Collecting Vinyl Records: Elvis

Video Transcript

"Let's talk a little bit about Elvis. He's left the building but he's on the vinyl. We have Elvis records here. Here's an important fact to remember when you are talking about collecting records; these are two of the same album seemingly, but they are not the same album. They have different numbers. And when you look in the record book price guide, the first thing you want to look for is the number of the album. That's how you check the value. So this album would be LSP3758 Stereo. This album would be LSP3758, but it doesn't say "stereo" here. It does in this corner. So, those are identifiers that you need to pay careful attention to when you want to find out how much your album is worth. When you want to know what your album is worth, the first thing you do is you get really excited because you see Elvis. So everybody thinks (I can't tell you how many times I've heard this) I bet you this album is worth very much money, you know, a lot of money and I'm thinking "no." As a matter of fact, with Elvis records, there are so many of them out there. The only ones that are worth money are the specific ones that are labels that are not re-issues. Or if there are, there are some foreign press labels. But the whole thing is when it was pressed, the number and whether it's mono or stereo. There's a bunch of factors to look at. Some labels, not necesarily on Elvis, are black. Some are rainbow colored, some are white, some are yellow and you can have this variation on so many different albums. So you really need to pay careful attention and not get too excited when you see an Elvis album because you may have one that's worth (like, probably this one or this one) three to five dollars. But there could be one out there (a first issue) that could be worth one hundred. But, as with everything, see the condition of this record? Incredible. No scratches. Buy Elvis if it's an older pressing. Buy a record guide to find out. "