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Record collecting has ne’er been hotter.
Discogs.com, the de facto online vinyl bible, has a Top 50 list of the about costly records sold to specified mortals, which scope from the obscure (a 2008 12-inch azygous by Scaramanga Silk that sold connected the tract for US$27,000) to the legendary (Prince’s mysterious The Black Album, a azygous Canadian-pressed transcript that went for US$25,000). But that’s pouch alteration for immoderate collectors.
A transcript of John Lennon’s album, Double Fantasy, owned by his assassin, Mark David Chapman, and autographed by Lennon himself, sold astatine an auction successful 1999 for US$150,000. A first-pressing afloat autographed transcript of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper went for US$290,500 successful 2013. And a transcript of The White Album, once owned by Ringo Starr — serial number 0000001 — sold for US$790,0000 successful 2015.
But these were each records erstwhile commercially available. There’s an moreover higher class that features typical singles and albums pinch accumulation constricted to 1 (and successful a typical case, two) copies.
The grounds that gave commencement to stone ‘n’ roll
On July 18, 1953, an 18-year-old motortruck driver dropped into Sun Records successful Memphis to grounds a opus for his mother arsenic a day present. Side 1 was a type of the 1948 opus My Happiness, while broadside 2 was his rendition of That’s When Your Heartache Begins. When he was vanished and paid his $4, he received 1 transcript of a 10-inch 78 RPM acetate. That young motortruck driver’s sanction was Elvis Presley, and this was his first-ever recording. Given what happened next, this could beryllium considered the Big Bang of stone ‘n’ roll.
What happened to this grounds adjacent is unclear, though it seems to person been kept locked distant successful a slope vault for years. Then, successful January 2015, Jack White bought it for US$300,000. It was played once, truthful it could beryllium digitized and made available. Jack has the original stored location very, secure and will about apt ne’er portion pinch it.
The grounds that yet gave commencement to the about important set ever
Sometime successful the outpouring aliases summertime of 1958, the 5 members of The Quarrymen went to Phillips Sound Recording Service successful Liverpool — really conscionable the beforehand room of recordist Percy Phillips location — and ran done the Buddy Holly song, That’ll Be the Day.
Side two, In Spite of All the Danger, is much important because it’s an original opus written by 2 of the Quarrymen, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. John played connected the record, too, arsenic did pianist John Lowe and drummer Colin Hanton. The single-copy-only shellac-on-metal acetate was each they could afford. It costs the princely sum of about £1 (roughly £14 today), truthful each personnel took turns pinch it astatine home, keeping it for a week astatine a time.
Eventually, it was near pinch John Lowe, who kept it squirrelled distant for the adjacent 25 years. When he tried to waste it astatine auction successful 1981, McCartney stepped successful and bought it. It was transferred to magnetic tape, had the audio cleaned up, and past reproduced 50 copies, which were past fixed to family and friends. The original remains pinch McCartney. In the improbable arena it were to beryllium sold astatine auction, the starting value would beryllium $250,000 and would about apt waste for respective times that.
The typical grounds featuring Bob Dylan covering Bob Dylan
Blowin’ successful the Wind was 1 of Bob Dylan’s earliest hits, first appearing connected his 1962 album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Fast-forward to 2o22 erstwhile shaper T Bone Burnett projected that Dylan grounds different type for his caller analogue disc format called Ionic Original. This caller disc wasn’t pressed connected vinyl but a caller type of acetate created pinch Gorilla Glass, the aforesaid solid utilized for mobile phones. Burnett claims that, dissimilar original acetates aliases moreover vinyl records, an Ionic Original could beryllium played thousands of times without coming adjacent to wearing out.
It’s a awesome thought that is scalable for commercialized production, but tooling specified a pressing works is prohibitively expensive, truthful each we’ve sewage is this one-of-one Dylan recording. It sold for US$1.8 cardinal to a backstage collector successful 2022.
The CD that Wu-Tang Clan created arsenic a protestation creation project
Wu’s RZA was convinced by superfan and early Wu-Tang clan shaper Cilvarinz that the group needed to make a connection regarding really euphony piracy and streaming had devalued music. Why couldn’t Wu-Tang Clan create a CD that would beryllium truthful beautiful and uncommon that it would beryllium the philharmonic balanced of a Picasso?
The consequence was Once Upon a Time successful Shaolin, a one-copy-only double CD group wrong a precision-made metallic and nickel package that came pinch a 174-page book crafted by a Serbian maestro bookbinder. When it was primitively sold astatine auction successful 2015, the astonishment successful bidder was the highly unlikeable hedge money pharma bro, Martin Shkreli, infamous for raising the value of a kidney illness supplier from US$1.50 a pill to US$30. Given that patients needed to return betwixt 10 and 15 pills a day, this was unconscionable. He past raised the value connected an HIV/AIDS supplier from US$13.50 to US$750 a pill. But because he won the auction adjacent and quadrate pinch a successful bid of US$2 million, location was thing the Wu-Tang Clan could do.
But past Shkreli was arrested by the DOJ connected charges of securities fraud and had his assets seized, including the Shaolin CD. The authorities past sold it successful 2021 to a crypto corporate called PleasrDAO for US$4 million, which past sold pieces of the medium via NFTs (remember those?). At past word, the early of Shaolin is tied up successful lawsuits and countersuits involving PleasrDAO, Shkreli, RZA and Cilvaringz. Where is the disc now? Unknown.
The 2 discs nary quality will ever possess
When NASA launched the 2 Voyager spacecrafts successful 1977, each carried a typical phonograph disc made of gold, a metallic that could past the hostilities of interstellar space. The discs characteristic 116 images and a bid of sounds, ranging from greetings successful 55 languages to a barking dog, a sample of Morse codification and a sample of astronomer Carl Sagan laughing. There’s music, too, from cultures about the world, pinch the United States being represented by the only stone song, Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode.
As of February 2026, Voyager 1 is conscionable awkward of 16 cardinal miles away, while Voyager 2 is 13.3 cardinal miles retired there. That’s a spot acold for moreover the about dedicated grounds collector, and truthful intolerable to value out. But successful 40,000 years, Voyager 1 will beryllium wrong 1.6 light-years of Gliese 445, a prima successful the constellation Camelopardalis. So if location are habitable planets pinch record-collecting ETs successful the area …
Fun fact: The Beatles allegedly had a chance for Here Comes the Sun to beryllium placed connected the Golden Record, but they couldn’t activity retired a licensing statement … but to whom, exactly? Some alien civilization?
