What kinds of records do The Record People Buy?

The Record People buy all types of music and all sizes of collections. Every record collection is different, so if you’re wondering if we might be interested in what you have, the best policy is to give us a call or an email to discuss. Usually a short conversation can establish whether we’d be interested in your collection and if we are, we can schedule an appointment to have a closer look. 

While we encourage you to contact us, we’ve compiled the following blog post that outlines our level of interest in several broad categories of records. These are generalizations, but they can give you an idea of what we’re looking for.

Records We’re Looking For

Classic Rock

We’re very interested in classic rock from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and continue to see high demand for artists that are still played on classic rock radio and/or who appear on “Greatest Albums of All Time” lists. Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, etc. all sell well for us.

Jazz

We buy lots of jazz, though primarily from the late 50s and later. If your collection includes artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Art Blakey, Max Roach, or Lee Morgan, we’d like to take a look.

Punk Rock

We buy all eras of punk rock from the 70s to today. Records from popular artists like the Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Crass, and the Sex Pistols are always in high demand, and there is a large community of collectors who are interested in obscure, underground and local titles. If you have punk in your collection, we want to see it.

Heavy Metal

Like punk rock, we’re interested in all eras of heavy metal, from 70s hard rock like Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult right up to today. This includes a wide range of genres from grindcore to hair metal. Metalheads are fanatical about vinyl, and we see strong demand for both popular and underground artists.

New Wave / Indie Rock / Alternative Rock / College Rock

The Smiths, Joy Division, Husker Du, the Replacements, the Cure, the Ramones… we’re interested in underground and independent music of all eras and styles.

Cult Artists

We’re very interested in original pressings and reissues by obscure, cult, and avant-garde artists of all genres. Examples include Captain Beefheart, Moondog, Ornette Coleman, Frank Zappa, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Silver Apples, Can, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Nico, the Velvet Underground... I think you catch our drift!

Beatles LPs

We continue to see strong demand for the Beatles’ post-1964 studio albums (everything from Rubber Soul on). We still buy other Beatles’ titles, but we’ve noticed demand for them sliding over the past few years.

LPs Made After 1988

We’re interested in nearly any records manufactured after 1988, when the music industry largely abandoned vinyl for CDs. In particular, vinyl pressed in the 90s can be very valuable because of its scarcity. 

Soul and Funk

James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Parliament/Funkadelic, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Nina Simone, Al Green, etc.

Blues

Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, etc.

Reggae

Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Burning Spear, Culture, etc.

Audiophile Pressings

We’re always interested in audiophile pressings from companies like Mobile Fidelity, Quiexx, Analogue Productions, etc.

Collections Owned By Music Industry Workers

If you worked for a record label, radio and/or television, at a record store, in warehouse/distribution, live concert promotion, artist management, etc., we’d like to see your collection. The more deeply involved with music you are or were, the more interesting your record collection!

Records We’re Less Interested In

70s Soft Rock

Artists like Seals & Crofts, Loggins & Messina, and James Taylor were enormously popular in the 70s, and today there are more copies of their records out there than there are people who want to listen to them.

Big Band Jazz

There isn’t much contemporary interest in big band jazz artists like Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, etc. With a few exceptions, we don’t see much interest in popular music from before the early 1960s.

Crooners

Like the 70s soft rockers, albums by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. were pressed in huge quantities. Since the market for these artists’ music is much smaller today, their vinyl has little value.

12” Singles

12” singles typically have only a few songs and often feature generic company jackets rather than original artwork. While there are valuable 12” singles out there, they’re few and far between.

Disco

As with 12” singles (a format that disco helped popularize, incidentally), there are valuable disco records, but most disco records from the 70s and early 80s have little, if any, value for collectors.

Unsold Dealer Stock

If you’re a record dealer, we’re probably not interested in buying your overstock. We primarily look for private collections where the best and most desirable stuff hasn’t already been cherry picked.

Elvis

Perhaps there was a time when there was a vibrant community of Elvis vinyl collectors, but that day has long since passed. While there are a handful of historically significant items that still have some value, we don’t see much demand for common titles.

Gospel / Christian Music

Check any thrift store and you’ll likely find a dusty pile of old religious albums. Unfortunately there is little, if any, interest in these releases today.

“It Depends”

Classical

Most dealers dismiss classical music because the market for it is relatively small. However, we occasionally buy classical collections, but only if they are in pristine condition. We look for labels like Deutsche Grammophon, RCA Red Seal, London, and Philips that were marked to a higher-end clientele. 

45s

The analogy I use for 45s is that finding valuable ones is like looking for needles in a haystack. There is little demand for mainstream pop 45s, particularly since most of them were owned by teenagers who didn’t keep them in pristine condition. However, there is a ton of great music that only ever appeared on 45s, and these titles can be extremely valuable. Soul and funk tend to be the most valuable genres for 45s.

Hip-Hop

Original pressings of full-length hip-hop albums can be quite valuable; however, it’s rare to find them, and even rarer to find them in good condition. 12” singles, however, have very little value. 

CDs

If you’re reading this web site, you probably know vinyl is hot right now. What’s pointed out less commonly is that CDs are not hot. Like 45s, common popular CDs from the 90s and after are all but worthless today. However, there is still demand for CDs in underground genres like punk and heavy metal as well as deluxe reissues of classic albums in all genres, particularly if they include bonus tracks or other material that is otherwise hard to find. Generally, we’re looking for CDs that were marketed to small communities of collectors rather than the mass-market releases you could buy in malls or chain stores.

Country

Lately we have seen demand increase for original vinyl by “outlaw country” artists like Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and David Allen Coe, as well as more obscure country artists like Townes Van Zandt. Unfortunately, there is little demand today for more popular country music, whether it’s artists from the 60s like Glen Campbell, Patsy Cline, and Loretta Lynn or 80s artists like Alabama and Eddie Rabbit.