1980's Garage Records Prices

T

tymespan

Ikon Class
Joined
Apr 22, 2011
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
 
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.
 
"City Of People" was consistently offered in the '80s Goldmine magazine dealer ads of Worldwide Records, based up in Detroit. He listed 45s with odd prices. He must've sold at least 50 copies of the 45, I got mine from him for $40 in 1986.
 
MopTopMike said:
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.
Click to expand...

Yes about Frank M. I think Half Pint was actually M- for $5 or $10 (he listed the other side and called it '60s pop or something). I still have the list and can verify but the list is currently stored behind three feet of hard to move crap. Our old Western Mass pal MT tried to get it but apparently the infamous Bay Area MC told Frank MT already had it so sell it to him (MC)! This was back in the days when Frank set lists 2-3 times a year and a few select people had phone priveleges where you could call and reserve a couple choice records. Also this was before BFTG existed let alone Orlyn was a well known label. He has had several other Orlyns though, including a cracked Monteras and Graf Zeppelin (before the band quantity was found).
One of the reasons I stopped dealing with Frank is that he had a way of convenietly forgetting things when useful to him.
 
buckeyebeat said:
Yes about Frank M. I think Half Pint was actually M- for $5 or $10 (he listed the other side and called it '60s pop or something). I still have the list and can verify but the list is currently stored behind three feet of hard to move crap. Our old Western Mass pal MT tried to get it but apparently the infamous Bay Area MC told Frank MT already had it so sell it to him (MC)! This was back in the days when Frank set lists 2-3 times a year and a few select people had phone priveleges where you could call and reserve a couple choice records. Also this was before BFTG existed let alone Orlyn was a well known label. He has had several other Orlyns though, including a cracked Monteras and Graf Zeppelin (before the band quantity was found).
One of the reasons I stopped dealing with Frank is that he had a way of convenietly forgetting things when useful to him.
Click to expand...
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.
 
i remember going into a place called Beggers Banquet Records in Cambridge, Mass somewhere around 1979 and buying an entire run of original International Artists albums, plus 'Corky's Debt To His Father' for $100 bucks. Came out to about $8 an album. I got my Moving Sidewalks album there about a week later for $25! There were SO many deals to be had even in local record shops.
 
My best score, in hindsight, was scoring the Electric Prunes' Underground at the local Zayre's for all of 88 cents back in 1977. I was 11 years old at the time and had recently been given a copy of the Easy Rider soundtrack which, of course, featured "Kyrie Eleison."

Department store bargan bins during the mid to late '70s always had some interesting stuff!
 
depravedskippy66 said:
My best score, in hindsight, was scoring the Electric Prunes' Underground at the local Zayre's for all of 88 cents back in 1977. I was 11 years old at the time and had recently been given a copy of the Easy Rider soundtrack which, of course, featured "Kyrie Eleison."

Department store bargan bins during the mid to late '70s always had some interesting stuff!
Click to expand...

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).
 
Don't feel too bad about missing the 1980 prices. Try the online Inflation Calculator, to see what tymespan really paid, in today's dollars

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

infl.jpg


Still cheap at almost triple the price, but if you had invested the $20 at 7 percent compound interest instead of spending it on a record in 1980, you would now have over $200 in the bank.
 
If we convert that to a HAPPINESS CONVERTER, I'd say Paul Messis has a few years to go before he's happy again:(
 
"i'll never be happy" is how the outro of the Barons' sure-fire hit went down!!!

it would take me a few more years to feel joy, that's a given!!!
 
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