What Are The Rare Records?

[George G]

Excellant, I have to agree with Harry DITTO his this write up DAVE KIL

Thanks! I'll post up again later!

- George

[George G]

there are a lot of records where 500 copies were pressed that are ultra-rare. If people like john anderson never found the stock or found the stock but passed on it or the stock was moved into local people's collections via shows (but not distributed) and then the rest was thrown out, the records will be ultra-rare. In the last thread, for example, the intentions on tiki was brought up, and the members of the group told me that 500 copies were pressed. the record is still very hard to find. the fact that 500 or even 200 copies were pressed, however, makes speculating on how many copies actually exist a stupid activity.

There's never logic behind the number of surviving copies. Records that were completely self distributed have been found in quantity from band member or their families. Sometimes the pressings were 'sold out' and mint copies are very rare.

Many of the garage bands (and soul groups) I've talked to from Ohio were from areas that are have been ecomonically ravaged for years. The core population is dispersed, moved away. Some of the areas in Ohio, like Youngstown, have less that 50% of the population they had back in the late 1960s - amazing, and even more so when you consider the US population has nearly doubled in that time. When people left, they likely discarded their records. Even people who stayed and 'downsized' got rid of their non-essentials. A lot of the mass exodus from NE Ohio took place during the 'rust belt' period of the early 1980s (hey, me included), long before eBay and Craigslist. Who knows how many records were disposed of back then?

Rural areas where records never made it past the county line are even more obscure and hard to track down, and are some of rarest US records, often unknown outside of the local collector circle. This is particularly true in places like Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon (these are rock records, no soul there.....). The only copies you'll find are gonna be at a estate sale in the town, or in a radio station load.

All these factors (distribution, population density, population decay) factor into a record's rarity. Also, the audience. People who bought the records at their release time bought them to play and to take around, not to preserve. Three of my rarest Ohio garage 45s (Vikings, Hazards, Kaleidoscope Machine, all of which are less than 5, uh, 'known copies' ) have the previous owner's name written on the label and are VG condition at best. All three of these records were strictly hand distributed, and in the case of the KM 45, the band broke up only a few months after the record was pressed and the band leader left town and trashed the remainder.

[Guest Bearsy]

Nice one George and a great insight to how things were back then

chances are that some very "rare" tunes are/could still be out there somewhere and possibly in different parts of the world from where they originated from

ps, anyone in the USA that is sitting on a load of records from the 60s Soul/r&b and has no need for them anymore please feel free to get in touch (via pm) and i will be more than willing take them off your hands and even pay for the postage to old blighty too

[boba]

There's never logic behind the number of surviving copies. Records that were completely self distributed have been found in quantity from band member or their families. Sometimes the pressings were 'sold out' and mint copies are very rare.

Many of the garage bands (and soul groups) I've talked to from Ohio were from areas that are have been ecomonically ravaged for years. The core population is dispersed, moved away. Some of the areas in Ohio, like Youngstown, have less that 50% of the population they had back in the late 1960s - amazing, and even more so when you consider the US population has nearly doubled in that time. When people left, they likely discarded their records. Even people who stayed and 'downsized' got rid of their non-essentials. A lot of the mass exodus from NE Ohio took place during the 'rust belt' period of the early 1980s (hey, me included), long before eBay and Craigslist. Who knows how many records were disposed of back then?

Rural areas where records never made it past the county line are even more obscure and hard to track down, and are some of rarest US records, often unknown outside of the local collector circle. This is particularly true in places like Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon (these are rock records, no soul there.....). The only copies you'll find are gonna be at a estate sale in the town, or in a radio station load.

All these factors (distribution, population density, population decay) factor into a record's rarity. Also, the audience. People who bought the records at their release time bought them to play and to take around, not to preserve. Three of my rarest Ohio garage 45s (Vikings, Hazards, Kaleidoscope Machine, all of which are less than 5, uh, 'known copies' ) have the previous owner's name written on the label and are VG condition at best. All three of these records were strictly hand distributed, and in the case of the KM 45, the band broke up only a few months after the record was pressed and the band leader left town and trashed the remainder.

my whole point, which I think you don't disagree with, is that "known copies" means "known" in the small circle of collectors that the person counting happens to know. in the last thread people were coming up with very specific numbers on records, some of which I had or knew other people that had (and weren't included in the count), it's an inane activity. a record can be very rare, you don't have to actually come up with a "known number of copies" to prove anything and that number will be meaningless. the fact that 200-500 were pressed, even though most were thrown out, means that more probably do exist than 2 or 3, it's still very rare.

[George G]

my whole point, which I think you don't disagree with, is that "known copies" means "known" in the small circle of collectors that the person counting happens to know. in the last thread people were coming up with very specific numbers on records, some of which I had or knew other people that had (and weren't included in the count), it's an inane activity. a record can be very rare, you don't have to actually come up with a "known number of copies" to prove anything and that number will be meaningless. the fact that 200-500 were pressed, even though most were thrown out, means that more probably do exist than 2 or 3, it's still very rare.

Yes, I agree - and you can't determine how rare a record is unless you have some really detailed and valid information about what happened to the pressing run. The same misinformation exists for all collecting genres, garage, rockabilly, funk, doowop. If you count records that were actually distributed to people (sales, giveaways, etc) there's probably a formula you could use to asess the attrition rate - if 450 copies were distributed, can we say that 15% survive in playable condition, depending on circumstances?

Are there rare soul (and other) records in the hands of people who are completely out of the loop and will probably never be counted unless their collection is dispersed through mainstream channel.....hell yes!

I was trying to give some parallels to my areas of expertise. In the case of the Vikings record I mentioned, a 100 press is confirmed, and a few copies were destroyed, so then a survival rate of 15 copies or less is probably reasonable, and if copy surfaces for sale, it could be a buy it or regret it situation (that's what I thought when I bought mine 8 years ago, it's never been offered for sale in public since). Another variable here is that in this band, three of the four members were brothers, so that would mean that less copies were distributed to families since there were only two families involved, where a five member group of non-relatives would have 5 families and the number of 'heirloom' copies potentially in closets awaiting their eBay sales could be much higher. An example like this happened very recently, when a rare NY state garage 45 was 'discovered' by the band to be valuable and soon several members of the band's circle (family, friends) were unloading their copies. It was comical, at one point three appeared in one week on eBay, talk about undercutting your sales......

[Dave Pinch]

boba is right in what he says and believe you me the mellow souls and parliaments on cabell of this world are there just waiting to be found. i think my avatar is a rare record. ive scoured the internet daily for this 45 since ive been on ( 6 years) and ive owned it 10 years and never seen or heard of another copy. i play it out regularly. weather others like it ( some do) or not or weather its worth anything isnt important to me

dave

[Val (Chunky)]

boba is right in what he says and believe you me the mellow souls and parliaments on cabell of this world are there just waiting to be found. i think my avatar is a rare record. ive scoured the internet daily for this 45 since ive been on ( 6 years) and ive owned it 10 years and never seen or heard of another copy. i play it out regularly. weather others like it ( some do) or not or weather its worth anything isnt important to me

dave

what is the record in your avatar and can we hear a clip please?

back to the subject matter of the thread.

I suspect that the main reason for a record being rare these days would be due to damage (after all these are fragile objects) or maybe items being destroyed either deliberatley or by accident, water damage, fire, etc...

[purist]

Because we as collectors are record mad, I think we fail to understand the role they played to a 'middling' working 60's artist.

( I use 'middling' to mean not a one shot wonder- where music was their hobby, at one end of the scale, or a major artist signed to a major label at the other end of the scale. I think the bulk of the artists we think of as Northern Soul people fall into the 'middling' working artist category)

I have five different records (I think) featuring one singer who told me that they never thought of the records as an income in the 60's (I mention the five records to explain he wasn't a minor one record artist) He said their income was generated purely from live work so they understood the need to go into a studio to record these tracks to use as adverts for club and concert hall owners, but because it was all arranged by their managers & money men they didn't get involved. After all, the likely sales probably didn't cover the costs, so the artist didn't want to get stuck with bills for studio costs etc. They signed away their rights because they knew they didn't have the money, and they needed to concentrate on paying their rent & feeding themselves and their families. It's quite common for artists found in recent years to ask to see your vinyl as they've never seen their own records, and we hear them say phrases like " I didn't know it had ever been released" or " I don't remember recording that flipside".

Groups were touring as much as possible to earn their crust, and recording was sometimes arranged on the fly, in whichever suitable town they were working in. By the time the recordings had gone through the process to become finished records the band would almost certainly have moved on to and play in another state.

They had to rely on the business people to distribute the records to potential bookers, and equally as importantly to promote them to the radio stations. Sales through shops wouldn't happen unless there was some level of interest generated by radio plays and other promotional methods, and while some managers would give the artist a handful of copies to give away to family etc, other artist have told us they went into a shop to buy a copy of their own record when they heard it was now in the local chart.

It's too easy to forget that this was their JOB. Yes we know that some artist kept a daytime job at a car plant in Detroit for example, but most tried to make music their only job. Would it be too harsh to suggest that aside from the promotional value, to many artists the records were little more than a gentle ego boost? probably, but I'm just trying to put into perspective how unimportant the records were to the working artists, and the quantity even less so. 100, 500, it hardly matters, it was all getting on for 50 years ago, so the survival rates often bear no relation to the number pressed maybe?

The other point I wanted to make is that we on the Northern Scene are fortunate in comparison to other styles of collecting, because we do get to have an idea of how many copies of popular records there are by virtue of the dj's at venues. If, for example, Butch selects a record to revive like The Flairs, then copies will surface either in the hands of dj's or in sellers boxes or sales lists/ebay, etc. and for the short window of opportunity we can make an educated guess at how many copies there are, or at least which heading they fit under, be it Rarest of the Rare, Super Rare, Difficult, Easy, Common as Muck, etc.

The other guide to how rare something is, is to count how many times somebody asks you to sell it to them :-)

[Ian Dewhirst]

Because we as collectors are record mad, I think we fail to understand the role they played to a 'middling' working 60's artist.

( I use 'middling' to mean not a one shot wonder- where music was their hobby, at one end of the scale, or a major artist signed to a major label at the other end of the scale. I think the bulk of the artists we think of as Northern Soul people fall into the 'middling' working artist category)

I have five different records (I think) featuring one singer who told me that they never thought of the records as an income in the 60's (I mention the five records to explain he wasn't a minor one record artist) He said their income was generated purely from live work so they understood the need to go into a studio to record these tracks to use as adverts for club and concert hall owners, but because it was all arranged by their managers & money men they didn't get involved. After all, the likely sales probably didn't cover the costs, so the artist didn't want to get stuck with bills for studio costs etc. They signed away their rights because they knew they didn't have the money, and they needed to concentrate on paying their rent & feeding themselves and their families. It's quite common for artists found in recent years to ask to see your vinyl as they've never seen their own records, and we hear them say phrases like " I didn't know it had ever been released" or " I don't remember recording that flipside".

Groups were touring as much as possible to earn their crust, and recording was sometimes arranged on the fly, in whichever suitable town they were working in. By the time the recordings had gone through the process to become finished records the band would almost certainly have moved on to and play in another state.

They had to rely on the business people to distribute the records to potential bookers, and equally as importantly to promote them to the radio stations. Sales through shops wouldn't happen unless there was some level of interest generated by radio plays and other promotional methods, and while some managers would give the artist a handful of copies to give away to family etc, other artist have told us they went into a shop to buy a copy of their own record when they heard it was now in the local chart.

It's too easy to forget that this was their JOB. Yes we know that some artist kept a daytime job at a car plant in Detroit for example, but most tried to make music their only job. Would it be too harsh to suggest that aside from the promotional value, to many artists the records were little more than a gentle ego boost? probably, but I'm just trying to put into perspective how unimportant the records were to the working artists, and the quantity even less so. 100, 500, it hardly matters, it was all getting on for 50 years ago, so the survival rates often bear no relation to the number pressed maybe?

The other point I wanted to make is that we on the Northern Scene are fortunate in comparison to other styles of collecting, because we do get to have an idea of how many copies of popular records there are by virtue of the dj's at venues. If, for example, Butch selects a record to revive like The Flairs, then copies will surface either in the hands of dj's or in sellers boxes or sales lists/ebay, etc. and for the short window of opportunity we can make an educated guess at how many copies there are, or at least which heading they fit under, be it Rarest of the Rare, Super Rare, Difficult, Easy, Common as Muck, etc.

The other guide to how rare something is, is to count how many times somebody asks you to sell it to them :-)

Good points. It never fails to surprise how many artists fail to have copies of their own recordings. And not just unknown artists either - I gave George Clinton my copies of Roy Handy, Shirley J. Scott and Tamala Lewis 'cos he didn't have 'em......

Ian D

[Kev Cane]

Good topic this, another aside is what is the rarest record you own......in respects of your opinion.?

Chalky what's yours. Harry what's Yours, Nev yours ? etc, etc......i don't think this has been covered on this Forum before has it........

Happy New Year Brett, rarest I have I think is Nathan Williams-What Price-UA, have read conflicting opinions on which one is rarer, the UA or Lime, another one that I am curious about is The Voice Masters-Two Lovers-Frisco, not that well known, and I have never seen it in a sales box (maybe not looking hard enough)

Got mine before the Internet and it took me 10 years to get one (tried prising Craig Butlers off him)

Kev

[Markw]

If, for example, Butch selects a record to revive like The Flairs, then copies will surface either in the hands of dj's or in sellers boxes or sales lists/ebay, etc. and for the short window of opportunity we can make an educated guess at how many copies there are, or at least which heading they fit under, be it Rarest of the Rare, Super Rare, Difficult, Easy, Common as Muck, etc.

The other guide to how rare something is, is to count how many times somebody asks you to sell it to them :-)

[Tricky]

Also it can be a very fine line between Doowop and Soul.Although generally these collectors are a generation older than us.They all have many many records in their collections that we could want.Think about it.60,s group soul is the equal to our crossover!

[pikeys dog]

Val Shively definately has tons of rare 'Northern Soul' 45s in his collection for the Doo Wop / Male Vocal flips...

[Guest Brett F]

Fascinating read from George, sort of proves to me that the 100 run minimum would probably be about right.

Edited January 11, 2010 by Brett F

[Russoul1]

good thread, with some facinating and knowledgable posts

i recently put up a thread regards a misspressed detroit 45, which im suprised hasnt recieved more interest

especially because its a detroit outing but is that because the 45 is still unknown? amongst collectors in the uk

as it seems all the info gathered so far is from the US, including a four figure offer for this 45!!

and is it fair to say that theres alot of 30/40/50 pound records out there that are harder to find than some of those

big ticket rarities

it seems that even looking through jms guide alone how many records have been listed for the same ammounts

throughout each edition? were the "rarities" "indemand" prices have changed over each edition imo

russ

[Dave Pinch]

what is the record in your avatar and can we hear a clip please?

back to the subject matter of the thread.

I suspect that the main reason for a record being rare these days would be due to damage (after all these are fragile objects) or maybe items being destroyed either deliberatley or by accident, water damage, fire, etc...

ITS BY A BAND CALLED MODERN IMAGE `GYPSY` ON PHILLY 76. I KNOW NOWT ABOUT IT BUT WILL PUT IT IN REFOSOUL ALONG WITH A FEW MORE THINGS IM SORTING OUT. IVE GOT THE KNOWLEDGE NOW..HAVING THE TIME IS ANOTHER MATTER....... IM STUCK IN BELFAST AT THE MOMENT & ITS A LITTLE DIFFICULT BUT IVE BEEN PLAYING IT IN MY SETS LOCALLY FOR 3 YEARS AND ITS ON A CHILLOUT & FRIENDSHIP CD. BUT SEEING AS I NEVER DJ OUTSIDE SOUTH YORKS I CANT GET NO FURTHER WITH IT. IVE HAD IT 10 YEARS AND CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND ANOTHER ONE SO AS I SAID RARE /OBSCURE BUT £££££££££££££ ????????????????

DAVE

[Rick Cooper]

The question i need answering is, when a record company and be it a small local operation, surely they cut more than a handful of 45's, otherwise what would be the economic reason behind it, surely they all (mainly) aspired to actually make some money from the release..so what was an average run?

Although working 10 years after the mid 60's my experience of issuing singles at Global records in Manchester probably follows small labels in the US. The records (James Fountain, Johnny Jones.4 Perfections and others) were leased from the label owners so there was no recording costs but we had to pay an advance against future sales. The label designer had to be paid and sheets of logo only blanks printed up , many thousands, as it was not cost effective just doing a short print run. This cost seems to have been too much for some US labels as many are stock designs. The master tape was sent to the pressing plant (I think it was Lintone or something like that, in London). A master pressing stamper was then made (mother) this was used to make the metal stampers that made the discs. These would wear out after a few thousand copies and then new ones were made from the mother. I don't remember the exact figures but the cost of mastering was a considerable one. We then received 3 test pressings to check the sound quality and then the pressing plant would compete the run. I think the initial order for '7 Day Lover' was 5000 but others were 1 or 2 thousand. Probably 1000 was the minimum order but even selling 1000 would not recoup the initial costs. If the initial run was selling well a second order of the same or more would be ordered , this could take a week or so to get done. It didn't make sense to order less than 500 when a record could die in a week. We also were sending records out to radio stations and DJs. Like small US labels we were trying to interst the major labels in distributing the label, with no success.

Global records had no interest in the artists so selling records was the only way to make any money. This seems to be the same for most US labels who could'nt care less about the artists, not even telling them if the record was issued. The artists were expected to make money from personall appearances. A record would need to sell tens of thousands before royalties became due as costs were charged against sales. John Broven's recent book about indie labels gives a detailed explanation of this. A hit record would allow the artist to charge more for a show.

Anyway the initial pressing would probably be about 3000 as a lot of selling in the US was sale or return also distibutors expected free records and radio stations might get a box or two.

If the record started to sell the company might not get paid for months . This probably sent many labels to the wall and leading to another northern rarity.

All this only applies to companies hoping to make money from selling records . The self contained group who cut a record to sell at gigs or try to get a deal only needed a couple of hundred and would not expect to cover the costs. There unsold stock could be stuck in a cellar somewhere or trashed years ago, who knows?

The walk in record booth is the subject of Ben E King's ''The Record'' on Atlantic.

To get back to the original subject , the records that will probably never turn up are those that had to be withdrawn. This could due to legal problems, someone dying, getting drafted or being 'asked' by Mr Gordy what career they want to follow. The inital pressing would have to be destroyed but a few might have survived.

So the ones that come to mind are

Frank Wilson

Junior McCants

Don Varner on Veep

Len Jewel on teri de

2 on Wand (Ivories? and the other one?)

but I'm sure other people can name more

Rick Cooper

[Harry Crosby]

Some fantastic replies here folks, keep em coming, really glad i started this thread

[Guest Steve Jarrell]

I remember when we recorded "Man Of My Word" and "Linda" we only pressed 250 copies. I guess that makes it somewhat rare.

[Suinoz]

Some fantastic replies here folks, keep em coming, really glad i started this thread

Tell you what Harry this really is a very interesting topic indeed and we all know there are members on here that will have 'rare' records in their collections. But you only have to look through John Manships 'a million dollars of rare soul' guide to see how few get the 5 star rarity rating. These are obviously 'super rare'. Stuff like Walter Wilson on wand and Billy Hines on wa-tusi are there and I'm sure there are no more than 4 or 5 known copies of these two. As for pricing them i suppose It's down to how much you want to own one of them. Look at the Frank Wilson, just what did make it so expensive in the first place ???? RARITY, nothing more nothing less, but i would'nt want to own it that bad to have paid over 23,000 pounds for it would you ?? Anyway mate stay soulful. ATB Tony, OZ. K.T.F.

[paultp]

The rarest record I own is my 1975 (?) West Ham cup squad "Bubbles" 45 on US demo - found it in San Francisco.

1 known copy.

I used to have it in my sales box for a laugh but most people never noticed it. After noticing this I stopped taking a sales box out with me. God knows what people are looking at when they go through a record box.

[Ernie Andrews]

Nailed on Nev............

Like you say no one can fully know.and thats a fact.

Ah but in some cases they can. When provenance is present. E.G. Letter to record station saying here is of the 20 copies I have had done.

Or The person who pressed it-say in the case of Hung up in mid air which was reportedy only 200, or the recent Kings go Forth.

Sites like John Manships auction where research is done or as said provenance accompanys the record/acetate.

So the key to this is provenance! If you dont have it the number could be 5 or 50,000.

add this to copies destroyed-It becomes a guessing game. Which is as Nev says why we love it so much.

Edited January 13, 2010 by Ernie Andrews

[Eddie Hubbard]

you only have to sit and listen to some of the unissued stuff that is now out there, the Motown, the RCA stuff, some of it with full orchestra and whatever supporting the artist. The studio time alone must have cost a few bob let alone the production costs, and what for, to get rejected and shelved, stored in a dusty vault to be found many years later.

I heard a theory a while back that the follow - up's to some of our faves , that ultimately didn't get released , were sometimes better songs than the released sides so the company [RCA / Motown etc ] had an even better record to follow up with if the first record was a hit , which they weren't of course .I think this is why many of the RCA collectable sides are rare on Black issue , as they were demo'd in quantity and if they didn't get the thumbs up from the radio DJ's or the listening public , then very few stock copies were produced .Best,Eddie