I thoroughly enjoyed Setting The Record Straight. There was no ‘kiss and tell’ which i think is of great credit.
I thought i’d read Richard’s book whilst playing each of the tracks at the same time. I’m glad i did... comments such as the one he made about “School of Life” p 216 was so touching, especially as the record plays. And there were many more.
How many of us over 60yrs of age (now) would have thought (back then) we would be able to listen to all these records in our own homes?
I then thought...how much would these all cost to own today? So i gave it a go - here’s the results.
Value, price, cost, rarirty, obscurity, fashion, and availability all have their own individual charachteristics. Put subjectivity, rareity, obscurity, fashion, condition and which sources you use to make ‘value’ judgements into the mix, and you get a heady combination when trying to figure out ‘how much you might have to pay for a particular 45 listed in the book’ in today’s market.
Notes:
Data collected from 4th Nov 2018 to 13th Nov 2018
Data Collected on: From page 26 The Admirations - TO - page 234 Z.Z. AND Company
Data Collected on 154 Records = £139,367
Some are just priceless! So add your ‘value’ for these. EXCLUDED are: All Acetates (p33, 37,38, 52, p82-83, p144-145, 161, 174, 217, p219-220), Big Bee 778 and Tie 101.
Data= Sold or for Sale (no guesswork as such): 1st Call on Discogs, then checks on Soulsource,Popsike, and others. So for example, Approx 84 from Discogs entries used and checked elswhere, 2 from Richard’s book itself, 28 from Soul Source and checked elswhere, and so on. Only a minority of the data (rarer issues e.g. Sussex 213,Peaches 6271, Awake 502,) came from years prior to 2016. For Discogs data the HIGHEST sold figure was taken, and in fact the MEDIAN was not that much different (at the top end).
The Highest 10 = £49,894
The Lowest 10 = £216
LP’s =7
Along the way, going back and forth, i did notice some anomolies. Mostly to do with Labels. But this wasn’t ever meant to be a reference book, and i’m thankful for that. Again...great read.