Why not? I have 40 year old stuff that plays perfectly, and the sleeves are sometimes better than what I get when buying new.
If everything I bought used was like my stuff, I’d have no reason to complain.
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Yep. The only items I’ve bought since those disappointments have been sealed.
If I find a LZII mastered by Bob Ludwig in near mint condition I’m happy to pay top dollar otherwise I usually don’t pay more than $50 max. Buys maybe three or four LPs a year 
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Yes, absolutely agree. Discogs is wonderful. Before 2000 I was buying in shops and was often disappointed to not find what I was searching or by the quality of the lp when in home. The lp can have a good mint look but in fact drawing a lot of noises. It’s difficult to see only with the eye.
Since some years I don’t remember having returned an lp . The sellers don’t want to loose % on their rate.
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I use Vinyl Tap for buying mine,
Only use discogs for a price guide
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Blockquote I’ve just successfully spent £115 on a supposedly “new” 2012 released album… This is the most I’ve spent on a record… I am in good company? What’s the most you’ve spent on a record?
It’s arrived. As far I can tell it was new, perfectly sealed and pristine. I’ve played it through couple of times and it sounds wonderful. I don’t think there was anything special about the issue itself, it’s just that I couldn’t find a copy at a more normal price… All in all, I’m very happy - certainly no regrets!
I’m glad I’m not alone in pushing the boat out occasionally (and taking a bit of leap of faith), to get a recording I regard as a bit special.
Just on the question of the price of albums generally, it is worth looking a today’s prices through the lens of inflation, as with the equipment we play it on…
and from I can tell from doing a bit of googling, the artist gets a percentage of this…
I bought this Mark Knopfler album too, and found it a disappointment. However, I’ve got many other recent purchases of new material on coloured vinyl to be fine.
Some years ago I got carried away bidding on eBay for a Kate Bush picture disc of the Kick Inside, the sticker on the back of the sleeve reads “factory sample, not for sale”, which I guess makes it a bit of a rarity, but probably not worth the £100+ I paid for it.
Best part is I never play it as it sounds awful compared to my original copy. The joys of collecting records.
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Perhaps though an album was only £4 in 1980. Certainly £4.49 by mid 80s
Though that still justifies £20 for a record.
It’s comparison to CD prices when it gets tough to justify!
It’s hard to remember, but I probably never spent more than £25 on a record.
I used to buy mainly UK and US first editions of records from 1975 when I first started buying records to about 2018 when I stopped buying records.
But when I sold about half my records to get the money to upgrade my Naim system and move to streaming from 2018 onwards I got up to £90 per album.
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An example of a purchases during the year… UK original press in near mint condition. Well worth the $45 price tag, at least for me
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This is the main reason I use a sniping service on eBay. I decide ahead of time the maximum I’m willing to spend for the item, then the sniping service enters my bid five seconds before the end, if my maximum hasn’t already been exceeded. Once I’ve set up the snipe, I try not to pay any attention to the auction until it’s over.
It is possible to get good value for vinyl, or at least it was! In 1993 I was living in Bahrain. My wife noticed an advertisement in the local paper for a sale of the vinyl records of Bahrain radio at a compound near our home. They were going fully digital. Since it was Thursday (the weekend) and late in the day, so very hot I decided to go and take a look and see if anything was left.
A very bored man met me at the door, and I enquired if there had been much interest to which he answered none, I was the first person to show up. He added that he was just about to call for help and get the entire collection dumped!
I offered him 20 Bahrain dinars (about £40) for the lot which he accepted provided I could get it cleared before 5.00pm, giving me only a couple of hours. I rushed home, to get help, and returned soon with my gardeners and their truck. We loaded up box after box leaving nothing behind. My wife was very unimpressed to find 10,000 LP’s and 12 inch singles in our living room.
Much of the collection was trashed and did indeed end up in a skip. However about 2000 motown and related items were almost unplayed (subject matter not really compatible with local attitudes) I sold these on my return to the UK as a job lot(as Motown is not my thing) for £18k. Many others were the most sold albums of the era and duplicates of my own collection, so these were given to friends and family that wanted them. There are some rare pressings, of note BBC chart shows recordrd and distributed around the world with play lists and DJ voice overs. Of the rest I have retained perhaps 500.
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