1980's Garage Records Prices

[nadorozny2001]

i always got a kick out of the record vaults lists

 

[Dave Baldwin]

Those were the days. Of course back then, a gallon of gas would set you back a whopping 79
cents and a box of Western .223 FMJ was only about $2.23.

 

[Heitkotter77]

Sometime around 1972 a local department store (the name was Topps if I'm not mistaken) had a cutout section. I remember seening the first Chocolate Watchband and Bump LPs there, and Mainstream label records. Sadly, I did not buy them, although I probably would have sold them or beat them into VG- with full seam split covers back then. A famous but long gone record store in Cleveland called Melody Lane (my mom shopped for records there and her father was a business assocaite of the owner) had a cutout section with distinctive price labels with a chick emerging from an egg and "cheep records". One time there were a pile of Poobah and Brimstone LPs in addition to a bunch of other odd regional private press LPs. At least I bought one each of those (long gone now).

In 1972, when I was attending SUNY at Stony Brook, I spent more time in the local Sam Goody's than classes. The bargain bin was filled with sealed $1.79 copies of Morgen.
All I bought was the $1 copy of Litter "Emerge".

Some day I'll have to post some pages from the British import mail order catalog I sent away for from an ad in Rolling Stone. If I'd have known, between the records I could have bought from there, the Morgens and all the original TMOQ 'Pig' boots I bought from my local record store, I'd be retired.

 

[Jeffers66]

I always got a pretty decent fill from Frank M. but never got any of the killer records he priced cheap.
I stopped buying from him when he wanted to auction off records that he got too many requests for among the potential buyers. Either have an auction or a set sale, one or the other.
I've screwed up many times over the years on prices but always honored the first buyer who called about the item even when I could have made more money taking offers after the item was reserved.

Here's an old postcard from Frank with my winnings... and I do mean OLD... back in the days when I could still get a Mor-Loks 45 for $1.18.

(Sorry, I can't seem to get the image to post)

 

[bosshoss]

(Sorry, I can't seem to get the image to post)

The link you're using seems to be invalid. If you care to email the image to me, I'll put it up.

 

[Jeffers66]

Thanks Mark. PM me your e-mail address, and I'll get that to you... along with several old winning bid postcards from Rock and Roll Heaven (when Dave Bushey ran it... Tener 45s and other gems for dirt cheap).

 

[buckeyebeat]

I still have the postcard for when I won the Starfires - I never loved her for $5.11 or something like that.

Also, the best deal I got from Frank Merrill was the Kaleidoscope Machine 45 for $4.50. It was unknown at the time, although he did call it Toledo garage or something like that. There was really no way to predict how rare a lot of these records would be at the time.....after all, they were cheap and found on a regular basis at record stores and shows, as well as in Goldmine.

 

[Michael W]

Going through some old boxes in the garage I found a folder with twenty or so record lists from around 1987/88. Some from Frank Merrill, Michael Brozovic, 45 Centre, 6 or so from Deborah De Marco. Also found a letter from Doug Hanners, perhaps from the early 90s, where I sent him a list of 45s I was thinking of offloading and he sent back a copy with the price he would give for each record. He said the price offered was half what he thought he could sell it for. Some of the notable ones are
Remaining Few - Painted Air, M- $75
Choab - Why Am I Alone, VG $20
Cirkyt - That's The Way Life Is (with PS) VG+ $20
Endd - Out Of My Hands, VG $7
Danny & the Counts - You Need Love, M- $15
Levis - Hear What I Say, VG $10
Shades of Night - Fluctuation, M $125
Outcasts - 1523 Blair, VG- $12

From memory I didn't sell any of these to him at the time, but offloaded most of them locally a few years later and for a bit more than he was offering. Just putting this here as a record of the sort of values being put on rare garage 45s around that tyme.

 

[reyes]

Remaining Few - Painted Air, M- $75
Choab - Why Am I Alone, VG $20
Cirkyt - That's The Way Life Is (with PS) VG+ $20
Endd - Out Of My Hands, VG $7
Danny & the Counts - You Need Love, M- $15
Levis - Hear What I Say, VG $10
Shades of Night - Fluctuation, M $125
Outcasts - 1523 Blair, VG- $12

WOW! Danny and the counts is probably the only one that has not sky rocketed.

 

[Vinyldigger]

I was just going through a box of old canceled checks & thought I'd post some prices from the years
1980-85. Read them & weep.
Most of these were probably from Goldmine & an occasionally list. At that time I rarely spent more than $20 for a record & that would be reserved for something like The Illusion-City of People (paid $23.77 for my copy) I paid more for a common record like The Choir -It's Cold Outside than I did for Teddy & Patches but both were equally rare to me at the time.
Keep in mind most of these were auctions so I was the high bidder at these prices.

All prices include shipping!.

Twilights (Capitol) & Unrelated Segements-Where You Gonna Go $17.91
Edge-Seen Through the Eyes $21.50
Wm Penn V-Swami $7.72
Sound Barrier-My Baby's Gone $13.26
World of Milan-One Track Mind $9.57
Nervous Breakdowns $9.47
Trolls-Stupid Girl $3.11
Chymes (Chattahoochee) $4.81
Teddy & Patches $7.21
Savages (Duane) $6.04
Piggy Banks-Thoughts of You $3.75
Rhythm Rocker & Derby Hatville-Turn Into Earth $18.99 for both
Wee & Revelations $4.44
Apple Glass Cyndrome & Hysterical Society (UA) $6.74 for both
Humans (Audition) $6
Chessmen Squares $9.39
4 O'Clock Balloon $5.70
Honeys-Surfin Down The Swanee River $12.37
Rave-Ons Love Pill $3.50
Cave Dwellers Meditation $4.68
Bush -I'm Wanting Her $5.50
WONE Dayton Scene $32.98
Barracudas Plane View LP $58.53
Chocolate Watch Band-Sweet Young Thing $16.17
Panicks Treat Me Right $6.34
Tigermen-Tiger Girl $3.50
Apple Glass Cyndrome another copy , $4.54
Lords Death Bells At Dawn $6.13
Bougalieu $7.96
Torques-Live LP $19.17
Elevators 1st LP $13.73

 

[Vinyldigger]

I payed 25$ for the 45 "Swami" William Penn Fyve in 1982 and I thought it was quite expensive. I used it for my comp "Sounds of The Sixties - San Francisco - Part 2"

 

[green.scream]

Oh boy - this just gives me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I've been so heavily into this music for decades but as a student in the early 00's, only collected comps. Now that I can afford some of these, my cash won't go anywhere near as far as it would've in the 80s...sob...

 

[green.scream]

I clicked "like", but I hate this.

HAHAHA - I realized I was doing the same thing as I was clicking 'likes'...

 

[undertheclock]

Frank Merrill, the eccentric, old time mail order 45rpm record dealer has a copy of the Heard on Orlyn up for bid on his latest list, VG+ M.B $750. He stated that he paid quite a bit to get it, since it was the only time he ever had an Orlyn label 45 on one of his annual or bi-annual lists.
Well, as NwBuckeye , MiamiJeff, Rich S., Dave B. and myself know, 'ol Frank had a lot of now rare and great garage 45s on his lists going back to the late 1970s, all priced at just a few bucks. I seem to recall Half Pint & The Fifths for something like $15 in VG+ condition. And he also had a copy of Outspoken Blues, the first known at the time copy that ended up going to the frozen lakes of Minnesota.

Last time I spoke to Frank, he thought he was going to be killed by the Trump administration if he had any medical issue. I was a faithful buyer from the start though.

 

[Frantic]

Last time I spoke to Frank, he thought he was going to be killed by the Trump administration if he had any medical issue. I was a faithful buyer from the start though.

 

[chas_kit]

I remember the first time I paid $15 for a record, and what a bad precedent it made.

 

[Dave Baldwin]

I plead guilty to being one of the first Americans to get a ridiculous price for a 60s garage 45.
I sold a VG- copy of the Split Ends 'Rich With Nothin' (XXX version) to a fanatical Florida
collector for $425.00 way, way back in 1982. Anyone here can score a M- copy for about $200
these days. Mea culpa...mea maxima culpa.

 

[Dave Baldwin]

Last time I spoke to Frank, he thought he was going to be killed by the Trump administration if he had any medical issue. I was a faithful buyer from the start though.

The last time I talked to FM, he was raving about some pancake place in Lincoln, Nebraska that he'd recently discovered.

 

[Jim]

The last time I talked to FM, he was raving about some pancake place in Lincoln, Nebraska that he'd recently discovered.

 

[bosshoss]

I plead guilty to being one of the first Americans to get a ridiculous price for a 60s garage 45.
I sold a VG- copy of the Split Ends 'Rich With Nothin' (XXX version) to a fanatical Florida
collector for $425.00 way, way back in 1982. Anyone here can score a M- copy for about $200
these days. Mea culpa...mea maxima culpa.

VG minus! I hope you didn't charge him for the postage.