General Observations

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS fea­tures ar­ti­cles that don’t fit com­fort­ably into any of the other cat­e­gories.

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collectors collect to collect (because the collector wants what the collector wants)

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GoldenEarsPark header

FOR THOSE OF YOU with an in­terest in col­lecting, the Record Col­lec­tors Guild web­site is a forum ti­tled Ask Neal Umphred. Anyone can ask me any­thing and as I am often an ab­sentee land­lord, others may an­swer the ques­tion in my stead. A few days ago, I was asked a ques­tion by a Guild member who wheels and deals records out of Mexico:

“Neal, could you ex­plain why anyone would want a ‘rare’ Mex­ican pressing of a less-than-mediocre Dylan record? READ MORE

managerial problems faced by a rock & roll band

by
FloEddie800

I JUST STUMBLED over this on Face­book and I wanted to post it here im­me­di­ately sans com­men­tary. This is a lesson that EVERY one of you wannabe recording artists should watch until it is burned into the deepest re­cesses of your lizard-brain: a brief de­scrip­tion of the man­age­rial prob­lems faced by a rock and roll band …

Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman of The Tur­tles talk about their man­agers

If you don’t know these ar­tic­u­late lec­turers, they are Mark Volman (the hair) and Howard Kaylan (the beard). READ MORE

and we’ve got to text ourselves back to the garden

by
Woodstock800

AT THE WOODSTOCK Music & Art Fair in 1969 we all back to the garden (and the mud puddle). Just the name con­jures im­ages in most peo­ple’s minds—regardless-of age—of youth in­no­cence joy music color summer even of end­less hori­zons and pos­si­bil­i­ties. And one-on-one person-with-person in­ti­macy being here now in­ti­macy grokking the mo­ment. READ MORE

fake autographed rock memorabilia sold at charity fundraisers

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FakeAutographs Beatles 1500 crop

FAKE AUTOGRAPHS on rock & roll mem­o­ra­bilia being sold at charity fundraisers sounds like the act of a mis­an­thrope or even a so­ciopath more. Cheating folk who are spending money knowing that it will go to help others is rather das­tardly. And yet, huge sums of money are being spent on forg­eries every day! READ MORE

the great mispriced record sale

by
FleaMarket

I MOVED FROM PENNSYLVANIA TO CALIFORNIA in 1978, ending up in Napa. It was a nice little city that more or less served as the north­bound gateway to the wine country. I im­me­di­ately made friends with the owner of the city’s only used-record store, who I will call Haitch. READ MORE

some commonly misused terms in record collecting

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Turntable1 1500

THERE IS SOME CONFUSION re­garding the use of cer­tain terms for buying and selling records that is ram­pant on the In­ternet! It is also true at record stores, record col­lec­tors con­ven­tions, and through the mail using self-published sale lists, ads in mag­a­zines such as Goldmine—but not to the de­gree that ones en­coun­ters it on the ‘Net. READ MORE

on determining collectability value rather rare records

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Beatles bobbleheads no boxes 1000

BUYERS AND SELLERS of col­lec­tables, whether records or record re­lated mem­o­ra­bilia or bloody Beanie Ba­bies, often fail to achieve their goals of fi­nan­cial suc­cess be­cause they do not un­der­stand a few basic con­cepts con­cerning the na­ture of a collectable—any col­lec­table. Be­cause this a record col­lec­tors web­site, I will refer to records in this essay, but you can sub­sti­tute al­most any other col­lec­table and the com­ments re­main vir­tu­ally un­changed. READ MORE