[S Clark]

I just picked up a box set of shaded dog Rubinstein Chopin... 6 lp's with a signed program by the maestro himself. 
I also have a sealed copy of the first lp that Doug Sax ever mastered. 

What classical LP do you have that makes other AC members drool??

[Photon46]

I've got over a thousand clasical lp's collected over 40 years. Many of them are pretty desirable. From a collectors standpoint, I scored a really sweet haul this summer when I went into a small little book and record store and was browsing the owner's rock lp selections. We got to talking and I mentioned that I also collected classical lps and he pointed to two boxes stuffed under a table in a corner. He said he'd just taken them in and didn't know what to do with them. Turns out they were full of mint or near mint RCA shaded dogs, early tulips D. Gramaphone, Mercury, and other classics that belonged to the retired one time first chair flautist in the N.Y. Philharmonic. The owner knew they were valuable but didn't want to go to the bother of trying to maxmize his return by selling on ebay. He let me cherry pick the best thirty or so of the lot and sold them to me for $75.00! I figure from the completed Ebay sales I've tracked that the lot must be worth at least a couple thousand dollars. I've got to say I think the fetish many people attach to the RCA shaded dogs is out of proportion to their sonic merits. Many of them do sound very fine, but I prefer the sonics of well recorded Decca, Columbia, and Phillips lps. One other great find I got last month was a near mint first pressing boxed set of Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic's complete Sibelius symphonies for $2.99. They sound incredible, phenomenal sonics.

[S Clark]

I've got over a thousand clasical lp's collected over 40 years. Many of them are pretty desirable. From a collectors standpoint, I scored a really sweet haul this summer when I went into a small little book and record store and was browsing the owner's rock lp selections. We got to talking and I mentioned that I also collected classical lps and he pointed to two boxes stuffed under a table in a corner. He said he'd just taken them in and didn't know what to do with them. Turns out they were full of mint or near mint RCA shaded dogs, early tulips D. Gramaphone, Mercury, and other classics that belonged to the retired one time first chair flautist in the N.Y. Philharmonic. The owner knew they were valuable but didn't want to go to the bother of trying to maxmize his return by selling on ebay. He let me cherry pick the best thirty or so of the lot and sold them to me for $75.00! I figure from the completed Ebay sales I've tracked that the lot must be worth at least a couple thousand dollars. I've got to say I think the fetish many people attach to the RCA shaded dogs is out of proportion to their sonic merits. Many of them do sound very fine, but I prefer the sonics of well recorded Decca, Columbia, and Phillips lps. One other great find I got last month was a near mint first pressing boxed set of Leonard Bernstein and the NY Philharmonic's complete Sibelius symphonies for $2.99. They sound incredible, phenomenal sonics.

Agree that SD RCA's prices have gotten out of line with their merits.  Deccas are just hard to find around here, not a big Phillips fan, older Columbias can be outstanding, but I look for tulip DG's and Londons for value.  Mercurys have the reputation and the $$, but they usually deliver... I like their ability to convey the space in which they were recorded.

[Randy]

I have a big pile of Lyritas and HMV and EMI Imports from the early 80s all in excellent condition.  I have listened to only a few of them once or twice pretty much since I got my first CD player.  Most of my old Columbias, Mercurys, and RCAs from the 60s are worn to the nub and are probably worthless.  All have just been sitting on shelves for the last 28 years. Wow, how time flies.

There was a guy in the early 80s who used to collect want lists from people and then make a big order for everybody from England of those EMIs and HMVs. This was back in the day when most of them were hard or impossible to get in the states. I don't actually know how much most of those old Lps might bring on the market, but a while back somebody posted a lot of Lyrita Lps on Amazon, mostly priced at $100 a shot. They went quickly, but I see now that there a plenty of Lyritas on ebay for far less than that.  Go figure.

[no1maestro]

I've been chasing RCA SDs and the Mercurys for years and have a nice collection of them but the real surprise happened last year when I was flipping through an estate sale and came upon a mint copy of Malcolm Arnolds Four Scottish Dances on Lyrita for one dollar. I listened to it and filed it with the rest of my treasures; I will try to take it with me when I leave.

[Photon46]

I agree that the Lyrita label offers up sonic goodness! A local record store took in a classical collection about three years ago and I got several of their titles for around $4-5 a copy. All sound excellent. Prices for lp's of all kinds have just gone through the roof in the last eighteen months though. The main store I frequent has a pretty big selection of "audiophile" vintage classical lps priced at the same high prices you see in fixed Ebay stores and they just sit there, nobody is buying them. I seldom buy vinyl of any genre anymore. One store in my area does lack expertise in evaluating the value of classical music and they'll let a number of excellent titles that are a little dirty or cosmetically challenged slip into their dollar bin. Last year I bought a sealed box set of Colin Davis' complete Sibelius symphonies on Phillips for $6.99 from them, couldn't figure out why they let that one go cheap. I did luck into a great Ebay seller about five years ago. This guy's brother had been a band director in a big mid-western city and he'd inherited his lp collection. He sold me a forty lp collection of mint sixties and seventies (mostly Columbia) Stravinsky lp's that I cherish.