Top 5 List:
1. 45 - Ty Karim "You Just Don't Know" / "All In Vain" Romark - $4,300.00 Start: $1,999.99 Bids: 5
2. 45 - Tolbert Rojac "Lucky Man" / "I've Got It" Rojac - $3,250.00 Start: $999.00 Bids: 12
3. LP - The Beatles "White Album" Parlophone - $3,050.00 Start: $2,750.00 Bids: 2
4. 45 - Nirvana "Love Buzz" Sub Pop - $2,901.50 Start: $9.99 Bids: 31
5. 45 - Eddie Whitehead "Just Your Fool" / "Give This Fool Another Chance" Black Jack - $2,684.00 Start: $9.99 Bids: 17
Doesn't matter about the economy, there'll always be somebody with money. That is advice my grandmother gave out, along with if you package dog shit just right you can make a million dollars. Even if some boxes I open do have an odor to them, I don't mean to equate the above vinyl treasures with dog shit -- though some of that private press Psych stuff . . . excuse me, in matters of taste there's no argument. Enough cliches. Anyone able and willing to spend a few thousands dollars on a record will always have money, and his heart will always want another record. Ok, that is my own. I'm done now. Yes, the masculine preposition is deliberate. In my professional experience, the people buying records are men who've gotten a divorce. The ones selling their collection are getting remarried. Ok, I'm really done now.
I bring up the above cliches because I've noticed a trend the past several weeks that I think silly, and ocurring mainly because of fear. That is the trend to start bidding high. The top three records this week all began with opening bids of $1k or greater. First, it is typical that most auctioned records on the top 5 start under $100.00. I believe high opening bids to be unnecessary and I believe they insult our customers. Ok, I've never made the top 5 myself. $1.2k is my personal best. But then I've never spent more than $2.00 on a record, and never started bidding at more than $25.00. That's just my way of doing things. However, in the past year of keeping this blog, I have not seen so many records start so high on the top 5. Maybe this week is just a fluke. My gut says sellers feel fear, fear for the economy. If that's the way you feel as a seller, put your inventory up on Craiglist, suck it up, and go scrap for the day jobs all of us have so far been so dishonorably able to avoid. Those who spend the money to put the records in the top 5 list are spending it to have fun, and we don't belong selling the records unless we are having fun too.
For the most part I'll let the list speak for itself this week. Save for one fact. The Nirvana "Love Buzz" that gets the #4 spot this week, sold for over $700.00 more than the one that sold the week ending 3/22. Opening bid for this week's = $9.99. Opening bid for week ending 3/22 = $1,795.00. I'll spell it out again. There'll always be somebody with money.
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