price guides

about collectables and their alleged collectability and value

Last Updated on: March 25, 2020 by Neal Umphred

BUYERS AND SELLERS of collectables—whether records or memorabilia or Beanie Babies—often fail to achieve their goals of financial success because they do not understand a few basic concepts on determining collectability and value of the “seldom found.” Because this a record collectors website, I will generally refer to records below, but you can substitute almost any other collectable and the comments remain virtually unchanged. [Continue reading]

my first record show as a dealer (rock of ages part 1)

Last Updated on: May 5, 2021 by Neal Umphred

WE HAD BEEN TOGETHER for a year when we finally decided to make the move from the sultry summers of the East Coast to the more moderate West Coast. It was 1978 and the dreams of ‘the sixties’ didn’t seem so far off. Working two jobs each, we had saved the equivalent of $10,000 in today’s dollars. [Continue reading]

the avid collectors’ guide to wild in the streets part 4

Last Updated on: July 27, 2021 by Neal Umphred

THIS IS PART 4 of the Avid Record Collector’s Price Guide to Wild In The Streets. It addresses in detail the four albums associated with that movie and its music. The first three parts have been published, and with this part I finally get around the a labelography and price guide for the records. [Continue reading]

introduction to rather rare records
(a blog for those who never gave up their turntables)

Last Updated on: January 16, 2023 by Neal Umphred

MY INTRODUCTION TO WRITING RECORD REVIEWS was for my high school newspaper in 1969. Like most nerds with cool record collections given a pulpit, I wrote condescendingly about the artists and music that my classmates liked. I remember damning Glen Campbell and dismissing Cream’s farewell album. [Continue reading]

surfing guitars and instrumental surf bands of the early ’60s

Last Updated on: July 27, 2021 by Neal Umphred

ARGUING THE ‘BEST’ ROCK GUITAR PLAYERS of the ’60 is probably a pretty dumb way to waste time—and “Surfing Guitars” will not be doing that! Considerably more constructive and interesting would be an argument as to who were—and that’s intentionally plural—the most ‘creative’ players. Of course, to reach any kind of consensus there would require that we first agree on a definition of ‘creative’ in that context! [Continue reading]

I’ll give you a hundred bucks for it right now!

Last Updated on: July 3, 2022 by Neal Umphred

THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVE STORIES about interacting with a collector at a convention. For the most part, I learned far more from collectors than they learned from me in these face-to-face exchanges: whatever I heard of value went into my price guides. But there were instances where I was definitely of value to a collector. [Continue reading]

fighting over jutta hipp at a record collectors convention

Last Updated on: July 3, 2022 by Neal Umphred

WAY BACK IN THE ’90s, I attended a couple of record collectors conventions on the East Coast. One was in New York, one in Virginia, both within days of each other in 1996. Setting up as a dealer at an East Coast show was something that I hadn’t done since leaving Pennsylvania eighteen years earlier! [Continue reading]

how to meet girls at record collectors conventions

Last Updated on: April 21, 2018 by Neal Umphred

BACK IN THE ’90s, when I was publishing record collectors price guides with Krause Publications, I started working on a book tentatively titled INTRODUCTION AND GUIDE TO RECORD COLLECTING. I intended it to have 100 mini-chapters on various aspects of collecting—from learning to identify original pressings and knowing the difference between a reproduction and a bootleg, to how-to’s on buying and selling at collectors conventions. [Continue reading]

cantaloupe eyes come to me tonight

Last Updated on: April 25, 2021 by Neal Umphred

WHEN I ARRIVED AT MY OFFICE on a day in early 1987, I was handed a package that had arrived earlier. As I worked at home more often than “at work,” my schedule of arriving and departing varied from day to day. My job was editor of a line of price guides for record collectors published by O’Sullivan Woodside and formerly associated with other authors. [Continue reading]