By Soulaholic (68.41.40.105) on Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 10:39 pm:

Hello All:
Here are a couple of prime examples of just being plain stupid!!! I may be wrong but you tell me if I am or not.

On a web site that has auctions the song by
Carol Anderson - Sad Girl c/w I'll Get Off At The Next Stop - Fee

How many records made in 1979, captured that true Detroit Soul feeling ? This 45 does it perfectly, absolutely beautiful song, arrangement and delivery. Check out the flip which is also a stunnin'tune. No rare soul collection could be complete without this.

This was the info about the tune the Bid is up to 216 British Sterling Pounds or $397.44 U.S. Dollars

I just bought this 45 last tuesday for 50 cents. I have two copies and may have another. There is nothing special about this tune at all and I know that if I went record hunting on Monday I could find two or three copies no sweat!!!

I can't believe that anyone would pay that much for a tune that is so easy to obtain.

Second example:

I visit several stores in the metro Detroit area on a regular basis. So I have a good feel for what is happening with the 45's in theses stores.

This week an individual from Japan walked into one of these stores and bought all the 45's at the asking price, no questions I'll just take them all was the response. On average 2 to 4 dollars a piece was the price range on these tunes.

Now I have dug through all of these tune and I know I have anything that was worth anything in my collection. Yet because it was there it got bought price was no object mentality gone wild.

What has become of the buying of 45's because they are rare and they are good and they deserve the price they have on them because of those factors.

All I know is that if the buy it at any cost horde keeps pushing the price up, what I have is going to change from tens of thousands of dollars in value to hundreds of thousands to maybe even the big Million during my life time.

So with that in mind let me paraphrase the statue of liberty plaque. Give me your mindless idiots willing to buy at any price the crap we have washed across our shores. I've got some ADC band stuff that from Detroit you can all buy at $300 bucks a pop, as much as you want.

By CORNBREAD (66.185.84.74) on Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 11:33 pm:

Hey Soulaholic: I feel your pain. I've got a fair bit of vinyl and the most I've ever paid for a 45 is $10. This was worth every penny as it was a late 40's song on Decca by Louis Jordan. Condition was mint. This is probably the only single I've ever paid $10 for in my entire life.I can't recall spending more than $10 for an album either.

Majority of my singles were purchased for less than a dollar each.I must admit that I've done more than my share of record scavenging. I have to spread the cost of record hunting trips onto the cost of my records, so I guess the actual unit price is much higher than the face value I spent for each record.

Bottom line for me is, I ain't spending no house buying amount of dollars for any record. I betcha ! Funny thing, most of the so called mega dollar records sound like crap to my ears !

By Robb_K (66.81.16.222) on Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 12:47 am:

There are people in U.K. and Japan that can't afford the time to come to USA to look for and find these records on the cheap. Or else, they can't afford to pay for airline tickets, hotels and rental cars to spend a week or 2 or 3 looking for records (and possibly come up empty). It's easier for them to pay a dear price for a specific record they want badly. I don't like the fact that they've bid up the prices of a lot of records I might have other wise gotten at low prices, and now can never afford the original, but they have also "saved" a lot of unknown or little known recordings for us soul fans, and for posterity (so I have mixed emotions about the NS "phenomenon". It has also helped me to finally obtain a record I've been looking for for 40 years, and never seen after a couple of months after its release: "I Got A Girl" by Major Lance on Mercury (backed up by The Impressions). I swapped what to me was a "decent, but run-of-the-mill Northern Soul record. Without the U.K. scene, I may never have seen the record again. A bloke became a Major Lance fan through knowledge of his later Okeh "stompers", but would rather have the NS record I swapped him than the 1959 Major Lance pre-NS song. On the other hand, the Brit probably got it in the junk pile portion of a NS dealer's stash from trips to USA warehouses. So, if the Brit dealers hadn't been scarfing up millions of soul records from US record shops and distributors and record companies, I might have found several of those very records in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and other North American cities, for much less money. Who can say? The situation is as it is, and we must deal with it as it is. Nothing productive in harping on it.

By Soulaholic (68.41.40.105) on Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 09:32 am:

Hey Cornbread & Robb K:

Glad to hear from you both, I can see we are preaching to the choir about this subject. But hey Robb K it may not be productive, but it is fun to harp about it!!!

I agree with what you both say. Yes the affect that NS has had on the 45 trade is bizzare! But the truth is in the states the common person does not have a clue about NS. So when they bring in mom's old collection or clear out what big sis had or even their own 45 & lp collections they don't have a clue as to what they truly have. Now the vinyl shops pay about 10 to 25 cents for these collections per piece.

The challenge for the shops is the rapid changes and development of the NS scene. They all have the want list that the folks from UK & Japan have sent them and the internet to track what is and is not hot if they can find it. But, there is that but again. Not every and all tunes are mentioned or hot at a particular time.

Then add into the mix the collectors who live here and their relationships with the store owner. The example I gave about the store being bought out was just the stuff he had put out on display. Every store I go to has records that are placed aside for certain individuals. If I come into your shop and drop a couple of hundred bills a week, most owners are going to see a steady income and act accordingly to maintain that relationship.

The owner of the store told me what had happened and the fella from Japan did not even make an offer or attempt to dicker at all on the price!!!? He just paid top dollar and was okay with it! The owner would have gave a better price for mass quanity if asked, but he was not.

So now I am looking at all the new 45's he had to get out of storage and had not seen the light of day in a couple of decades. Cha-Ching! it was good for me and the fellow soulie who was looking for NS as we laughed and plowed through the virgin vinyl that was layed at our feet in boxes covered in dust. Oh yes he had placed out a complete replacement of the 45's that where displayed with his endless supply of stock 45's that had been sold to him by promo reps during the 70's. So to the novice it looked great, but to the afficianado it was the cream of the crap sitting out with the occassional okay slider.

Heck I walked out of the store with tunes by Ruby & the Romantics, Eugene Record, J.J. & G., The Individuals, Hodges, James & Smith, Sam Russell, Blacksmoke, Jeannie Reynolds, Shirley Ceasar, Seventh Wonder, William Bell, Shawb Jackson, Damon Shawn, William DeVaughn, Greg Perry, Lamont Dozier, Magic Disco Band, Nature Zone, Good Bread Alley and many more.I know that the fellow with me found several NS classics that made him very happy.

So if you look at this individual event and multiply it many times you can see why there are so many tunes that don't mean a thing until someone who want's it comes along and desires it. Like you example of that very sweet (Cool, clean, desireable) don't want to confuse adjective's Major Lance 45 (wasn't that back when he was just a Sargent?) Your story just crystalizes my point, " A bloke became a Major Lance fan through knowledge of his later Okeh "stompers", but would rather have the NS record I swapped him than the 1959 Major Lance pre-NS song." He only wanted the tunes he knew from the Stompers. Even though what he had was pure heaven. I could go off on that whole subject, but I believe that rant should be saved for an other day. So the reality of what you are saying is that the NS scene is it's own worst enemy. The buyers who come over "Buy at any cost because they have a captive market at home" That is not to say that every buyer is like that, but I'm sure it does happen more times than naught. Heck if I know that I can charge the big Yen or Pound at home and those Soulies will pay then why not, seems to be the mentality. I am sure that the price is driven by the wankers that You, Mel and several other Brits has mentioned before; they got into the game because it is cool and the in thing for the late comers to the scene. So they have the dough and they shell out the clams for the treats, not even knowing what the history or the real value and meaning the tune holds for some individuals. So they pay and play at an inflated price and it rips across the scene and the end result is we discuss it on the web and bitch and moan or laugh and giggle at the whole thing depending on which side of the pond we sit on.

You have to remember that no matter how many soul records that the buyers from Japan, Germany, or the The United Kingdom have smuggled away from their anstestral home. LOL There are way more just sitting around, waiting to be found and played. Records are made to be sold and most of them where sold and are not just sitting around in warehouses and record stores waiting for the overseas buyers to come and take away. The only thing I would say about the NS scene is that Soul music has always been here in the states and there has always been a much larger group of individuals that has loved and collected that type of music here in the states. I am very glad of the die hard crazy Soulies from the UK and their never ending love for this type of music. It has given a shot in the arm to the large but quite scene of soul lovers in this country.

So as the big plane fly's east with the intrepid buyers with dreams of pounds and new discoveries in their head, back to that misty Isle with all those soul goodies I wave goodbye as I sit on my very large never ending stack of 45's and say thanks for coming and come back soon there plenty more of this to share and I FOR ONE AM VERY GLAD TO SHARE IT WITH YOU, MY FELLOW SOULAHOLICS.

Well I know I went on a little, but a little harping is good for the Soul Music that is.

Send me a list!!!!

By Robb_K (66.81.31.56) on Monday, April 05, 2004 - 12:27 am:

Interesting point of view, Soulaholic. I can't send you my list, as I couldn't pull up your e-mail address from this post. Or was that just a figurative statement?

By Soulaholic (68.41.40.105) on Monday, April 05, 2004 - 12:58 am:

Hey Robb:

mitzmob2000@yahoo.com

Be glad to give a look for you during my travels.

By roger (217.35.87.17) on Monday, April 05, 2004 - 07:53 am:

Hi there Soulaholic.

Greetings from a cool, cloudy London.

"Sad Girl" by CAROL ANDERSON has been an "in-demand" item in the U.K. since its first appearance in 1979. Indeed it got a U.K. release on Grapevine Records .. an R.C.A distributed label that specialised in releasing obscure "Northern" soul releases, in the early 1980's.

I have a Grapevine copy and even 10 years back they were going for about £10.00 a time. I think I paid about £1.50 for mine in the mid '80s .. but then, when it comes to buying records, I would make Scrooge seem like generousity personified!!

More recently it was included on one of Goldmine records C.Ds .. one of the "Wigan Casino" collections.

It is actually a classic example of a "Northern"/"Modern" soul crossover record .. i.e. it has a "60's" feel, but "70's" production values. There are a number of separate, and in many ways quite distinct rare/old soul scenes in the U.K. .. "Northern", "Modern", "Sixties", "Rare Groove", "80's Groove" etc. all of which have their own followers, and records that can command attention on more than one of them will often sell at ridiculous prices.

The other obvious classic example of this is "Party Time Man" by THE FUTURES .. which I believe must have been re-issued (or at least someone has found new copies in bulk) as it is now being advertised by a number of U.K. retailers at £10.00. If you recall the "Insane Brits Part II" thread, it was up for auction at John Manship Records and the last time I looked it was up to £180.00, before mysteriously disappearing off the auction list!!

And my verdict on "Sad Girl" ... a nice, pleasant bouncy dancable tune that I'm pleased to have in my collection. But would I pay £200 for it .. NO WAY .. I'm not that insane!!

Roger

By Flynny (81.131.249.20) on Monday, April 05, 2004 - 08:13 am:

Emotion + ignorance can lead to OTT prices?

Along with rarity, one must now also consider personal memories that these kinda discs evoke...I mean, the NSoul scene has been around sooo long now that many of the over-the-top bidders (I assume?) are folk simply wanting to revisit their youth and revive happy/pleasant memories associated with certain 45's. Ain't nothing wrong with that...but yes, it does puzzle me as to why with just a little research on the net (it's not as if there's a lack of websites/label scans/soulies willing to talk about discs!)could save these folk x100's of £$...this is particularly relevant when it comes to being able to recognise an original/bootleg...we've just been discussing on our forum the fact that an 'obvious looking' '2nd issue' fooled someone into paying $200 for a $20 max disc...should we pity the fool, be annoyed at the disc's possible misleading discription...neither or both. This topic can go round and round...let's not discuss , eh?! ;-)

Flynny
raresoulforum.com