Vinyl valuations
(Article in National Post - 17 January 2004)

Most old records are worthless, and those that aren't have to be in mint condition to merit collector attention. But once in a while you find the 'holy grail'...
 
David Menzies
Financial Post

Record collector Brian Mensour heads The Record Cellar, a Web site devoted to buying and selling collectible albums. He says some of the factors that jack up the price of LPs are misprints, notoriety and the artist's recent death. CREDIT: Peter J. Thompson, National Post

I'm sitting across from Brian Mensour in his small warehouse east of Toronto. The shelves around us groan under the weight of recorded music, from albums to cassettes to CDs. Mr. Mensour is flipping through my records, a rag tag collection of dusty LPs and 45s from the '70s and '80s.

Like a good little consumer, I've replaced each one with a shiny silver CD. Yet the question begs: should I toss all this vinyl into the dumpster, or is some of this stuff worth something to someone? The thought has surely occurred to millions given the mountains of LPs languishing in basements and garages.

If anyone knows, it's Mr. Mensour. He heads The Record Cellar (www.recordcellar.ca), a Web site devoted to buying and selling collectible albums. Unsurprisingly, he's a walking, talking encyclopedia of recorded music, and any tidbits of trivia he hasn't committed to memory can easily be tracked down via one of his many reference books.

The first thing to know is, the odds that you're sitting on a gold mine are slim: the vast majority of LPs are worthless in terms of collectible value. But exceptions are there, and fetch princely sums. "There's gold everywhere," says Mr. Mensour, whose personal collection consists of 15,000 albums, 10,000 CDs, 5,000 45s and hundreds of DVDs.

Record collectors tend to be a fanatical bunch. Mr. Mensour personally has a passion for Jethro Tull and seems to possess just about everything ever produced by the band. His pride and joy is a framed platinum record and cassette that commemorate the sale of three million copies of Aqualung. The plaque was originally presented to a record executive, then found its way to a U.K. dealer, who eventually sold it to Mr. Mensour. Today, it's worth more than US$1,000.

He also owns "the holy grail" of Jethro Tull recordings: a 45 that mistakenly lists the band's name as "Jethro Toe." This album now fetches more than US$700. "Misprints and mispressings will always increase the value," he says.

Other items precious to collectors are "the stuff that was never meant to be sold to the public," Mr. Mensour says. This includes promo albums destined only for radio stations and music reviewers.

Another factor that affects the value of a record is notoriety, especially if a recall ensues. For example, in 1982 an unauthorized release of the Beatles' Abbey Road in Japan resulted in the CD being recalled and then destroyed. Today, the remaining copies command US$450.

Then there are the oddball anomalies. For example, Tori Amos -- "back in her bad pop days" -- was the vocalist for an obscure band called Y Kant Tori Read. The group's self-titled debut bombed in 1988 and Mr. Mensour says you could have found it selling in delete bins for less than $3 back then. Such a purchase would have been a prudent investment: when Tori Amos rose to stardom in the early '90s, the value of the Y Kant Tori Read release soared to US$425.

Despite such stories, Mr. Mensour says it's impossible to speculate on future collectibles, given that in a typical year, more than 5,000 albums are released, of which only 200 to 300 are successful.

Much like the stock market, there are peaks and valleys in vinyl valuation. For example, in the days following George Harrison's death in 2001, records bearing the former Beatle's autograph doubled in price. Mr. Mensour himself sold a George Harrison-autographed record for $800; he estimates the same item would fetch less than $500 today.

But, like the stock market, the world of record collecting is a minefield. For instance, there are no fewer than 15 versions of Introducing the Beatles (1963). The difference between them may be just the order of the songs, but the details count. The most sought-after version sells for as much as US$15,000.

And, as in other collectible areas, fakes abound. Mr. Mensour owns a version of Introducing the Beatles himself -- a counterfeit one. "It was easy to tell this was a phony because the real cover has George Harrison casting a shadow," he says. He paid $10 for it and bought it simply as a conversation piece.

So how do you determine the value of an old LP? Before hauling a box of records to a store that buys collectible vinyl, Mr. Mensour advises phoning ahead to find out what the owner is interested in. "If you're going to bring down a pile of absolute crap, you're just wasting everyone's time," he says. And be sure you're dealing with a reputable operation, not somebody who would give you $20 for an LP worth $1,000.

Mr. Mensour also discourages investing in any of the several pricey guides on the market. "You can pay $50 for a price guide only to find out you have about $4 worth of stuff," he says. Besides, he notes, so-called "book value" rarely mirrors what the item will fetch in the real world.

Rather, he suggests logging onto eBay or GEMM (www.gemm.com), which bills itself as the world's largest music catalogue. You can also pose questions about the value of specific records to veteran vinyl collectors in the Platter Chatter section of RecordCollecting.com.

Notably, when dealing with collectors, both the album and the cover must be in mint condition. "If there's a scratch on the record or a tear in the cover, forget it," says Mr. Mensour as he peers at my LPs. "People collecting vinyl are anal."

Alas, things don't look promising for your correspondent as Mr. Mensour quickly relegates each album to the "forget it" stack. I have high expectations for my "Tarzan Boy" 12-inch single by one-hit wonder Baltimora, simply because it's surely be a rarity. And I'm especially hopeful that my LP of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", the 1984 effort by Band Aid to raise money for Ethiopian famine victims, will merit something.

Unfortunately, Mr. Mensour doesn't even blink as he gently tosses "Tarzan Boy" onto the reject stack. As for Do They Know It's Christmas?, he notices the hopeful glint in my eyes as he places it atop the Baltimora offering. There's no denying the album is a curiosity piece, he grants, before adding, "Sorry, it's just that there are millions of these things out there." Like all commodities, a huge supply means depressed prices.

Finally, Mr. Mensour carefully inspects the covers and the vinyl quality of three albums he has set aside: Love by The Cult, The Beatles' 1967-1970 (the so-called "Blue Album") and U2's debut album, War. To my delight, each is placed in what he calls "the keeper pile." For a few moments, I'm ecstatic that I didn't sell these at my garage sale last summer. Then Mr. Mensour makes me an offer:

"I can give you $5 for all three."

The moment is right out of Antique Roadshow, complete with my crestfallen expression. Mr. Mensour says he might get $5 apiece should he list the records on his site. I decide to gamble on bigger profits at my next garage sale.

© National Post 2004