Guides
For vinyl collectors.
Practical answers to the questions collectors ask before, during, and after building a catalog. New guides added as the questions come up.
Album value
Original Led Zeppelin records.
Value guide for first-press LPs across the Zeppelin catalog — catalog numbers, album-specific tells, and recent sold ranges by condition.
Decisions
Sealed record. Open it or not.
What sealed copies are actually worth, the resealed-fake problem, when the seal is the asset, and when you should just play the record.
Pressing identification
Led Zeppelin II — the RL pressing.
A pressing-identification deep dive: why the Robert Ludwig cut exists, why Atlantic replaced it, how to confirm an RL copy from the matrix runout.
Album value
Original Jimi Hendrix records.
Track Records UK vs Reprise US, mono vs stereo, and the cover-art recalls that drive the top of the value range across the three-album catalog.
Album value
Original Rolling Stones records.
From the Decca/London era through Sticky Fingers and Exile. The 3D lenticular, the working zipper, the postcards, and what each pressing is actually worth.
Album value
Original David Bowie records.
The 1969–1974 RCA and Mercury catalog — Ziggy, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane — plus the famous withdrawn covers (dress, uncensored Diamond Dogs) that anchor the top of the range.
Pressing identification
Original Dylan — the Columbia six-eye.
The 1956–62 Columbia six-eye label and what it tells you about Dylan's first three LPs — including the banned-track Freewheelin' variant that has reached $25,000+ at auction.
Pressing identification
Blue Note jazz first-press identification.
How to identify an original Blue Note LP from the deep-groove era: label address, deep groove, flat edge, the RVG ear etching, and the matrix runout. Plus current values for canonical sessions.
Pressing identification
Kind of Blue — the six-eye first-press.
The 1959 Miles Davis Columbia first-press, the famous Side 1 tape-speed issue, and why the stereo six-eye is worth more than the mono — the reverse of the usual jazz-LP pattern.
Album value
The Velvet Underground & Nico — banana cover.
The 1967 Verve first-press with the Warhol peelable-banana sticker, the torso-cover variant, and what an unpeeled original is actually worth.