Why eBay is a drag for record collectors

Eric R. Danton

on September 10, 2008 9:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's plenty to love about eBay. The online auction site has made it possible to track down almost anything you could want, from odd collectibles to the private jet Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she put up for sale to hard-to-find vinyl records.

Yet eBay is a drag for the same reason, at least when it comes to vinyl. Sure, you can find rare 45s and weird German white label pressings from the comfort of your living room sofa, and own them merely by outbidding other collectors at the last second. But there's a certain joy to flipping through record-store bins, hoping to come across that piece of wax you've been searching for, to pulling the record out of its sleeve and inspecting it yourself.

I had spent quite a bit of time looking in record stores all over the country for the long out-of-print double-vinyl release of Uncle Tupelo's second two albums, "Still Feel Gone" and "March 16-20, 1992." But the rise of eBay made it seem increasingly unlikely that I'd ever find it -- an awful lot of the LPs for sale on eBay, especially the more coveted ones, seem to come from record stores, which means those records aren't in the bins. In a way, that's good -- it's probably helping to keep record stores alive.

This particular album seems to crop up pretty frequently on eBay, usually for more than I'm wiling to pay. Yesterday, though, while waiting for a Hatebreed interview that never happened, I finally gave in and managed to submit the winning bid, completing my collection of Uncle Tupelo vinyl. Part of me, though, is going to miss heading for the "U" section of the record store to see if maybe, just maybe, a copy would be there waiting for me.

http://blogs.courant.com/eric_danton_sound_check/2008/09/why-ebay-is-a-drag-for-record.html

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