I want to start off by mentioning that CDs are collectables. There is one irrefutable reason I can make this claim. That reason is the irrationality of the pricing of any particular CD. While it shouldn’t be a surprise that any particular thing can be collectable and priced unreasonably high when it becomes scarce, sometimes, the outrageous prices set a particular expectation when researching and shopping. In this way, I suspect there are a lot of dealers of collectables who will list items at outrageous prices to get people’s expectations set, then actually sell an item (maybe even as a different vendor) at a price less than that expectation, while still being somewhat unreasonable.
So anyway, this is about the last CD in a series that I need for absolute completion. I’ve been satisfied with what I’ve had so far because those that I have are all of the retail versions out there. The one I have been missing is a promo-only copy. Not only a promo-only copy, which could include retail copies with a "Promo, not for resale" sticker or stamp on it, this is a promo-only version. Obviously far less available and made in much lower quantity. All this time, there has been one seller of this disc, offering it for $50 plus shipping. The guy knows the scarcity.
Very recently, a new seller popped up, selling it for $30. This guy knows, too. And he’s looking to make a sale based on the one and only one person who has this CD in his wantlist (me). And you know what, he almost had me. I was getting ready to buy it when I decided to do a quick sanity check on eBay. eBay has never had that CD before, but you never know. And amazingly, it’s on there now. And only $10. It’s an immediate buy for me. Sure, I just paid a decent amount for a used CD, but it’s been unavailable for years and has had an unflinching price of $50. And now, my collection is absolutely complete.
Do I have other discs in my collection like that? Yes I do. Will I be fortunate enough to reap the benefits of scarcity when I sell? Collectors don’t sell. That was a trick question.
So, like I said, that completes the collection. The IRS NoSpeak series is now complete. The original CD collection that got me into being a completist was the MCA Master Series, which I’ve posted about many times. Out of curiosity, I did a search to see how much of that series was available for sale on eBay right then. That would give me an idea of the scarcity of my collection.
I would say it was maybe 50% available and of those, many were double-digit prices, so that’s actually pretty promising, from a value perspective. But as I was browsing the results, I didn’t have any category filters set, so I was seeing CDs, cassettes, and vinyl. But there was another product that was in the results – a promotional poster from the record label for the MCA Master Series.
Well, now. There’s a product you don’t see very often. In fact, I’ve never seen one ever, nor heard of it existing. And that would be understandable. Posters are given to record stores and other record label contacts, are hung up until they fade or rip (or the label goes out of business), and are discarded. No one keeps promo material like that. But here was a surviving example.
I’ve posted before about my big artwork project of scanning, printing, framing, and hanging all of the MCA Master Series album covers as art in my house. There should not be any doubt whatsoever that this poster must belong to my collection. And so it became. I don’t buy a lot of posters. I don’t really know how much they go for. But I got this poster for $16 shipped. Considering the thing is over 30 years old… I don’t think that’s too bad. It’s a decent size, also: 28" x 26". I have a place picked out and expect I’m going to spend the big $$$ on a professional framing job. Once stores open again, of course.
In all, this has been a spendy weekend. But, a lot of stuff is changing in my music room. Now stands for stereo speakers and components, a few new CDs are on the way, and a neat poster to hang in there.
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