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Clonehunter

What's rare in your music collection?

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(1)Your tapes, your vinyls, your CDs, your inscribed bladders, what's rare in your music collection? Or what do you have that seems to be rare or hard to find, or perhaps flat out pricey, in your stash (whatever size it is)?

For me, Karnivool's Themata was difficult to track down, with copies at the time about 45 USD and up. I finally nailed a copy off of Amazon for about 40, and I'd say that it was well worth it. I looked it up again now, and see that prices now range from between 35 and higher, with sealed copies being roughly 80 USD if I remember correctly. Ebay and Amazon also generally have few copies of the album up at once. Not the rarest, but not the most common, either. It's a nice piece, though.


(2)A bit of a follow up, what rare bits of music would you like to grab during your lifetime?

My number one holy grail at this moment in time is probably Like Phantoms, Forever, an EP by My Chemical Romance released during 2002, right around the time of their first touring outside of their home state of New Jersey. Apparently, 100 copies were made, and the last recorded eBay listing went for ~500 USD. It only has three tracks of demo versions of songs from their debut album, and I'm more attracted to rarity and elusiveness as opposed to anything else about it.

I'd also love to find a copy of the Doom soundtrack, which I believe is only titled Doom Music. I do not know a lot about this album in general, other than that it exists.


So, how 'bout you guys?

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I have quite a lot of early Warp/Rephlex/Planet Mu stuff on vinyl - e.g., original issues of nearly all Autechre, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher albums/EPs. Though now that the discogs marketplace exists, finding this stuff isn't very difficult these days, but some of it can be quite pricey.

One thing I have which is more of an oddity is a copy of Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works II' on cassette, since this was issued with an additional track that (at the time) wasn't available elsewhere.

I have lots of strange records though, which insofar as they're quite limited pressings are quite rare, but probably not valued terribly highly, which works for me, e.g., I'm gradually ticking off the LPs in this series - would love to have the full set - some really interesting recordings.

I'd really like to expand my collection of original Jazz pressings - particularly stuff from Blue Note, Riverside, and Prestige - but that's quite a project, involving time, expense, and frustration, so haven't started yet.

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My music collection is varied and tasteful. That's what's rare about it.

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The rarest thing I have in my collection is my Aqua: Megalomania album, an album that was never released in the USA, and I cant seem to find much info on it other than its real.

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Vinyl copies of Wild Frontier and Run For Cover signed by Gary Moore. Not super rare, but they are the crown jewels of my music collection. I meet Gary back in 2010.

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A promo copy of Silvertear's "So Deep" plus its remixes on vinyl. Most will probably know this as a licensed song that appeared in DDR Max 2 (or DDR 6th Mix in the arcades). The label is even handwritten. You can hear it here. I also a few other things on vinyl, like an Utada Hikaru album, various trance releases, and The Catalogue by Kraftwerk. But nothing too horribly rare.

Then there's a CD I bought online from a guy who resurrected an old Hammond Novachord. There's info on it (and the restoration project itself) here. I doubt many people have this CD.

I have the "Doom Music CD" that Clonehunter mentioned as well. It's pretty good, but basically just like the SoundCanvas versions that are on the web, just cleaned up a bit.

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Original White Album
Wax Trax Revolting Cocks - You Goddamn Son of a Bitch
Early pressing of Gang Green - Another Wasted Night

I'm sure there's more. I have thousands of vinyl records all over my house.

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Probably more than I am aware of, since I started hitting junk and thrift stores about 3 years ago, and in LP, CD and Cassette formats, too.

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I have a stack of olde Decca Jazz 75's, tho I don't know how rare any of that is which is probably more olde than rare. My music collection is varied between 45's, 78's, LPs, cassettes and CDs. There's probably a few rare things in there but not sure really.

Edited by Doom_Dude : I said 75's somehow... haha

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You mean 78s? They're having a bit of a renaissance at the moment - I know of a several DJs who make a thing of using mostly old 78s, so you might find there's a good market for them if you ever wanted to sell.

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I used to heavily collect Nine Inch Nails and "rare" singles from artists. Unopened boxed sets. See I'm weird I buy a boxed set and say eh one day I'll have a shit day and need something fresh and open it. Well that day came twice... but the other 50 never happened. So they sit... unopened wrapped like gifts to keep the dust off them.

I keep all my jewel CD cases in vinyl zippered cases. Like CD wallets made for the entire jewel case. I was quite meticulous back then and still have everything in perfect condition. I can't say that any of the rare singles have increased in value.

Looks like a lot of stuff has gone down in value from when I last checked like 15 years ago. A $75 NIN Wish promo is now $50 on eBay. A $30 CD is now $4. Hilarious. The boxed sets have gone up, but a $100 boxed set is $100 for the 7 or so CDs inside. Now a lot of the boxed sets / wax trax stuff is $400 according to eBay. That's if they sell of course.

It seems like video games are the only thing that go up in value since people need Youtube content and you can't emulate since its a moral thing that turned into a pride thing. By up in value I mean they originally cost $50 then they went down to $5 and now they're up to $20 some are up to $80. Mostly RPGs and SHMUPs.

Thankfully I didn't ever put them in CD jewel cases, because the one time I did that with my PC games... I can't find the case anymore.

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Music collection? Ha. Threw out all I had ages ago. 128 kbps mp3s all the way, baby.

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Phml said:

Music collection? Ha. Threw out all I had ages ago. 128 kbps mp3s all the way, baby.


I've got 40,000 mp3s, but in the past 3 years I've even done away with mp3s and just went with a music subscription for $10 a month. A lot of people just listen to Youtube now and they'll have an ad free subscription service at some point.

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durian said:

You mean 78s? They're having a bit of a renaissance at the moment - I know of a several DJs who make a thing of using mostly old 78s, so you might find there's a good market for them if you ever wanted to sell.


Duh, yeah 78's. Think I'll hang onto them tho. :)

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To be honest I'm in a similar boat. Youtube search for song's name, bookmark eventually. Wasteful and hardly moral, but convenience wins...

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Phml said:

To be honest I'm in a similar boat. Youtube search for song's name, bookmark eventually. Wasteful and hardly moral, but convenience wins...


yeah everything is on there... no matter how rare. I'm shocked their whole copyright audio net didn't catch them all. Seems like actual Youtube content providers with faces say that they were flagged by something... yet not real music that has been stolen.

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A bootleg from Legendary pink dots that is not sold.
The complete three Mortho(u)nd albums.
Two Alboth! albums.
Baba Yaga la sorcière (Magma with a kids’ choir).
The complete Deutsch Nepal album collection on CD.
An Eric Glick Rieman album.
And so on…

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I have quite a few rare/expensive metal vinyls.

Original first press of the first Darkthrone albums, "Wrath of The Tyrant" and "As The Shadows Rise" by Emperor. Suffocation - "Human Waste" and "Effigy of the Forgotten" first presses. Some more old school DM stuff like Morgoth and Obituary etc.

I have many friends who are avid vinyl collectors and they have thousands of metal vinyls, some worth up to $2000 each...like mint condition first press of Motorhead, Iron Maiden 7"s, the first Bathory etc etc. Its always fun having a look through their collections.

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PIG's "Praise the Lard" and "Hello, Hooray" LPs original pressing and signed, an unopened LP of Front 242's first album "Geography" amongst other things.

Phml said:

To be honest I'm in a similar boat. Youtube search for song's name, bookmark eventually. Wasteful and hardly moral, but convenience wins...


That doesn't sound so convenient to me. :p

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I have the first four original Candlemass 80's albums on vinyl in near mint condition. All on Black Dragon and Axis/Active records. I also have the debut Trouble album before it was renamed to "Psalm 9" on Banzai records. Found a radio copy at my local record store in unplayed mint condition. I got all the original Rush records too from their debut all the way up to "Grace Under Pressure." I got tons more but those are probably my favorites. I got more CD's than I do vinyl.

darkreaver said:

I have many friends who are avid vinyl collectors and they have thousands of metal vinyls, some worth up to $2000 each...like mint condition first press of Motorhead, Iron Maiden 7"s, the first Bathory etc etc. Its always fun having a look through their collections.


Wow that's pretty sweet. Especially that yellow covered Bathory album. That's like the holy grail! Burzum has always been my favorite Black Metal band but his original material on Deathlike Silence Productions is insanely expensive. Even the CD is over $300 in mint condition. Vinyl much more. I hope to collect it one day.

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Phml said:

Music collection? Ha. Threw out all I had ages ago. 128 kbps mp3s all the way, baby.


Ha, I used to be like you when I was back in high school. I'd buy Cd's just to rip them to 128 kbps WMA files on Windows Media Player, and listen to them off of either the computer or a Sansa Fuze portable player. Then one day I found an old CD Walkman laying around my room and I put NIN's The Day The World Went Away single on it. I was blown away at how much better it sounded all around. Better bass, clearer high end, I felt like I was listening to my music for the first time again. So enjoy your crappy sounding compressed music I guess, as long as it's convenient right? ;)

As for the original question, I managed to inherit my parent's vinyl collection which has quite a few gems in it. I've got original copies of all of The Beatle's late 60s output (White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be) plus several reissues from the 70s. I've also got original copies of Paul McCartney's first four albums as well, plus George Harrison's All Things Must Pass with all the original inserts and sleeves. I've also got quite a few original Zepplin releases as well, plus an early 80s copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon still in the original shrinkwrap with the poster and sticker inserts.

As for CD's, while I have a ton of them, not too many of them spring to mind as being rare though. The only ones that that I can think of are promo copies of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. 2 and The Brown Album by Primus. I am however proud of my small Beatles Cassette collection, which I managed to put together when I was a kid in the early 2000s right before cassettes were phased out. My favorite of the lot is the double cassette release of Paul McCartney's greatest hits album Wingspan, which was released in 2001.

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Probably got a few gems including things that weren't gems when I got them but, because of time, have become so. I've been collecting music for quite a long time now and I have hundreds of CDs and Vinyls.

One that, as a Gary Numan fan, I particularly remember getting is a copy of Tubeway Army's (Gary Numan's) first album in its limited edition blue vinyl pressing.

On a sadder note, when I was much younger, my parents had a collection of Glenn Miller 78s. These were the real-deal. At the time we had one of those old record players that allowed you to stack a bunch of records on the central spindle. When one record finished, the playing arm would return to the side, the spindle had a little gadget on it the would retract too allow one of the stacked records to drop onto the platter and then the arm would go back and play the newly dropped record. So, I placed a bunch of these on the spindle and started listening. Unfortunately, 78s are much more brittle than vinyl records and when the last one dropped, it sent enough of a shockwave through the stack that each and every one of them broke. They were worth a fortune and I'm not sure my parents ever forgave me. :/

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Enjay said:

Unfortunately, 78s are much more brittle than vinyl records and when the last one dropped, it sent enough of a shockwave through the stack that each and every one of them broke. They were worth a fortune and I'm not sure my parents ever forgave me. :/

My father had a similar heart-breaking experience with a parcel of 78s that were sent by rail to the town we were living in. With only a few parcels to drop off, the train reportedly just slowed a bit and they were slung onto the platform, needless to say none of the records survived. :(

On a happier note, sitting on my lap is a 1928 album set of selected passages from Richard Strauss' "The Rose Cavalier", conducted by the composer, which spans four 12inch 78s. Purchased by my grandfather when new and in better condition for their age than I am.

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I got a red copy of the reissue of Diabolus In Musica by Slayer two months ago. Apparently they only made 500 copies on red vinyl, and I guess mine was sitting in an Amazon warehouse for a couple of years. So that was neat.

Most of my 'rare' stuff is cd's or 45's of punk bands that few people have heard of, and that more than likely don't exist anymore. But when we had a punk scene in my town I tried to pick up some vinyl if they had it available.

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maybe. i have a couple of ltd. edition CDs and tapes from independent artists, but those could hardly be considered "rare" in the sense that it's worth a load of cash. other than that i can't really say. maybe my dad has something in his collection of records.

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durian said:

I have quite a lot of early Warp/Rephlex/Planet Mu stuff on vinyl - e.g., original issues of nearly all Autechre, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher albums/EPs.

For a moment there I got disproportionately excited, thinking I was gonna see Boards of Canada's "Hooper Bay" in there.

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