# Building a Vinyl Classical Collection



## WVdave (Jun 18, 2017)

I'm relatively new to collecting classical vinyl -- I've been gathering some stuff over the last few months and have put together a small collection of about 200 records or so. 

Wondering, if there a good guide to find out what the best collectable classical records are and what they are worth? I'm not looking to trade or sell any of my stuff, but I would like to know if any of it is valuable. 

I've been trying to stay with the major labels and artists, but could use a little help in this area.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

You either collect a performance because you like it, and appreciate the sound of vinyl -- or you assemble "collectibles" in hermetically sealed plastic envelopes like comic book or baseball card collectors do, which doesn't really require any sense of or appreciation for music. If the latter, I'm sure there are lists of desirables you can find online.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I'm still perturbed by 200 records being a 'small' collection. I only have 175 CDs and half of those I've had for around 25 years! I still have kept some vinyl records, but it only amounts 30 including a copy of Switched on Bach tiphat.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I still have several thousand albums on Vinyl but I've never looked up a price to see if they are worth anything. I only listen to them.

I do however have a friend who exclusively sells Vinyl for a living and he's never mentioned any Classical albums being worth a great deal of money to me. He's sold lots of records for hundreds of dollars and a few for thousands of dollars. Those have all been rare pressings of either a big pop band like The Beatles or rare independent label releases for like Punk or Rockabilly or Metal music. That's where most of the money is at from what he has said. From my understanding a mass produced album from DG or EMI or Columbia isn't going to be worth much unless it's new and sealed in the plastic.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

The website https://www.popsike.com/ is a pretty good guide as to what vinyl is worth.

I use them often. But don't expect to see high $$$ for classical recordings.

I own about 1500 records, and a couple of thousand CDs. A combination of jazz, prog-rock, and classical.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I have a lot of vinyl is mint to near-mint condition that I can't bring myself to throw out. Someone has to appreciate it, right? There are some treasures in fine pressings. Alas, if I don't get rid of them in a yard sale or give them to Goodwill, the kids will put them in the landfill. Any takers?


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> I have a lot of vinyl is mint to near-mint condition that I can't bring myself to throw out. Someone has to appreciate it, right? There are some treasures in fine pressings. Alas, if I don't get rid of them in a yard sale or give them to Goodwill, the kids will put them in the landfill. Any takers?


Where do you live? I may be interested!

There are plenty of brick and mortar record stores in most decently large cities all over the world. The number has grown in the last 5 years, since the "vinyl resurgence".


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I got shot of a lot of CDs over the last 4 of 5 years. Mostly the budget buys, because I replaced them with purely digital files. I can link these to my hi-fi system and the sound is great. 
The only CDs I have kept are those with either some personal value or because the works on them haven't been reissued and that the performance is particularly good. Same deal for the vinyl, though I may have foolishly sold more of those on the mistaken assumption that they would be easily replaceable on CD.

Vinyl isn't as great as people make out. It's good, but reel-to-reel tape was always better. Top-notch 1/4" tape running at the slowest rate available per second is superb. Just expensive.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

> Wondering, if there a good guide to find out what the best collectable classical records are and what they are worth? I'm not looking to trade or sell any of my stuff, but I would like to know if any of it is valuable.


The good guide are your ears, nothing else, I buy a lot from my local second hand shop and if I like the music it's a pre if not I swap them for something else.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

A good guide to check on the actual prices in the market for records in general (not specifically for collectables) is Discogs. I use it to get a general idea of what my vinyl is worth for insurance purposes and for those I don't like and would be happy to sell. For actually selling something I never find the time or interest.


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## Melvin (Mar 25, 2011)

Check out estate sales in the rich part of town. A lot of the old classical vinyl generation are croaking; go get their stuff. The schmucks who run the estate sales in the big GP houses sell off clasical vinyl for 1$ a piece. I've been at some real grab bags; so much good stuff I'd had to pass on a lot of good things. I run into more jazz sharks than classical geeks, so there's not _too_ much competiotion. Personally I go for what-ever catches my fancy. Will snatch anything 20th Century, and anything else that looks good and I haven't heard before. If I see D.G.s I snatch them.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

There used to be a label called Parnassus records, that folded a few yew years ago, but their proprietor whose name I think is Leslie Gerber, was a dealer in lps and kept some sort of catalog listing market value of used Classical lps


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## LP collector (Aug 6, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> Vinyl isn't as great as people make out. It's good, but reel-to-reel tape was always better. Top-notch 1/4" tape running at the slowest rate available per second is superb. Just expensive.


Depends what you play it on.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

LP collector said:


> Depends what you play it on.


The tape or the vinyl? Vinyl records are just copies of the superior master tapes.


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## WVdave (Jun 18, 2017)

Melvin said:


> Check out estate sales in the rich part of town. A lot of the old classical vinyl generation are croaking; go get their stuff. The schmucks who run the estate sales in the big GP houses sell off clasical vinyl for 1$ a piece. I've been at some real grab bags; so much good stuff I'd had to pass on a lot of good things. I run into more jazz sharks than classical geeks, so there's not _too_ much competiotion. Personally I go for what-ever catches my fancy. Will snatch anything 20th Century, and anything else that looks good and I haven't heard before. If I see D.G.s I snatch them.


Totally agree with this. It's amazing -- once I started specifically looking for classical, the records seemed to find me, rather than the other way around. Just in the last 2 days I've found about a dozen LP's locally in very good shape -- some Decca, London, shaded dog Living Stereo's, six-eye Columbia's and more, mostly for $1.50 or less. I'm also finding that, as a rule, most of the previous owners of these classical records that have ended up in thrift shops or antique malls, took good care of them.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

My charity shop called me, next week he going to get around 2500 classical L.P's .
I am helping him sorting them out and I've got first choice, at mate's rate that is.


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## LP collector (Aug 6, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> The tape or the vinyl? Vinyl records are just copies of the superior master tapes.


The trouble with master tapes, which are not available to the general public anyway, is they are locked away in a vault somewhere with their sound quality compromised by the affects of aging. Vinyl is unaffected by age. A clean first pressing from the 1950's will have superior sound now then the master tape from which it was taken. Tapes are no different then vinyl in that they are both copies and the performance of each depends on which equipment used for playback.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

LP collector said:


> The trouble with master tapes, which are not available to the general public anyway, is they are locked away in a vault somewhere with their sound quality compromised by the affects of aging. Vinyl is unaffected by age. A clean first pressing from the 1950's will have superior sound now then the master tape from which it was taken. Tapes are no different then vinyl in that they are both copies and the performance of each depends on which equipment used for playback.


There's a company that sells run-off copies of master tapes (this is a somewhat dubious claim because they would likely wear it out). In any case ordinary first-generation copies on 1/4" tape and even good quality cassettes have superb sound. Cassettes in particular suffered a bad reputation because almost everyone played them on poor equipment which wore them out too soon and had awful reproduction. Also the use of cheap tape.

This bit:


LP collector said:


> *Vinyl is unaffected by age*. A clean first pressing from the 1950's will have superior sound now then the master tape from which it was taken.


Is not factual. I have reel-to-reel tapes from the 50s which sound perfect and these have been played previously. Vinyl degrades far more quickly with every playback and is much more delicate. It has a charge that attracts dust, so it's a constant battle to preserve them against pollutants and degradation. Also warping if not stored carefully. 1/4" tape is very robust and although it's not indestructible it can be handled more roughly without major damage - as in when it is spliced. It's not easy to snap good reel-to-reel tape.

Don't misunderstand me, I like vinyl, but it's been mythologised. It was just the best method of technology at the time for making cheaper reproductions for sale to the public, but also has annoying drawbacks. It took me some time to switch over to CD from vinyl and the benefits are clear. CDs are also not 100% perfect, but they are much less stressful to use.


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## LP collector (Aug 6, 2016)

I agree vinyl is delicate - more so then tape, but it is unaffected by age where as magnetic tape suffers deterioration in the aging process. As you say music cassettes suffered a poor reputation due to what they were played on, that is my point. Vinyl is much more vulnerable due to poor set up of a turntable then reel to reel or cassette. How many turntables are set up correctly?

Although I only listen to vinyl, I completely agree with your last paragraph. A listener needs masochistic tendencies to ignore CD and listen to LP. But every now and again vinyl reaches heights in sound that CD can only dream of. It is a pain though.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I collected classical LPs starting about 1972, shifted to reel-to-reel and cassette, then to CDs and downloads, then in retirement back to LPs. There are still plenty of out-of-print LPs never reintroduced in other formats. The fun for me was the collecting. In recent years most of the places I've sold media (local resale shops in college towns, Princeton Record Exchange, etc.) have made it clear the LP market has dried up. Most of these places say today's resurgence is for interest in CDs.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

I buy and sell a little on Ebay when I have the motivation and I notice classical LP prices are definitely on the up in the last year. A few years ago I was buying collections for (embarrassingly) little money on Ebay. Certainly isn't like that now. Excellent condition chamber music seems strong and isn't so mass market as, say, Karajan Beethoven symphonies. I think string quartets and such sound great on vinyl.


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## robertbrook (Oct 13, 2017)

Discogs is a good website with a huge database and forums. It gives various values for different records and also has a marketplace.

I tend to favour digital recordings on CD and analogue on Vinyl.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

robertbrook said:


> Discogs is a good website with a huge database and forums. It gives various values for different records and also has a marketplace.
> 
> I tend to favour digital recordings on CD and analogue on Vinyl.


Great advice and also a warm welcome to Talk Classical .


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## staxomega (Oct 17, 2011)

I used to buy up loads of classical vinyl when I was living near the Rice University Half Price Books, what I found is that only around 10% of it was actually listenable without surface noise, tics or groove distortion. And I have a VPI 16.5 cleaning machine and used good cleaning fluids.

And even then that couldn't do anything to mitigate the reduced fidelity that occurs towards the ends of the sides as the stylus gets closer towards the label. In the end it always sounds like you're listening to vinyl, which can be pleasant enough. It never sounds like full bandwidth live music I hear at the BSO or NYPO.

Reminds me of a thread a mastering engineer started "audiophiles don't really want neutral"

edit: oh yes the turntable I was using:


http://imgur.com/atjCS

 (pictures from the sale ad)


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## JohnD (Jan 27, 2014)

Triplets: I met Les Gerber of Parnassus Records many years ago. He used to live in the Big Pink house that the Band made famous. I got to go into the basement where, appropriately enough, Bob Dylan and the Band recorded the Basement Tapes.


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## MarioDelMonacoViva (Apr 1, 2019)

Definitely look out for the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham's La Boheme, Andre Cluytens' Faust, Giulini's Don Giovanni and Verdi Requiem, Karajan's and Barbirolli's Butterfly, Monteux's Manon, Gui's Barber of Seville and Bohm's Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote), Mehta's Turandot and La Fanciulla del West and literally any of Tullio Serafin's recordings, Solti's Ring, particularly the Rigoletto with Maria Callas. Sorry, my recommendations are almost entirely opera-oriented, but that's what I listen to.


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