Discogs Top 100 Most Expensive Records
Being record collectors ourselves, we’ve paid our fair share of hefty sums for long-sought-after records that were pressed in shamefully low numbers. We were curious to see if anything we’ve purchased ranked amongst the highest-priced items that have sold in the Discogs Marketplace since it launched in 2005. In addition to the worldwide top 100, we also looked at the most expensive records sold exclusively in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and France.
For the sake of maintaining our relationships, we won’t say whether or not any of our purchases made the cut, but we thought you might be interested in seeing this list of the most expensive records sold.
Our criteria included albums that were actually sold and paid for on Discogs. All prices have been converted to USD based on exchange rates at the time of sale. Duplicates are included – you will notice some albums appear more than once.
Every one of these has a unique story that contributes to them being worth a fortune. We have included a link to each release where you can find release notes that will help shed light on their value.
A few interesting trends we noticed while pulling these stats:
- 17 bands and musicians appear on this list more than once. Some, like The Beatles, who appear four times, will be familiar to most. Others, like funk group Mistafide, are niche one-hit wonders.
- The Discogs Marketplace connects buyers and sellers from around the world. 34% of these releases were purchased by collectors using EUR, 33% USD, 27% GBP, 3% CHF, and 3% JPY.
- 67 unique labels make appearances on this list. The most frequent are Parlophone and Deram, which each notched four appearances.
- Collectors are not only looking for full albums and 12″ vinyl. There are no fewer than 35 7″ records present.
We’ve talked about this before – heck, we even wrote an article diving into the trend – in-demand records really are getting more expensive.
And if you need any more proof that rare vinyl is getting more expensive, take a peek at what this post looked like when it was first published in 2010.
Do you notice any other interesting trends? Let us and fellow collectors know in the comments. We also publish a monthly list of the most expensive records sold worldwide.
If you have any records that you are considering selling, know that you can use Discogs to connect with buyers from around the world. Check out how to use Discogs to price and sell your vinyl records online.
Top 100 Most Expensive Records Sold On Discogs
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Thanks for this research, very amusing and thought-provoking, especially in comparison with the old list! Even with 17.53% inflation (but more disposable income around) and record collecting being popular these days, it’s a striking difference: if the old list barely made it in the low $$$$, with the average price of top-5 records at $1958, just a decade later #100 is already way above at $2896, and the list skyrockets to $17.7k as top-5 average.
The most interesting question is what exactly that means — is it a trend that’ll continue to grow ‘indefinitely’ or just a bubble about to burst? I personally think that collecting will remain stronger than ever, with more people and money attracted to it overall. On the other hand, average prices in the mid/top-segment gotta to plateau soon, since $5-10k is about what most people are willing to pay even for top items in their collections (comics, computer/console games, books, action figures, baseball cards, coins, stamps, and other small, artificial mass-produced objects from standard materials).
Just to amuse my future self a few years down the road, I’ll post a few predictions of other changes to come, in my humble opinion:
”’New collectible genres”’ (on top of the existing ‘classic rock / classical / jazz / kosmischesynth / krautrock’ foundation).
People are coming of age (and money) who are nostalgic about the music of their youth: new’ish hip-hop, 90’s skate punk/hardcore, noise — these scenes are already going up and they all produced plenty of collectibles/rare artifacts. Music by women, especially in less familiar genres and from unknown ‘pioneers,’ will be more valuable too with the rise of the #metoo era (see recent quadraphonic LP by brilliant Suzanne Ciani as an example).
”’Early electronic music, 60-70s avant & experimental stuff”’
will particularly grow, with tons of impressive reissues and reprints revamping the collector’s interest in such composers and albums: Mego’s Recollection GRM, Sub Rosa, Keith Fullerton Whitman’s [l=Creel Pone] bootlegs, Avant Garde Project on Archive.org, and numerous more. This will eventually lead to people seeking out first presses and original editions. See more cases like La Monte Young’s early albums, Roland Kayn LP boxsets, and other stuff already scoring $$$$ prices.
”’Different attention to (different) detail”’
Instead of hunting down mastering engineer’s initials in deadwax and paying tenfold for this one ‘hot’ press from a perfect mother at the trusted Columbia pressing plant, collectors these days will value a rare album or singular edition, and obsess over stuff like complete set of all 7” color variations of some post-punk/noise band, etc.
”’Audiophile 180G remasters = Thumbs down”’
If there’s a bubble in record collecting today here’s one! People are tired of paying $60+ for yet another ‘ultimate/supreme edition’ of John Coltrane’s 50-min album deliberately split over six 45RPM sides, which sounds decent (if you’re lucky) or mediocre (too much effort/technology killing whatever’s been left from the original sound). Hardly these LPs will be more expensive on the second-hand market, except the stuff that already stood the test of time, like selected early [l=Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab] series.
Overall, the entire generation had been raised during the loudness war (compressed low bitrate YouTube audio via smartphone earbuds/Bluetooth speakers), and they are much less interested in audiophile sound. They will still pay a premium, but not for Hi-Fi stereo: overpriced Bose home theaters, zeppelin-shaped B&W iPhone docking stations, levitating Kickstarter turntables, etc. Thus the rarest and quirkiest edition of any album is more important than the best sounding copy.
”’CD still in the game, but no changes”’ (?)
There are so many excellent catalogs unavailable on any other media, but CD is very easy to digitize to the cloud in lossless format, and ultimately a very small and ‘finite’ number of all discs have any (potentially) growing reselling value: rare boxsets and special editions, particular Japanese OBI-strip releases, ‘target CDs’ and other early European direct transfers, etc. The rest, between poor sound quality and disc rot, is pretty much worthless.
”’Compact Cassette is getting hot”’
Indie/underground labels and artists had been drawn to tape for a while, seeing it as a cool ‘new vinyl’ DIY alternative, though much cheaper and easily accessible. But with 90’s nostalgia coming into mainstream it will become more valuable. (Just one example is a fairly recent glorification of Walkman TPS-L2 in Marvel’s Avengers, and then in interactive Bandersnatch show on Netflix, which had pushed eBay prices for this not particularly expensive model (compared to really valuable Walkmans out there) through the roof.)
Plenty of pre-recorded cassettes from the past are already very pricey, but it’s mostly singular rare promos/limited editions, or audiophile MFSL tapes and such. So you can still find lots of brand new, even sealed tapes in thrift stores for $0.25, with pretty decent classical /jazz/world music/fusion/classic rock repertoire, often recorded on good chromium dioxide tape and with Dolby B noise reduction.
Even on a modest setup (like my own Denon DRM-700A deck + JVC RX-777V receiver via basic JVC speakers), it plays without any audible tape hiss whatsoever (good luck finding cheap LPs from the same era with such a low surface noise and zero scratches), and quite on par with vinyl and CD. So I think it’s a great vintage format to buy into these days, since collectible vinyl is already very expensive, and the world of valuable compact discs wouldn’t have many surprises left to offer, unlike treasure trove of forgotten/$1 store/garage sales/’old new stock’ tapes that are deemed worthless by most.
”’Other obsolete/niche media”’ (?)
Perhaps, 8-track tapes in good condition should have a lot of collectible value by now, as ‘antiques,’ especially paired with a perfectly restored vintage machine to play them on. Curious to see further price dynamics of ‘Reel-to-reel’ tapes too — pre-recorded tapes from the past are probably extremely rare these days, but there are also contemporary (and ridiculously expensive, basically direct copies of master tape) audiophile limited editions for people with studio-grade Studer/Ampex 1⁄4″ and 1⁄2″ decks in their home stereo.
But this is a small niche, especially since buying into this format is very, very expensive. Just recently I’ve been at the extremely hip new restaurant in Durham, NC (praised by food critics, from the best restorators in town, etc), called ‘Littler’, and the center of their interior behind the bar was a cool, fully functional reel-to-reel machine and a nice little shelf with tapes, because just vinyl is not enough these days to surprise a seasoned hipster! (Even though, a very nice turntable and records were also presented).
With all that in mind, just a suggestion/request:
1. Would be awesome to see a bit more stats and graphs on both lists, since they aren’t posted in very ‘parseable’ format. For instance, an overall $$ value of all 100 records in 2010 and today’s list.
2. Is it possible to post a similar list for other formats beyond vinyl? The fact that regular ‘Top 30 Most Expensive Items Sold’ lists are non-discriminative towards different media is my favorite feature! Plenty of CD’s, cassettes, 78RPM gramophone discs, and other releases are sold in $$$$. Honestly, the most amusing are transactions like $1200 paid for some 80s italo-disco CD from the budget Euro label (which is probably failing due to disc rot), over $9000 for Burzum album, Bob Dylan’s tour outtakes boxset on 4 CD-Rs, etc — not some mono Beatles first press or Sex Pistols 7″ misprint going for an expected high price.
Please, criticize me in comments!
There’s a quite optimistic $32k asking price currently on a 12″ acetate purporting to hold a hitherto unheard extended version of “Dreaming of Me” by Depeche Mode… feast your ears – and secure some venture capital? [r11438949]
raymey
I think you really should be putting this message elsewhere. A new thread or something.
Anyway, your album is not very rare, although in excellent condition it would be worth a bit, but as this was a major release at the time, lots of copies were sold.
Best way to assess it’s value is to see what others are selling for.
Found a beatle album in the attic. A collector told me it was fairly valuable. Can anyone educate me. The title is “Introducing…The Beatles Englands No.1 vocal group” It is on a Vee Jay lable and is original. It has a # SR1062 in the upper right corner. He said it is in excellent condition. I will offer it up for sale if anyone is interested. E-mail: Stingfuotoray@optonline.net
Erm, did I dream or there was a functionnality to evaluate the ‘worth’/’value’ of a collection, with three results, down/average/top values. Has it been taken off?
Need’s a update…