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So I take a look at this collection- pretty good stuff mostly, but are there any tell take clues that the best stuff is missing?
Follow Ups:
I would say from experience that any collection up for sale has been picked over. Some more, some less, some many times.
Usually by the time any collection is up for 'sale to the public'.. You can bet it has been gleaned.
The fantasy of a pristine collection for sale?
hah hah ha hah ha etc. for at least five minutes with copious weeping from laughter.
The only way I think it could happen is if you are a relative of a person who recently died. And if they too were an audiophile. But then you probably would be the direct inheritor.
Most relations I know of.. if they had any LPs.. Those would be Mitch Miller sings along with Mantovani and His Strings. And.. Pamela Czychinski play Beatles favorites on her Zither.
Once years ago when I had the opportunity to buy a collection en bloc, I went to see it at the home of the owner. There were "holes" in the rows of LPs on his shelves such that some were leaning against each other for support. This told me he had removed maybe 10% of his collection from the display, before I arrived; he had cherry-picked his own collection, in other words. I wasn't that impressed with what was left, but I bet it was a great collection, if one were to have added back the hidden LPs.
If you are not the first person to look at a collection that everything is picked over. Several years ago there was an estate sale listed in the newspaper starting Friday near my office. Lps were mentioned, but I couldn't get there till lunch time. I asked if many lps had been sold and they said, Yes, Elvis and Beatles lps." I thought, nothing worth getting will be left. I was wrong! I picked up the very first James Brown lp on King records with the hard to find baby on the cover. I also picked up a collectable Clovers lp.
You could probably just ask the collection's owner.
If a Classical collection: No Mercury label LPs at all. No RCA shaded dogs
All the LPs are stupid label brands you have only vaguely heard of.
If Rock: No Beatles, Led Zepplin, Or any other artists you might want
Jazz?? Jazz. if ll that is left are 1950's Dixieland, and some Mantovani plays Gershwin
If you DO find:
Classical: Mercury SR900000 LPs.. YOU KNOW no one has cherrypicked.
Rock: Led Zepplin, DSOTM stone mint, Original Beatles, Early Bob Dylan
Jazz if anything by Miles Davis, John Coltrane, or early or even average mid 50's 60's Blue Note label, or Riverside.. at all.. You KNOW no one cherrypicked.
In many cases, those who know something but not a lot will take the RCAs and the Mercs, and leave everything else.
I once was hired by a record dealer to pick through a collection he had purchased, a classical musical library on vinyl from a minor-league college. There were many records from the 1959-64 period, but none of them were stereo Mercs or RCAs, and there weren't any mono ones either. Very suspicious!
Nevertheless, the picker must have been a fairly simple soul, because I was able to find a nuuber of good records to sell on eBay. The Telamanyi Back Violin sonatas with the Vega Bach bow, the Nelsova Beethoven Violin Sonatas on London, and the Clara Haskil Scarletti Sonatas on green-label Westminster were still there. He got nearly $1000 on eBay just for those three.
I took my fee in vinyl, some nice stuff to listen to, but not too valuable.
And that picker may have been a "simple soul", but he's not alone. To this day, there are collectors who sweep the Salvation Army and other thrift shops for the classical RCA shaded dogs and Mercs, even the most common ones, and ignore far more valuable ones on other labels.I'm nowhere near the collector you are, and I can think of two Westminster monos I got from thoroughly picked over thrift bins, both NM, one (Leonid Kogan) sells for an average of $84 on ebay, the other (Erica Morini) $117. Some good London, DG and Capitol, too.
Edits: 12/25/16
Sing Along With Mitch, Ray Conniff, Mantovani, Mario Lanza, The Lettermen, The Kingston Trio, Johnny Mathis, Jim Nabors, Barbra Streisand, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Robert Goulet, Glenn Campbell, Andy Williams Christmas, Christmas with the King Family, Christmas with Everyone Else Imaginable, cast albums for The Sound Of Music and The King And I, and Christian singing groups, and for classical, mono versions of 60s LPs that were also issued in stereo, E. Power Biggs organ recitals, opera highlights, Pavarotti, Funk & Wagnalls Family Library of Great Music, budget labels like Sine Qua Non, Parliament and Richmond, etc., etc, ....
Now, I'm not saying all of the above is inevitably bad, just that it is in oversupply and tends to be left over the more a collection is picked over. Kierkegaard was an existential philosopher and AFAIK not a musician. His name is there so I can easily find this post again, since this question seems to come up a lot.
... if someone took the stuff you like before you got there, or it was never there in the first place? It's not there now.
does it make a sound that can be recorded and released as a record?
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
... and it's been accessible to anyone before you, it's been picked-- 99% likelihood. But it's STILL WORTH A LOOK! I have found the weirdest gems in totally picked over junkpiles under the bookshelf in Goodwill. Maybe some prowling Bear didn't want 2 copies of Earth Wind and Fire's amazing "Last Days and Time" (1972, CBS), not everyone knows who (and how great) Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks are... etc.
Never a good sign ... I like the stuff that looks like it's been stored or shelved for a long time.
Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst and corrupts the best ... Ragnar Lothbrok
It is very hard to find LPs that have not been cherry picked, unless you are the first one at a yard/garage sale, and the seller is a friend of yours who has agreed to give you first dibs.
I've pretty much retired from the hunt, in part because in these days of ebay and smart phones, major finds are few and far between, unless you're willing to dig in the corners of cold dark antique barns, and even then, the finds are pretty rare.
.
If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well
(Proverb)
there's NOTHING left!
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
nt
"Trying is the first step towards failure."
Homer Simpson
...no Holly Cole, Pat Barber, Monheit, Jones, Warnes or Jacintha. Only music will be left behind, LOL.
> are there any tell take clues that the best stuff is missing?
Well, if the collection is neatly stored in a record rack, but there are gaps in the records left by removing records from the shelf, that might be a clue. Of course, if you have the time to look through the collection and you don't find any records you like, that might be another clue. Of course, the original owner might not have the same taste in vinyl as you. If there is a list of all the records in the collection and some are missing, that would be a clue. Other than that, I don't know if there is really a good way to tell. I'm sure that if you have enough money you could hire a team to do a study to determine whether it's possible to tell if the best stuff is missing. Of course, it might be cheaper to look through the collection yourself depending on the value you place on your own time. How much would you be willing to spend on a study?
Thanks,
John Elison
I imagine that CPing has taken place after viewing the collection in its "entirety" and learning of its age. If the collection boasts runs of certain artists it is reasonable to assume it would have contained the 'best' of those artist's works. If the 'best LPs of those artists works are absent then my Spidey sense kicks in. This person is not the original owner and has CPed the collection of they have sold the best LPs to a collector, not unlike what I have done for many years.
More often or not it's just a sense and I really do not know.
Still spinnin'...
;^)
" are there any tell take clues that the best stuff is missing? "
Yes, it's no longer there :-)
If the collection was offered with a manifest then it should be obvious what has already gone. Otherwise it depends upon what you think are cherries. If you mean records of high value on the general used market then if you do find a couple in the collection it is unlikely that a dealer has had first pickings. If they are are cherries that are only of interest to your personal memories/enthusiasms, then who knows?
Of course the vendor may never have owned any cherries in the first place. Or specific cherries may have gone to the vendor's friends who asked for them on learning of the sale. Or the vendor may just be thinning his collection and not getting rid of it wholesale.
At the end of the day you will never know for sure.
Just see what there is and go for it if of interest to you, cherry picked or not. If there had once been cherries then there is nothing you can do about it so why worry?
uh yeah. When there 's nothing left but 60's schmaltz and 70's strings and 5 sealed copies of "The Many Moods Of Ferrante & Teicher"
Can this guy really have such bad taste? Who buys mostly this kind of music? The odds of this must be impossibly low (or there are really people who have a knack for this).
What does it matter? If you are happy with what is there that is all that counts, and the price of course.
There are no cherries left.
You might try posting this under the op where it should be.....
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