According to this article, A SINATRA MYSTERY � SORT OF � SOLVED!
By Will Friedwald , bootlegs of the Sinatra custom recording of "The Lady is a Tramp" for Ringo have been circulating for years, which would mean that the master was not destroyed and that the recording would be rare but not as rare as claimed.

Pretty sure (begins rumaging) yes, nearly positive in fact, why I'd bet on on....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



Damn you brap jr. and your love of crafting fruit bowls by utilizing atypical media!

I thought that this was it.

/I still miss Tech TV

I have no records, so I'm gonna say "no".

Yea, I have it.

PULL!

I don't have it anymore.

My pretty decent vinyl collection does include a promotional radio station copy of Led Zeppelin ZOSO aka IV. White lable on the vinyl, All white cover, with something stamped on it. Only about 1000 were made. Bought it at a garage sale for $2. My Holy Grail.

Is it the long-lost recording of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, where Lincoln's only rebuttal is "Ni**er, please. West Side!"?

Doktor Merkwrdiglieben: Is it the long-lost recording of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, where Lincoln's only rebuttal is "Ni**er, please. West Side!"?

You have that too!? I thought I was the only one...

/Of course Polk's rendition of "99 Problems" is pretty solid, too.

oh yeah well i have Slipknot's "Iowa" on vinyl.

/worship me, biatches

mp3 of the song is on the internets.

I bet "The Beatles" #000001 is worth a pretty penny too. Anyone know who got it? My guess is Paul.

I always heard that the 45 of the Beatles backing Tony Sheridan doing rockabilly versions of My Bonnie & When the saints go marching in was the most valuable record.

My best friend as a child actually had that record - his flower child brother gave him all his records after he got married.

I have a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller. I think that's pretty rare.

/I lie
//don't have it, nor want it

spacemanjones I bet "The Beatles" #000001 is worth a pretty penny too. Anyone know who got it? My guess is Paul.

I've read numerous times that Lennon insisted that he get #1, and the others gave in and let him have it.

phlegmography: I have a copy of Michael Jackson's Thriller. I think that's pretty rare.

/I lie
//don't have it, nor want it

i thought everyone in the world had a copy of "thriller".farker sure did sell well.

spacemanjones: I bet "The Beatles" #000001 is worth a pretty penny too. Anyone know who got it? My guess is Paul.

Nope. John nagged him out of it. The Beatles did split the first 100 pressings of the album between themselves, so they may still have most of the low numbers.

As to the Sinatra record: Ringo lost everything in a house fire in LA in the early 80's (including his Beatles-era drum kits), so unless Maureen took it with her when she left him, it's gone, man.

I thought the disc that The Quarrymen recorded at a drugstore was the most valuable. Paul has that one, he had to buy it from one of the other Quarrymen for a pretty penny.

I have a copy of Too Much Joy's "Green Eggs and Crack" on vinyl, only 1000 copies pressed... What do I win?

Why wouldn't Ringo still have it?

10 most valuable records (new window)

The Dynamite Monkey: I thought the disc that The Quarrymen recorded at a drugstore was the most valuable. Paul has that one, he had to buy it from one of the other Quarrymen for a pretty penny.

Yeah, but it wasn't a drugstore.

dstanley: 10 most valuable records (new window)

That list is cool, but the description of that 1962 Elvis record as "one of the last monaural recordings in stores when stereo began to take over" is ridiculous.

/record nerd
//If it did exist, I'm sure in burned in the aforementioned Ringo house fire.

what about that famed / infamous double-record test pressing of "Genesis Live" ?

I've always wondered about the White Album numbers. I've got a german import numbered in the 300,000's. It would be cool to have one that was 999 999 or 123 456 or some other strange number.

Several "White Albums" with numbers under 20 down to 5 have popped up over the years. I think 5 went in the $20-30k range.

no but i have this (new window)

/really

I climb up on a chair and start pulling the singles boxes down. There are seven or eight in all, and though I try not to look at what's in them as I put them on the floor, I catch a glimpse of the first one in the last box: it's a James Brown single on King, thirty years old, and I begin to prickle with anticipation.

When I start going through them properly, I can see straight away that it's the haul I've always dreamed of finding, ever since I began collecting records. There are fan club-only Beatles singles, and the first half-dozen Who singles, and Elvis originals from the early sixties, and loads of rare blues and soul singles and...there's a copy of "God Save The Queen" by the Sex Pistols on A&M! I have never even seen one of these! And oh no oh no oh God - "You Left The Water Running" by Otis Redding, released seven years after his death, withdrawn immediately by his widow because she didn't...

"What d'you reckon?" She's leaning against the door frame, arms folded, half-smiling at whatever ridiculous face I'm making.

"It's the best collection I've ever seen." I have no idea what to offer her. This lot must be worth at least six or seven grand, and she knows it. Where am I going to get that kind of money from?

"Give me fifty quid and you can take every one away with you today."

I look at her. We're now officially in Joke Fantasy Land, where little old ladies pay good money to persuade you to cart off their Chippendale furniture. Except I am not dealing with a little old lady, and she knows perfectly well that what she has here is worth a lot more than fifty quid. What's going on?

"Are these stolen?"

She laughs. "Wouldn't really be worth my while, would it, lugging all this lot through someone's window for fifty quid? No, they belong to my husband."

"And you're not getting on too well with him at the moment?"

"He's in Spain with a twenty-three-year-old. A friend of my daughter's. He had the farking cheek to phone up and ask to borrow some money and I refused, so he asked me to sell his singles collection and send him a cheque for whatever I got, minus ten per cent commission. Which reminds me. Can you make sure you give me a five pound note? I want to frame it and put it on the wall."

"They must have taken him a long time to get together."

"Years. This collection is as close as he has ever come to an achievement."

"Does he work?"

"He calls himself a musician, but..." she scowls her disbelief and contempt. "He just sponges off me and sits around on his fat arse staring at record labels."

Imagine coming home and finding your Elvis singles and your James Brown singles and your Chuck Berry singles flogged off for nothing out of sheer spite. What would you do? What would you say?

"Look, can't I pay you properly? You don't have to tell him what you got. You could send the forty-five quid anyway, and blow the rest. Or give it to charity. Or something."

"That wasn't part of the deal. I want to be poisonous but fair."

"I'm sorry, but it's just...I don't want any part of this."

"Suit yourself. There are plenty of others who will."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying to find a compromise. What about fifteen hundred? They're probably worth four times that."

"Sixty."

"Thirteen."

"Seventy-five."

"Eleven. That's my lowest offer."

"And I won't take a penny more than ninety." We're both smiling now. It's hard to imagine another set of circumstances that could result in this kind of negotiation.

"He could afford to come home then, you see, and that's the last thing I want."

"I'm sorry, but I think you'd better talk to someone else." When I get back to the shop I'm going to burst into tears and cry like a baby for a month, but I can't bring myself to do it to this guy.

"Fine."

I stand up to go, and then get back on my knees: I just want one last, lingering look.

"Can I buy this Otis Redding single off you?"

"Sure. Ten pee."

"Oh, come on. Let me give you a tenner for this, and you can give the rest away for all I care."

"OK. Because you took the trouble to come up here. And because you've got principles. But that's it. I'm not selling them to you one by one."

So I go to Wood Green and I come back with a mint condition "You Left The Water Running", which I pick up for a tenner. That's not a bad morning's work. Barry and Dick will be impressed. But if they ever find out about Elvis and James Brown and Jerry Lee Lewis and the Pistols and the Beatles and the rest, they will suffer immediate and possibly dangerous traumatic shock, and I will have to counsel them, and...

How come I ended up siding with the bad guy, the man who's left his wife and taken himself off to Spain with some nymphette? Why can't I bring myself to feel whatever it is his wife is feeling? Maybe I should go home and flog Laura's sculpture to someone who wants to smash it to pieces and use it for scrap; maybe that would do me some good. But I know I won't. All I can see is that guy's face when he gets his pathetic cheque through the mail, and I can't help but feel desperately, painfully sorry for him.

/hornby ftw

i got an art tatum box set of 78s from 1940 that has never even been played off ebay in the mid 90s before everybody knew about ebay. i paid five bucks and last i looked a year ago it was worth $300.

I would think the Voyager probe two-disc set would be high on the list.

Good luck getting it back though.

delathi: I have a copy of Too Much Joy's "Green Eggs and Crack" on vinyl, only 1000 copies pressed... What do I win?

I've got Son of Sam I Am with the Bozo sample before "Clowns". Although I honestly don't know how many of those there are.

Sick_tired_and_needing_to_laugh: I would think the Voyager probe two-disc set would be high on the list.

Good luck getting it back though.


It all depends on who gets it during the break-up.

Nope, but I have a copy of Colonel Sander's Mandolin Band.

tagjim: youtube does.

Good find. How'd it end up there??

productiveslacker: My pretty decent vinyl collection does include a promotional radio station copy of Led Zeppelin ZOSO aka IV. White lable on the vinyl, All white cover, with something stamped on it. Only about 1000 were made. Bought it at a garage sale for $2. My Holy Grail.

Led Zeppelin's 4th album was not called IV or ZOSO, it was untitled.

Gulper Eel: I climb up on a chair and start pulling the singles boxes down. There are seven or eight in all, and though I try not to look at what's in them as I put them on the floor, I catch a glimpse of the first one in the last box: it's a James Brown single on King, thirty years old, and I begin to prickle with anticipation.

When I start going through them properly, I can see straight away that it's the haul I've always dreamed of finding, ever since I began collecting records. There are fan club-only Beatles singles, and the first half-dozen Who singles, and Elvis originals from the early sixties, and loads of rare blues and soul singles and...there's a copy of "God Save The Queen" by the Sex Pistols on A&M! I have never even seen one of these! And oh no oh no oh God - "You Left The Water Running" by Otis Redding, released seven years after his death, withdrawn immediately by his widow because she didn't...

"What d'you reckon?" She's leaning against the door frame, arms folded, half-smiling at whatever ridiculous face I'm making.

"It's the best collection I've ever seen." I have no idea what to offer her. This lot must be worth at least six or seven grand, and she knows it. Where am I going to get that kind of money from?

"Give me fifty quid and you can take every one away with you today."

I look at her. We're now officially in Joke Fantasy Land, where little old ladies pay good money to persuade you to cart off their Chippendale furniture. Except I am not dealing with a little old lady, and she knows perfectly well that what she has here is worth a lot more than fifty quid. What's going on?

"Are these stolen?"

She laughs. "Wouldn't really be worth my while, would it, lugging all this lot through someone's window for fifty quid? No, they belong to my husband."

"And you're not getting on too well with him at the moment?"

"He's in Spain with a twenty-three-year-old. A friend of my daughter's. He had the farking cheek to phone up and ask to borrow some money and I refused, so he asked me to sell his singles collection and send him a cheque for whatever I got, minus ten per cent commission. Which reminds me. Can you make sure you give me a five pound note? I want to frame it and put it on the wall."

"They must have taken him a long time to get together."

"Years. This collection is as close as he has ever come to an achievement."

"Does he work?"

"He calls himself a musician, but..." she scowls her disbelief and contempt. "He just sponges off me and sits around on his fat arse staring at record labels."

Imagine coming home and finding your Elvis singles and your James Brown singles and your Chuck Berry singles flogged off for nothing out of sheer spite. What would you do? What would you say?

"Look, can't I pay you properly? You don't have to tell him what you got. You could send the forty-five quid anyway, and blow the rest. Or give it to charity. Or something."

"That wasn't part of the deal. I want to be poisonous but fair."

"I'm sorry, but it's just...I don't want any part of this."

"Suit yourself. There are plenty of others who will."

"Yeah, I know. That's why I'm trying to find a compromise. What about fifteen hundred? They're probably worth four times that."

"Sixty."

"Thirteen."

"Seventy-five."

"Eleven. That's my lowest offer."

"And I won't take a penny more than ninety." We're both smiling now. It's hard to imagine another set of circumstances that could result in this kind of negotiation.

"He could afford to come home then, you see, and that's the last thing I want."

"I'm sorry, but I think you'd better talk to someone else." When I get back to the shop I'm going to burst into tears and cry like a baby for a month, but I can't bring myself to do it to this guy.

"Fine."

I stand up to go, and then get back on my knees: I just want one last, lingering look.

"Can I buy this Otis Redding single off you?"

"Sure. Ten pee."

"Oh, come on. Let me give you a tenner for this, and you can give the rest away for all I care."

"OK. Because you took the trouble to come up here. And because you've got principles ...

i don't know how true that is, and this is unrelated to records, but i have a similar story from my youth involving a box of silver age comics. i was at a flea market, and there was one vendor set up selling old atari games, coleco vision games, assorted old toys.. and one long box of comic books. being a huge collector, even at that young age (at least as much as my meager allowance would provide) i was more than excited as i shuffled thru that marvelous box of comics. all were mylar bagged, with the acid free boards and most were in at least very good condition. i picked a couple out that i thought i might could possibly afford (i always had an overstreet with me in those days when i went to the flea markets, you never know what you might find) and i asked the 60 some old year old woman running the stand what she wanted for the comics that i presented to her.

"hell, kid. I'll take 5 bucks for the whole box. they were my kid's, and he has long since moved out and got married and didn't seem to want them."

i almost broke my arm getting my wallet out. i had no such morals, you see, as informing the lady that there were quite a few valuable books in that box.


years later i sold most of the contents of that box and made some quite tidy profit. covered a few house payments, anyway.

frepnog: i don't know how true that is, and this is unrelated to records, but i have a similar story from my youth involving a box of silver age comics. i was at a flea market, and there was one vendor set up selling old atari games, coleco vision games, assorted old toys.. and one long box of comic books. being a huge collector, even at that young age (at least as much as my meager allowance would provide) i was more than excited as i shuffled thru that marvelous box of comics. all were mylar bagged, with the acid free boards and most were in at least very good condition. i picked a couple out that i thought i might could possibly afford (i always had an overstreet with me in those days when i went to the flea markets, you never know what you might find) and i asked the 60 some old year old woman running the stand what she wanted for the comics that i presented to her.

"hell, kid. I'll take 5 bucks for the whole box. they were my kid's, and he has long since moved out and got married and didn't seem to want them."

i almost broke my arm getting my wallet out. i had no such morals, you see, as informing the lady that there were quite a few valuable books in that box.


years later i sold most of the contents of that box and made some quite tidy profit. covered a few house payments, anyway.


Not true at all; it's from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. If memory serves, the scene didn't make the movie, but was an extra on the dvd. I forget who the woman was. Beverly D'Angelo, maybe?

Trainspotr: frepnog: i don't know how true that is, and this is unrelated to records, but i have a similar story from my youth involving a box of silver age comics. i was at a flea market, and there was one vendor set up selling old atari games, coleco vision games, assorted old toys.. and one long box of comic books. being a huge collector, even at that young age (at least as much as my meager allowance would provide) i was more than excited as i shuffled thru that marvelous box of comics. all were mylar bagged, with the acid free boards and most were in at least very good condition. i picked a couple out that i thought i might could possibly afford (i always had an overstreet with me in those days when i went to the flea markets, you never know what you might find) and i asked the 60 some old year old woman running the stand what she wanted for the comics that i presented to her.

"hell, kid. I'll take 5 bucks for the whole box. they were my kid's, and he has long since moved out and got married and didn't seem to want them."

i almost broke my arm getting my wallet out. i had no such morals, you see, as informing the lady that there were quite a few valuable books in that box.


years later i sold most of the contents of that box and made some quite tidy profit. covered a few house payments, anyway.


Not true at all; it's from Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. If memory serves, the scene didn't make the movie, but was an extra on the dvd. I forget who the woman was. Beverly D'Angelo, maybe?

never seen it, so i wouldnt have known, but thanks for playing. :)

There was a record auction on ebay I was following a year or two back, the record had a handwritten label and extensive documentation and was a one-off test press of monumental importance. I want to say it was a late 60s thing, but I'm blanking on the details at the moment.

It went for well over $100,000.

I'm looking for the details now......

E.S.Q.: There was a record auction on ebay I was following a year or two back, the record had a handwritten label and extensive documentation and was a one-off test press of monumental importance. I want to say it was a late 60s thing, but I'm blanking on the details at the moment.

It went for well over $100,000.

I'm looking for the details now......


That sounds like the Velvet Underground acetate Link (new window)
I love stories like these!

I always thought the Larry Lurex recording with Freddie Mercury on vocals and part of Queen backing him would fetch a pretty penny.

E.S.Q.: There was a record auction on ebay I was following a year or two back, the record had a handwritten label and extensive documentation and was a one-off test press of monumental importance. I want to say it was a late 60s thing, but I'm blanking on the details at the moment.

It went for well over $100,000.

I'm looking for the details now......

That was the Velvet Underground & Nico acetate with the alternate versions of a number of songs. The original session tapes are long gone (apparently) but the record didn't actually sell at the high bid, as the high bidder never paid.

Easy Reader: I've always wondered about the White Album numbers. I've got a german import numbered in the 300,000's. It would be cool to have one that was 999 999 or 123 456 or some other strange number.

White Albums with interesting number combinations do bring more money that regular copies. Bear in mind that after they "rolled the odometer" so to speak, they added a letter prefix in a number of countries where the record was pressed.

Jamdug!: Why wouldn't Ringo still have it?

House fire in LA in 1982 (I think and Google is failing me). All he has left are the original cymbals from his Beatles studio kit.

I have an autographed 45 of Radio Free Europe by all 4 members of the band... even with Buck's musings and doodles about the llamas on the back cover. It was from the single release party.

/not the Hibtone version, obviously, just the IRS one.
//that's it.

I was hoping for Spazz's Dwarf Jester Rising.

I quit listening to that kind of music a long time ago, but I'd still buy that one. That's the one that got away :(

/How much does that Confuse flexi go for anyway?

Here's some fun ones from my collection


Left and middle are Crimson Curse records. While the 45 is just uncut, the middle is a one sided LP with bugs silk screened on the other side. Right is a fairly rare Templars picture disk.


Another one sided LP with etching on the back.

maximum_jack: dstanley: 10 most valuable records (new window)

That list is cool, but the description of that 1962 Elvis record as "one of the last monaural recordings in stores when stereo began to take over" is ridiculous.

/record nerd
//If it did exist, I'm sure in burned in the aforementioned Ringo house fire.

That wasn't the only gross inaccuracy in that piece.

notmtwain: According to this article, A SINATRA MYSTERY � SORT OF � SOLVED!
By Will Friedwald , bootlegs of the Sinatra custom recording of "The Lady is a Tramp" for Ringo have been circulating for years, which would mean that the master was not destroyed and that the recording would be rare but not as rare as claimed.

The existence of bootlegs has nothing to do with whether there's a master. Anyone with a blank tape and five minutes alone with the record could have sourced it. Ringo himself might have copied it for someone.

frepnog: oh yeah well i have Slipknot's "Iowa" on vinyl.

/worship me, biatches

You said that in a Fark thread and didn't get called an angsty teen with poor taste in music? Wow.

maximum_jack:

dstanley: 10 most valuable records (new window)

That list is cool, but the description of that 1962 Elvis record as "one of the last monaural recordings in stores when stereo began to take over" is ridiculous.

/record nerd
//If it did exist, I'm sure in burned in the aforementioned Ringo house fire.


Indeed. I still have a mono copy of Surrealistic Pillow in fact.

Off the top of my head, here's a few of the odd/rare bits I've managed to hold onto over the years (don't want to think about the ones that got away):

Ork Records 45 of Television: Little Johnny Jewel

Red vinyl ESP LP, pressed on one side only, of Albert Ayler: Bells

A Kinks promotional 45 of the song "Misfits": square vinyl in a round picture sleeve

12" Flamin' Groovies 45 rpm with their original self-recorded version of Shake Some Action -- I've never run across this version in any format anywhere else (all of the compilations I've heard have the LP version). To my thinking, much brighter sounding, and with a tighter arrangement, than the Dave Edmunds-produced album version.

And then there are the posters... Sex Pistols, Iggy, Television, Talking Heads, Dead Boys, etc. It was a good time to be working in record stores.