marketing phenomenon. In the US, A&M became one of the first labels to successfully create multicolored records that didn’t resemble discarded slabs of chewing gum—the Stranglers’ Something Better Change EP not only came in fetching pink-and-white marbled vinyl, it also featured liner notes warning that its very label design may [cause] slight dizziness if viewed while rotating. It could, indeed. Vertigo revisited!

Experiments were made with odd- and awkward-sized vinyl. In America, A&M, again, was among the first to pioneer a rebirth of the 10-inch LP format, unseen since the 1950s; in Britain, Chiswick went the other way entirely and resurrected the miniaturized hip-pocket editions of a decade later.

Picture discs were next. Again, an old 78-era technology found new life after years in the marketing dustbin. In spring 1979, Elektra’s UK wing launched the Boston new wave band the Cars with a very fetching picture disc depicting, of course, a car. It sold like hotcakes, and My Best Friend’s Girl had already stormed to No. 3 when the first disquieting media reports suggested that, whereas other limited editions might have bent the walls of mathematical credulity, Elektra was driving a freight train through them. An acknowledged printing of 5,000 copies had, by some estimates, exceeded that figure ten times over, and the presses were still working.

The ensuing scandal came close to demolishing the entire concept of limited-edition releases in the UK, all the more so since this scandal was very swiftly followed by even more serious allegations of chart hyping (illegally influencing a record’s sales to ensure higher chart positions) at other labels. By that time, however, America, Britain, Europe, Asia. . . the whole world, it seemed, was transfixed by an even greater obsession.

The problem with picture discs, colored vinyl, novelty-shaped discs, and all the so-called collectible gimmicks that launched so many sparkling careers, was that they demanded a certain show of confidence on the record buyer’s part—not only that the edition truly was limited, but that the record was worth buying in the first place. If every new release was issued with one collectible variant, regardless of whether the record was any good or not, how did you know what to buy? Easy answer—you didn’t. So you stopped.

However, what if the same technologies were utilized retroactively, to pretty-up records that you already knew, already loved—and possibly, already owned? This was something that even the US, where niche markets alone had been truly targeted by the inventive marketers of recent years, was unable to resist.

The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, with a picture of the Lonely Hearts Club Band embedded in the grooves. The Beatles, also known as The White Album, in pure white wax. The possibilities seemed endless, and so it proved. Entire classic album catalogs were remarketed in exciting new colors, and if, as it very swiftly transpired, these new pressings did not have as high fidelity as they could have, then that simply proved what great investments they were. Unplayed or unplayable—either way, they remained in tip-top condition.

It is difficult to say at what precise point the army of gullible consumers that went into these booms metamorphosed into the army of serious collectors who emerged from the other side. But it happened, and it happened swiftly.

In the mid-’70s, the only people who knew what a rare record was worth were the people who actually determined such things. By the early ’80s, the information wasteland of just a few years before had been neatly spruced up and completely paved over. Rare record mega-marts were springing up where once only cultish swap meets had lurked. Price guides grew from obscure private publications—which are now, in some instances, changing hands for as much money as many of the records they list—to sprawling encyclopedias packed with microscopic print. Little old ladies with antique stores on Main Street were adding rows of extra zeros to the price tags on their Beatles LPs, and casual browsers, stunned to discover that a long-forgotten component of their childhood was now worth its weight in gold, suddenly realized that they had to have it.

And just when it seemed that record collecting had gone as far as it could, that every conceivable gimmick had been pulled out of the sack, and every conceivable notion for repackaging the past had been driven into the ground, some bright spark invented the CD, and the whole shebang began again.

Close to 20 years after the first 5-inch aluminum discs began appearing in record stores, claiming to offer superior sound in half the space, and swearing that they were the future of music, it’s difficult to remember precisely how much cynicism greeted them. Indeed, even the most optimistic supporter of this exciting new format could never have imagined that, within so brief a period, not only would almost every prized album of the past have been revived, remastered, and remodeled with bonus tracks galore, but that many of the old bands themselves would be back, rejuvenated by the interest stirred up with the reissue of their catalog.

True, there were casualties. Record collections gathered painstakingly together over a course of so many years became. . . not obsolete, for no format (not even 8-Tracks) can ever truly be said to have died out completely. . . but certainly outmoded. New releases no longer appeared on vinyl; older issues were deleted and disappeared.

On the secondary market, in the world of used-record dealers, swap meets, and fairs, the very nature of the business changed overnight. Still a search for hits-you-missed and oldies-but-goodies, the business now needed to expand to assimilate the new format even as it struggled to absorb the vast flood of old material, as entire collections were discarded by owners upgrading to CDs.

In the realm of the rarest records, of course, nothing changed. An Elvis 78 is an Elvis 78, no matter how far technology moves away from wind-up gramophone players. Vinyl that was collectible before CDs, remained collectible after. But no matter how many thousands of records there may be with some kind of inherent value, there are millions more that are simply filler for the dollar bin, or that rot on the street in a box marked Please take me away. Elvis 78s are the caviar of collecting. Frampton Comes Alive is the bread (without butter).

The thing was, a lot of people were now hungry for a few slices. CDs, so perfect for those occasions when you require uninterrupted music for more than 20 minutes at a time, nevertheless seemed cold and sterile in comparison to previous formats. Besides, no matter how much music was now being reissued in the CD format, there was many times more that remained stubbornly unavailable, as the most avid collectors were swift to point out.

RCA reissued Jefferson Airplane’s After Bathing at Baxter’s in stereo, and suddenly it was imperative to pick it up in superior mono. Polygram reissued Roxy Music’s Country Life with its topless-Fräulein jacket restored, and suddenly, the old American cleaned-up version made a fascinating conversation piece. Old-record collecting skyrocketed in popularity for many different reasons, but new CD reissues had a lot to do with it.

In and of themselves, CDs at first appeared to offer little of interest to the traditional collector, beyond the obvious advantages of previously unissued or rare bonus material, arguably superior sound, and, increasingly as the format aged, an attention to detail and to consumer and collector requirements that vinyl had never taken into consideration. The medium itself was singularly unappealing; the words cold and sterile again come to mind. As it developed, however, and ironed out the kinks, a whole new discipline came into being.

By the early ’90s, CDs were firmly established, both in the marketplace and in the collecting community. Promotional releases, one-track CDs that replaced the DJ 45s of old, assumed at least some of the glamour of their predecessors, while record labels’ increasing propensity for samplers heralding forthcoming box sets, hitherto restricted to cassette tapes, took on immeasurably higher value following the switch to CD.

Soon, advance (media) copies of almost every new album were being issued on CD (again, as opposed to the earlier cassette), a handful of which have since ascended to unimaginable heights of desirability and price. The advent later in the 1990s of officially produced promotional CD-Rs appears to have throttled this particular area somewhat, since the gold-colored discs and computer-generated white labels are simply too easy to counterfeit to allow their collectibility to survive. But collectors are adaptable. They’ll find a way around that eventually.

It is true that some stalwarts of the old vinyl-collecting world will never be recaptured on CD. But many more have, ranging from inadvertent pressing errors that gift the first few lucky purchasers with alternate versions, mistaken masters, and so on, to limited-edition secret tracks. The increasing globalization of the world’s record companies has done nothing to stem the flow of exclusive mixes, unavailable B-sides, and unusual sleeves issued all around the world.

And, while the 7-inch single may be dead from a corporate point of view, an entire generation has now grown up for whom the multisong CD single, the mini-album, is all they have ever known, and all they will ever care about.

The European fashion for issuing multiple versions of any given CD single, each bearing its own unique B-sides and mixes, will bedevil completist collectors of many individual artists for years to come, and that’s as true for modern stars such as Moby, No Doubt, and Garbage, as it is for crusty old veterans like David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan. In 1994, the Rolling Stones issued five different versions of their Out of Tears single in Britain alone—proof, as if any was needed, that even traditional icons have found a comfortable place in the modern industry.

Today we have music coming out of our ears, almost literally. It can be downloaded from the Internet as MP3 or .wav files, fed into our televisions via the self-styled miracle of DMX, and programmed into the ring tone of our cell phones. It permeates every fiber of modern society. New audio formats harnessing DVD technology promise ever more perfect listening experiences. New methods and standards of manufacturing have seen vinyl make an absolutely unforeseen comeback. Official custom-made CD compilations can now be created and purchased online; unofficial ones can be manufactured by anybody with the necessary toys. One day, we might even have microchips embedded into our skulls, so that all we have to do is think of a song and we will hear it instantaneously.

But through it all, we still collect. People are, seemingly instinctively, acquisitive creatures, and music is what many of us enjoy acquiring. And no matter how it is packaged—on a small spiky cylinder or a flat metal disc, on a scratched-up 45 or an immaculate DAT tape—for as long as people have ears to hear with and eyes to see with, they will continue to collect records. It is the nature of the beast.

How to Grade Records (And CDs and Tapes)

Grading records is like eating spaghetti. Everybody has his or her own way of doing it, and sometimes it can be messy. It is, after all, an extraordinarily subjective topic, largely dependent upon whether one is buying (That’s one helluva gouge across the whole of side one) or selling (It’s only a surface mark; I played it and it’s fine). Attempts to formulate a universal standard founder on so many counts that it isn’t even annoying any longer. Accurate grading is, in many ways, the most crucial element in the entire hobby. So why is it so difficult?

The finest grading systems currently in service apply to coin and baseball card collecting, hobbies in which visual appeal and visual perfection are (or, at least, should be) of paramount importance in evaluating an item’s value—after all, what else can you do with coins and cards, than stare at them for hours on end? But hobbies in which the collected item actually does something—for example, transmitting music—are equally concerned with making sure that function remains as unimpaired as is possible.

The only way to truly grade a record, tape, or CD is to play it. Eyes can detect any obvious visual flaws; a magnifying glass (some collectors won’t leave home without one) will pick up the tiniest ones. But until the music is actually booming out of the speakers, there is no way of detecting the myriad other little pings, dings, and clicks that can send an apparently brand-new disc hurtling down the scale to unlistenable oblivion. . . click. . . oblivion. . . click. . . oblivion.

But you, the listener alone, have the time and inclination to play every piece of music that you purchase, and you alone can tell whether the barely audible pop between tracks two and three is catastrophic enough to merit regrading a disc from Mint to miserable. For the individual you purchased it from, it’s enough that the item fulfilled the criteria of whichever grading guide he or she applied to it. The best that you can realistically hope for is that the guide was published on this planet. It’s surprising how many seem not to have been.

Remember, too, that grading a record’s condition is not the last word in its description. A disc might fulfill every criteria for a particular grade, but still demand further attention: Is it a promotional, DJ, or cutout? Is it mono, stereo, or quadraphonic? Is it autographed? There are dozens of variables that can seriously affect a potential purchaser’s decision, and all the more so online, where the item is unavailable for hands-on inspection. When selling, provide as much extra information as you can. When buying, ask before you bid.

Records (45s, LPs, 78s, etc.)

American dealers tend to work from an eight-point scale developed for use in the biweekly magazine Goldmine and in the myriad price guides published by its parent company, Krause Publications. In the UK, the seven-point scale formulated by the monthly Record Collector is now the accepted system. These scales are applicable to both vinyl and packaging; many sellers will now grade both separately, particularly if there is some disparity between the two—a clean disc and a torn sleeve, for example.

Neither scale is right or wrong. Both function perfectly within those countries’ borders. However, problems can arise when transactions cross international boundaries, especially when a record falls outside of the most self-evident of grades.

To begin at the bottom, Poor (P), or in the UK, Bad (B), should leave nobody in any doubt. In a nutshell, the record is wrecked. The sleeve is tattered, if it is even present. The vinyl might be cracked or broken, it might be scratched or warped. It certainly will not play very well, and unless the record represents one of the world’s most fabulous rarities—say, a red-vinyl pressing of the Hornets’ I Can’t Believe, a $20,000 disc if you care for such things—its value can only be measured in fractions of a cent.

Don’t let the seller try to sweet-talk you, either. Every collector, finding a shot-to-hell Shangri-Las LP and asking why it’s still $50, has been informed that, if it weren’t for the bullet holes, it’d be in Mint condition. And that’s true, especially if the bullet holes are indeed the only imperfection. But if the record won’t play, it’s a Frisbee. And some don’t even fulfill that function properly.

Mint (M), at the other end of the scale, means that one is purchasing a factory-fresh, unplayed, perhaps even unopened, disc. There will be no creases or ring wear on the cover (picture sleeve for 45s and EPs), no fingerprints on the vinyl, no spindle marks (light silvery lines) around the center hole. Any original extras, ranging from lyric sheets and posters to printed inner sleeves, will be present and pristine. There will be no indication at all that human hands have ever touched the record. And one will notice that very few experienced American dealers or price guides ever advertise their wares in this state, no matter how perfect they appear. Instead, Near Mint is the preferred term, simply because even unplayed, unopened records may well have some undetected defect. Mint, in America, implies perfect. Near Mint adds as far as we can tell.

British grading does not make this same distinction. Mint still means exactly the same as it does in the US, but there is no safety net a few points down the grading scale to catch any unforeseen problems. Perhaps the British trust the dealer to make good any serious shortfall in the quality of the disc. Perhaps British customers understand that once they break the seal and spin the record, it is no longer either unopened or unplayed. Or maybe they have simply come to terms with the fact that Perfect is just an old John Travolta movie. However they look at it, the system works for them. American buyers may not be so sure.

These are the extremes. On a numerical scale, a Mint record should score 100 (with Near Mint no less than 95); a Poor would barely scrape zero. What, however, of all the numbers in between—for it is there that the majority of used records one finds, whether on the Internet, in a thrift store, or at a record fair, will lie. And it is there that controversy is most likely to rear its head.

There are four basic flaws to which vinyl is commonly prone, most brought about through misuse of some sort—those flaws are warping, dishing, scratching, and breaking. The last of these is self-explanatory. If the record is broken, and that means anything from a minor crack on the edge to a huge chunk torn from the soul of the disc, then that’s the end of the story. It’s broken. Move along.

Warping, caused by exposure to excessive heat, is the term applied to records that, in the simplest terms, are no longer flat. Sometimes, the warp will gently bow the vinyl, so that when viewed edge-on, it takes on a pronounced wave. In more extreme cases, just one area of the record will be buckled, while the remainder of the disc is unharmed.

Dishing is similar to warping but this time, when viewed edge-on, the record takes on the appearance of, indeed, a dish. Again the effect can be minimal and may not affect the sound quality. But it may.

Scratches are more problematic. Every grade below Near Mint makes some allowance for wear and tear; the question is, how much wear and tear can one expect in any given grade? Some scratches are so light as to barely touch the vinyl—surface marks, as they are commonly called, can be caused by the record itself coming into contact with absolutely anything, including the stylus that is playing it, or even its own packaging. However, since surface marks lay across the surface of the record and do not cut into the grooves, where the music is stored, they will not affect the sound in the slightest.

The American Very Good Plus (VG+) and British Excellent (Ex) indicate a record that, while showing some signs of use, was also clearly the property of a very careful owner. This is the province of the surface marks and similar light scuffs that do not interfere with the play, but that may be considered unsightly; a barely noticeable warp or dish might also creep into this grade if no other damage is in evidence. Spindle marks will be minimal and the spindle hole will still be tight.

As far as the packaging goes, all original inserts will be present, but will show some signs of handling. There may be some light creasing to the corners of the jacket or a little splitting around the spine. The only permissible additions to the original sleeve will be original autographs, items added at source to either point out bonus extras or notable tracks (stickers proclaiming features the smash hit. . . or similar), or devices designating the record as a promotional copy, produced for DJs, journalists, and other members of the media. These can range from property of stickers and stamps to timing sheets spread across the lower front cover, listing the tracks and their duration—an invaluable service to DJs, of course. Many collectors regard these extras as a defect. However, specialists (and, of course, promo collectors) treat them as an integral part of the packaging and expect the grading to reflect that.

Otherwise pristine LP jackets might also have a punch-hole or indentation in one corner, or might have had about half an inch of corner physically chopped away, branding them as cutouts—factory-fresh records whose jackets were thus disfigured by the issuing record company, to indicate that they were made available at a discount price. Because of this damage, no cutout can reasonably be graded higher than VG+/Ex, even if it fulfills all the criteria of a higher grade.

So-called light scratches are those that have cut into the groove and are responsible for occasional, and very brief, sequences of light clicks as a record is playing. Clicking, however, is all that they will do. Medium scratches are those that actively interfere with the music, without actually causing the needle to skip or stick. They can be felt by running a fingertip over the surface of the record (make sure it’s a clean tip, though, or you’ll just add to the problem). On both sides of the ocean, the grade Very Good (VG) allows these scratches to intrude into the listening experience, together with further deterioration of the packaging, but without significant damage to it.

Another accepted VG ailment is surface noise evident during quiet passages. If the record belonged to somebody who regularly played certain cuts, there may be some minor clicking at the beginning and end of each favored cut, caused by the needle’s having been placed less than delicately down on the vinyl. In extreme cases, this can also affect (again, without skipping or sticking) the outro of the preceding cut and/or the intro of the next.

On a VG record, the spindle hole will probably be surrounded by a maze of silver lines; there may be some wear to the hole itself. The packaging may also be showing both its age and its history. Labels and sleeves alike may have writing, stickers, tape or the like either attached or showing signs of once having been adhered (tape residue will probably outlive cockroaches); tears and creases will be more apparent, and loose extras may well have disappeared.

A promotional LP with timing slip (see page 8).

It is important to note that while a VG record will suffer from some of these faults, it should not suffer from them all. Two or three is more than enough; a record with any more requires a serious reappraisal. Most US price guides regard VG as the lowest grade worth valuing.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the grade Good describes records that have been played a few times too often. Groove wear will be evident in the loss of the shiny black glow that a better-conditioned disc should retain. Label and sleeve alike will be tatty—stained, torn, or defaced. The corner areas of the sleeve, those portions that do not rest against the record itself, may feel soft and droopy, and will prove much more easily creased or folded than they ought.

Upon playing, the record will not sound as sharp as it once did, surface noise will be audible throughout, and the scratches will be louder, too. The record will still be playable without skipping or sticking, but it’s a sorry sight to behold, regardless. The wholly unnecessary American grade of Good Plus (G+) is differentiated as not having quite as many defects as a mere Good.

The lowest grade in which a record is actually playable is the American Fair (F), which equates to the British Poor (P). In this state, the deepest scratches come into play, those that not only cut through the grooves but also force the needle to follow them, leading to the dreaded skips and jumps. Or maybe they displace one of the groove walls, shifting it into the path of the needle, thus causing it to become stuck. (Dirt, hair, grease, and a million other foreign bodies can also cause this.) Or maybe they do both and really give you your waste-of-money’s worth. The sleeve may still be intact, but it just as likely may not; and if there was a lyric sheet or similar included, it long ago went astray.

Basically, unless we are again discussing some fabulous rarity, records in this condition are as worthless as those graded even more disparagingly, and the only reason they are even offered up for sale is because modern society frowns so fiercely on simply giving rubbish away. One man’s meat and all that. Likewise, there are few worthwhile reasons, and even fewer good excuses, for wanting to purchase a record in this state—unless, perhaps, you really hate the song and want to watch it suffer. In which case, are you sure you even need to know about grading?

CDs/Tapes (Reels, 4- and 8-Tracks, Cassettes, etc.)

In these fields, grading is basically a matter of whether or not the product plays perfectly. CDs, while not the indestructible heirlooms that early publicity insisted they were, are nevertheless very difficult to damage in normal use, despite their propensity to hastily accumulate the most unsightly collection of scratches, fingerprints, and dents. In all but the most drastic cases, not only will these problems not affect play, they can often be camouflaged with any one of the many CD cleaning products on the market. Certainly, unless factory freshness is a prerequisite of admission to your collection, a wanted CD should never be rejected simply because the disc looks a little battered.

Cassettes, cartridges (4- and 8-Tracks), and reels are harder to evaluate, though the most common problems—twisted, bunched, and/or broken tape—can often be spotted early on.

In cassettes, defects can be seen either in the open playing area or through the transparent plastic window between the spools; in cartridges, the nature of the format can allow problems to be absorbed back into the case, but more often the tape itself jams, ensuring that the flaw is forever visible in the playing area. Or even hanging limply out of it. Always look at the tape itself to check that it has not twisted; the playing area, facing out, is light brown in color, while the backing, which should not be seen, is shiny black.

On 8-Tracks one often finds large globules of an eternally adhesive black goo in the place where the roller once was. The problem is as common among sealed tapes as it is among those that have been well played. Unless extreme care is exercised upon opening the case and transferring the tape to a new cartridge case, this is a fatal condition; once that goo gets on the tape, you’ll never get it off again.

These are the visual checks one should always make. However, tape formats are heir to a number of flaws that remain undetectable until the tape is played. Magnetic tape is prone to deteriorating with age, with the thin cassette tape especially vulnerable; even a factory-sealed cassette can prove unplayable if the circumstances are right. (Or, in this case, wrong.) Tape is also irreversibly damaged by exposure to magnetic sources, and alarmingly, by the irradiation process introduced by the US Postal Service following the fall 2001 anthrax attacks. Paper products (LP sleeves, CD booklets, etc.), too, can be adversely affected by the process, and should the irradiation system become universal, the ramifications for America’s musical mail-order industry scarcely bear contemplating.

Both 4- and 8-Tracks, can suffer from the loss of the metallic strips that communicate the conclusion of each program to the playing head of the machine—without them, a player will just loop the same songs over and over, and the most varied album in the world will swiftly start sounding somewhat soporific. Back in the heyday of cartridges, this problem was prevalent enough that several companies actually marketed replacement strips. For obvious reasons, these are less commonly available today.

Reel-to-reel tapes, produced as they generally were for the audiophile market, and uncluttered by rollers and the like, are less susceptible to hidden dangers. However, the very action of preparing to play a reel—looping the tape manually into the second spool—can cause terrible problems, ranging from grease on the playing surface to kinks, twists, and even breakage. When purchasing reels, always check for the presence of a short length of blank (and usually opaque) run on tape at the loose end of the reel.

The other key to tape collecting, no less than with LPs and 45s, is to ensure that the packaging is complete and clean.

As far as CDs and cassettes are concerned, this applies only to any appropriate artwork—booklets, liner cases, and so forth. It does not refer to the piece of mass-produced plastic that holds it all together, which is bad news for all those lost souls who complain loudly and bitterly because a mail-order CD arrived in a cracked or otherwise damaged jewel case, and good news for the sellers who know that the case was fine when it was dispatched.

Except in those cases where some kind of customizing incorporates the jewel case into the actual packaging (the personalized Q logo on the spine of Queen’s Made in Heaven CD, for instance), a jewel case (or cassette case) is a jewel case (or cassette case) is a. . . . Damage is regrettable, of course. But it is not the end of the world and it does not irreparably devalue your purchase. Just run down the road and buy a new one.

The World’s Most Valuable Records

No book on record collecting would be complete without a list of the world’s most valuable records—and no two books on record collecting ever seem to agree on what should actually be included on such a list.

There are those supremely elusive nuggets from the dawn of rock’n’ roll—the first R&B LP of all time, a self-titled release by Billy Ward and the Dominoes (Federal 295-94); the Midnighters’ Greatest Hits (Federal 295-90); Johnny Burnette and the Rock ’n’ Roll Trio (Coral CRL 57080); Frank Ballard’s RhythmBlues Party (Phillips International 1985); UK pressings of Ron Harraves’ Latch On (MGM 956); and Bobby Charles’ See You Later, Alligator (London HLU 8247).

There are acetates and demonstration discs that one can only dream about: a second copy of the Quarrymen’s original 78 rpm acetate of That’ll Be the Day, or one of the 50 replicas that Paul McCartney had manufactured in 1981; Elvis’s one-sided How Do You Think I Feel test pressing; Queen’s five-song Trident Studios demo acetate; or the CD promo for Nirvana’s unreleased UK single of Pennyroyal Tea (Scott Litt Mix). Dream on.

There are colored-vinyl albums that exist in quantities of just one copy, surreptitiously pressed by a factory worker to take home as a souvenir. There are hopelessly obscure private pressings by now-fashionable British prog and folk bands. There are demo tapes by every band that ever sought a record deal, and a few by groups that got one—even U2, Radiohead, and Slipknot had to start somewhere.

There is so much that could be listed—and so little that anyone will ever actually find. The following, therefore, concentrates on releases that, theoretically, could turn up at any time, any place, mass-produced (more or less) items that might readily pass for just another everyday issue, and that, very occasionally, have done so. All have accepted values in excess of $1,000; all, to be honest, are as likely to turn up in your local thrift store, garage sale, or grandmother’s loft as any of the fabled obscurities mentioned above. But the devil, as they say, is in the details, and if you don’t know what the details are, then you’ll never know when you’re holding a little slice of record-collecting heaven in your hand.

The Beatles: Introducing the Beatles (US Vee-Jay SR 1062, includes Love Me Do/PS I Love You—1964)

The Beatles’ first American LP was issued in January 1964, at a time when no sane American gave a fig for these longhaired lurkers from Liverpool. . . wherever that was. The album featured 12 songs, including both sides of the band’s first UK single, Love Me Do/PS I Love You, plus ten others featured on the band’s UK debut album, Please Please Me. Planning an issue in both mono and stereo, Vee-Jay ordered 6,000 cover slicks from its printers (Coburn and Co., Chicago), utilizing the same formal band shot that was used on the UK Beatles Hits EP (Parlophone GEP 8880); the reverse of the sleeve depicted tiny color photographs of 25 other Vee-Jay album releases, and no track listing.

A revised sleeve, with a full accounting of the record’s contents, appeared soon after, leading some researchers to believe that both the ad back and what is now regarded as an intermediate issue, with its back cover absolutely blank, were either an oversight or a subtle subterfuge to postpone the inevitable wrath of Capitol Records, which was now taking a close look at Vee-Jay’s right to release the Beatles’ music. Ultimately, this led to the production of a revised edition of Introducing the Beatles, replacing Love Me Do/PS I Love You with the hitherto abandoned Please Please Me/Ask Me Why coupling.

Whatever their origins, the ad-back and blank-back editions of the album are extremely rare in any form, with stereo pressings even harder to find. And then there are stereo versions of the title back, a variation that was not even known to exist prior to 1995.

The Beatles: Please Please Me (UK Parlophone PCS 3042, gold-on-black label—1963)

If stereo releases were sporadic and limited in the US, they were even more so in Britain, where the market was limited exclusively to hi-fi freaks. The initial stereo issue of the Beatles’ debut album, then, was always going to be tiny, but it was about to get even tinier. The first pressing utilized the gold-on-black label that had served Parlophone LPs for several years, but that was now being phased out in favor of a new yellow-on-black design. And the first pressings of that credit the publishing to Dick James Mus[ic] Co.—later ones (and that’s just days later) to the Beatles’ own newly formed Northern Songs.

The Beatles: The Beatles Deluxe Three Pack (Capitol 8X3T 358, 8-Track box set—1969)

Who says 8-Tracks aren’t worth anything? Released in September 1969, the fabled Deluxe Three Pack comprised three apparently randomly selected Beatles albums in a unique 12-inch box set. Meet the Beatles, Yesterday and Today (with the trunk cover, of course), and Magical Mystery Tour were the chosen ones, none of which have especial value in their own right. It is estimated, however, that no more than a dozen copies of the complete box set exist, establishing this as the rarest 8-Track release of all time.

Kate Bush: Eat the Music (UK EMI EM 280—1993) Most collectors believe that the greatest Kate Bush rarities relate either to her pre-fame days and the so-called Cathy demos, or to the 1978-87 period when she was at her most active. In fact, the acknowledged rarest Bush record of all was the projected first British single from her 1993 album, The Red Shoes, Eat the Music/Big Stripey Lie—projected, that is, until radio positively refused to bite. Moving fast, EMI scrapped the entire first-print run, and slammed the decidedly jauntier Rubberband Girl into its place, while retaining the same catalog number and B-side. Picture-sleeve copies of the abandoned Eat the Music escaped regardless, to wreak havoc on the most complete Kate collections—and, doubtless, to raise the hopes of everyone who owns a copy. Good luck. Eat the Music was issued as planned in Europe, Australia, and the US, so it’s only the British one that’s worth a fortune.

Bob Dylan: Mixed Up Confusion (Columbia 42656, orange label—1963)

Dylan’s first-ever single was recorded in November 1962, and released on the heels of a less-than-world-beating debut album, before his second album finally broke Dylan out of the narrow confines of New York’s Woody Guthrie-impersonation circuit. Hardly surprisingly, then, Mixed Up Confusion sold poorly, and while re-pressings would follow the singer’s Is breakthrough, this original issue is extremely rare.

Bob Dylan: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (US Columbia CS 8786/CL 1986, includes four missing tracks—1963)

This is one of those rarities whose legend is now so well-known that it is probably more famous than the album that replaced it. When recording his second LP, Bob Dylan included four songs that—for reasons that are still somewhat obscure—were first placed on, and then removed from, the finished product: Rocks and Gravel, Let Me Die in My Footsteps, Gamblin’ Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand, and a pointed piece of anti-right wing politicizing, Talkin’ John Birch Blues (alternate titles Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues and . . . Paranoid Blues have since appeared on bootleg and official anthologies alike).

The removal of the latter track echoed a decision taken earlier in the year when Dylan appeared on CBS-TV’s The Ed Sullivan Show and was pointedly refused permission to perform the song. The favorite theory is that Columbia, acknowledging the logic of its broadcasting department, prevailed upon Dylan to drop the song from the record, at which point Dylan decided to revise the entire disc to annoy the label as much as it was annoying him.

The album had already been manufactured at this point, with all four songs included. The entire run was withdrawn and prepared for destruction, while the revised edition went into production. Of course not all the original LPs were lost—a tiny number of stereo pressings are known, though all have (so far) appeared in the corrected sleeve. Neither would the repressing itself go as planned. An unknown quantity was produced mistakenly using the original mono master, featuring the four deleted tracks, though the correct new label and sleeve were employed. No sleeves listing the four deleted tracks have ever been located. (Interestingly, the precise opposite situation exists in Canada, where no original or mispressed versions of the LP have yet surfaced, but sleeves have.)

There are American promo editions with the deleted tracks listed on both the timing strip affixed to the front cover and on the label. But none found to date have yet played the banished quartet. No matter: The Freewheelin’Bob Dylan is already regarded as the rarest and most valuable record in America. What difference would another variation really make? Have you checked your copy yet?

Jefferson Airplane: Takes Off (US RCA Victor LSP 3584, with missing/revised tracks—1966)

The Airplane may have reveled in a world of chemical and sexual stimulation, but their record company certainly didn’t. Original mono editions of the group’s debut album hit the stores bearing three songs—Runnin ‘Round This World, Go to Her, and Let Me In—that should probably never have passed the label’s internal censorship department. And when they did. . . the album was promptly sent back for a cleanup.