For me, as a reseller, one of the worst comments a potential seller can make is "I looked up some of the prices on eBay". My rebuttal is usually "well sell them on eBay then." I only buy from sellers who are realistic in evaluating their records worth..

People seeing $$$ in this hobby I appreciate you GI you give back a lot for free-priceless and you are not pretentious thankful!

Love the video. Definitely agree that what makes some of the vintage records even more rare is when they are sealed.

A great topic👍

Great video !

Recently bought a Japanese Promo pressing of Joy Division - Unknown pleasures with OBI and insert. The standard Japanese press of this is pretty scarce but the promo is drastically. One with the OBI has never even sold on discogs!

Desire and rarity is what determines price of a near mint item. Desire can range but wants vs haves is a key metric. Lesser grades come into play when there were not many pressed and few are currently on market. Lesser grades are usually nominal to budget for chart stuff.

Very interesting and informative.

Looking on Discogs median value, I can say that it's not set in stone since values of my most valuable records have changed quite a lot since last time I check a couple years ago. The other thing that can affect rarity/value is represses. I remember the uproar online when Pink Floyd repressed Pulse as before the original pressing was going for around $400 and then comes the remastered repress at $80 (or even less depending when and where you got it). I have a original binaural copy of Stereolab - Margerine Eclipse which used to be valued over $100 now it's median valued at $43. Granted Stereolab also reissued all the album in expanded versions (mine is valued at $34) I have one record that was quite rare by a french rock band that I bought back in the day in 1991, it's still valued $105, but it used to be a bit more but again it has been repressed. Daft punk Homework and Discovery still are valued high but not as much as they were (like over $200) The one I don't understand is an EP from Slowdive, "Outside your Room" from 1993, this is still valued at $90, it's just a 4 track single.. and it has been repressed by MOV, but it still valued I know I have records from some mall bandcamp bands that were pressed like 25 or 50 or up to 300 copies but those are not necessarily "rare" since nobody know about them (a mistake in a few cases) and therefore they are not sought after and have little to no value. These days nearly all King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are highly in demand as they release pretty limited numbers and dozens of variants for their albums it can get crazy pretty quick. If I can get a color variant at regular price, I will otherwise I'm happy with the regular black vinyl version. It's just sometimes even these versions are hard to come by.

I have gotten into a couple specific modern soul labels. Colemine Records, Daptone records ( and their west coast Division Penrose records) and some of the pressings are going for crazy money to me. For example, Colemine records just came out with a east LA Souldie group (Thee Sinseers) is already going for 80 bucks on Discogs and more on ebay. 600 were pressed on fire swirl colored vinyl, and there are a couple more exclusives even more limited that go for more money. What's crazy is this record just released less then a month ago.

1994 beck mellow gold no barcode and only on bong load records. Rare to me. Love the channel

I have a queen X-Men cover on the News of the World LP .only 240 known to have been pressed.

Fair points. It’s pretty much supply and demand. But I get the condition point for sure. Been tougher to find clean records out there. The geography definitely. The rarest record I know is a Chilean record I have been after for 7 years and have only seen for sale online 4 times, once with the original poster in vg+ condition. For me it’s the rarest because I cannot find it. I have reached out to resellers/collectors there and they tell me it’s virtually impossible to find. My rarest record is Venezuelan pressing of Manduka with alternate tracks. At one point I was one of two people on discogs who had it. I think a few have popped up for sale since but I also had a hand in getting the discogs listing right. I also have a couple of one of a kind hand drawn covers from a small pressed Brazilian contemporary jazz record. It’s absolutely amazing but no one knows about it. Hoping it becomes a future classic but I doubt it.

Test Press'! Love them and they're always "rare" at least as far as a variant. Or something like Death Grips "Exmilitary", i believe 500 were pressed (not including bootlegs) but it will never officially be repressed due to unlicensed samples all over it...

Hi GI, started following you after your interview w/the Discogs folks. I've been collecting vinyl for almost 50 years, specifically 12" dance & new wave, but I have many LP's... and while recently inputting into my Discogs collection, I was blown away that a Nirvana "Nevermind" album went for $1000! Please, if you could enlighten me on how the hell that happens, please, I'm all ears.

Great explanation of all the nuances that can make something that is mass produced and has many presses available but maybe one of those presses is only 300 copies and is numbered, that’s much different than having a copy of one of the presses that has thousands

If I can't find it/no one ever has it- then it's rare!

One in collection like your view… European 1st Press of PJ Harvey’s Rid Of Me. Though also have a first press of Sia’s Color The Small One signed by her AND the Natalie (who is the namesake of track 7 of the album) as well hold dear a signed copy of Laughing Clowns (self-titled). Idea - maybe - for a future talk… how signatures de/value a record.

I live in Maine and rarely ever see Towne Van Zandt or Guy Clark. You're right about that!

Rickie lee Jones Traffic from Paradice or Del Amitri Waking hours or Poi Dog Pondering self titled and Jerry Hahn's Moses album are my unusual albums, are they rare? I don't know but I like them.

I have an album I picked up somewhere that I didn't know what it was as it has a blank white cover and blank labels on the disc's and I haven't had a turntable to play it on. I recently got a turntable and I discovered it's the Rolling Stones! Sounds like live but maybe early and smaller venues? I don't know how to search it as it has no info on it, totally blank. Might you know anything about it North Texas Vinyl? Or how I could search it?

In my personal opinion the only records that are rare are the ones that have the certified receipts, such as perhaps the very first Elvis, Beatles, or demos, etc. record to be pressed or other certifiable item. I get a laugh when I hear people say that original pressings are rare or collectable, that is bologna. I have tons of original pressings and can say that they are NOT rare nor "collectable". They just happen to be part of the original distribution of say 6000 to 10,000 or more as a measurement of demand, which is standard procedure. If demand is high enough then more records are pressed and distributed that year, which makes those subsequent pressings "common". Pressings done up to two years later for stock can "technically" also be called original pressings, but the point is that the first originals or not rare as there could be up to 100,000 of such pressings in the year of release. The "rarest" LP I have if you can count it as rare (I do not) is a box set from Mannheim Steamroller that was done in the 80s of which about 10,000 were made. Based on the condition of my copy (NOS) I see it consistently around $250 give or take $20 from day to day. Personally, I think it is worth maybe $40. As for the rest of my 800+ records, if I went by the prices I see, I could be sitting on $3,000,000, but I prefer reality and I am sitting on maybe $2000 tops ($2 each, though I paid a bit more) regardless of condition.

So you're telling me my Herb Alpert records aren't rare!?!?!?

Elvis European fan club titles are worth a bit. Most of the popular artists are not desired today. (ie Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, Debbie Boone, Partridge family, Carol Douglas, Tennessee Ernie Ford) Knowing underground scenes is where the rarity is found. Even then much of it is nominal.

I have the Buckingham Nicks vinyl album.

Another reason why albums are very rare...the session and the album master is either lost or destroyed[2008 UMG fire]. Does this make a vinyl only copy very rare, i think so..i don't know of any other artists whose session or album master is lost etc. and yet the album is available. On a session recording sheet where would it be listed as how many copies are pressed. I saw on discogs that the rarest US 45 on Connie Francis ATASHI NO/SWANNEE MGM K 13005..i saw it listed for $700...although the tracks are common.The very extreme rare EP for Connie Francis is a 7''EP Transcription called THE SISTER AND THE SAVAGE on NATIONAL RECORDING STUDIOS N-AD-3472 issued in late 1966 with tracks only from the Bob Hope theatre tv movie of the same name. Now the rarest of my extensive CF would be an Australia stereo LP AWARD WINNING MOTION PICTURE HITS MGM S02 7592 [March 1962] that feature the original playbacks.I found a copy in M/M condition[for £12] just before Bear Family could not locate the masters or album master so i sent them this to remaster and it did make it on her 1960;s 1st set. She overdubbed the new playbacks a year later to her original 1962 vocals and which are superior arrangements and was issued in US on MGM E/SE 4048. Her rarest UK album would be MGM C/CS 8110 HAWAII CONNIE with the original hawaii mix, while the US album, was remixed to make a 'pop' sound on MGM SE 4522.

I thought Phil Lesh Seastones was rare also It’s ABeautiful Day Discogs does not think so. I guess my Sgt peppers and my Gilded Palace of Sun I have others Jimi Stones Janis I just love vinyl hate to part with it at any price! Agree?

Its funny. I collect records - first and foremost - for me. I listen to them. But when friends or relatives hear that I have a collection they always think that the records they have are worth a bunch of money and want me to either buy them or take them. And, the majority of that stuff is on the level of Goodwill. I once had someone 'gift' me records, which was nice, but most of it was Barbara Streisand and Dan Fogelberg. They thought the Fogelberg must be worth something because he's dead.

Promo copies and test pressings are rarer, some people just collect those. Also, the 1st pressings are usually rarer than the many later pressings.

Antichrist Superstar Marilyn Manson

IMHO you are conflating rare with expensive/desirable records. For rarity, I would argue for either strictly numbers pressed (of a particular version), maybe numbers available now (regardless of price). Geography only comes into play if you are talking about finding records in the wild; with Discogs the whole marketplace is globalized, so geography has become less important. -- Some of my records are truly single items (e.g., Volcan's "chanson pour le néant" art edition #5, edition of 1, 128-label "friendship editions" which literally have my name engraved in them, have 5 different ones, or one of 23 copies of Glaring's selected works, lathe cut). Other special ones include Artless/GG-Allin split lp, signed by all members of Artless, Zowiso "The Lust" with personal letter on inner sleeve. Most rare=expensive standard record is Vorkriegsjugend "Heute Spass - Morgen Tod" 1.5 single at discogs median of ~$200. Mind you, about 20% of my records have no discogs "value" as they have not sold recently. I guess that makes them "rare" as well.

I happened to come across an exclusive preorder for Droids Attack sci-fi or die, limited press of 600 , 300 red, 300 blue, it sold out with no plans for another release (RARE) .. i also have a copy of pink Street Boys (Iceland release) only 2 available in America and i have one of them, to me its rare but in Iceland its definitely not . Only 2 i can consider at the moment