Queen 2017 top 100 rarities

Hi all... some time ago in both record collector and on particular websites.... there were lists compiled detailing queens top 100 vinyl rarities.ive been wondering recently about the effect that the internet has had on historical rarity lists in terms of more material being available worldwide....I wonder if sites like queenvinyls and record collector could assess a new list for 2017?...be quite sobering and surprising for a few serious collectors like me

[Kes]

Indeed.

I think the majority of most bands top rarities are going to be acetates and collector's items which were never commercially available. For that reason, I think such lists should be made up of stuff that a fan "could" have bought back in the day they were issued.

It pays to know people who worked at pressing plants or at the record companies I guess?... but there is still nothing like discovering a true bargain where vinyl records are concerned.... the best bargain I sourced had to be show must go on red vinyl

[Kes]

Got two of those.

The fan club were selling some leftover copies for a tenner each at one of their Freddie birthday parties, so I bought one, and my daughter bought one.

At that sort of time, being in the fan club was good for me.

They had about five copies of the purple vinyl Bohemian Rhapsody, and put them up for raffle, I think about a thousand people applied, and luckily for me, I won one of them.

About the rarest thing I have in my collection, was Freddie's own one sided test pressing of Somebody To Love, the same copy he played to Kenny Everett and Peter Freestone before the band had finished the ADATR album. I was given it by the guy who used to be Fred's driver and personal assistant in the late seventies and early eighties, after doing him a favour, so it's history is completely genuine.

I don't really have much in the way of rarities, but I've been surprised to find two of the most valuable items in my collection are the vinyl issues on 'Queen On Fire' and 'Queen Rock Montreal'.

However, it's transpired that pretty much any major album release from the late 90s/early 00s on vinyl is worth a surprising amount if it's now no longer in print, and should a reissue be on the cards, then the price drops dramatically.

A good case in point? Placebo's first five albums were worth £200 a pop at one point, but original pressings are now only fetching about £50 because you can pick up all of them as new remasters for £20 each... whereas Marilyn Manson's 'Nothing'-era albums that had proper vinyl issues (Mechanical Animals, Holy Wood, The Golden Age of Grotesque and Lest We Forget) are commanding up to £300 each, when a CD copy would struggle to get you more than a quid...

[Kes]

Go back to the mid nineties, and a CD copy of Mr Bad Guy pressed by MPO in France (what was on original release, the standard European issue) and featuring three of the 12" mixes, was fetching £150. You'd be lucky to get more than about thirty to forty quid for one now.

That's pretty much what the Freddie boxset in 2000 did to the value of them on it's own, and even THAT'S been out of print for nearly fifteen years now.

Prices are always decided by supply versus demand. If something for any reason gets resupplied, then there becomes less demand for it, and the price goes down.

However, it's transpired that pretty much any major album release from the late 90s/early 00s on vinyl is worth a surprising amount if it's now no longer in print, and should a reissue be on the cards, then the price drops dramatically.

A good case in point? Placebo's first five albums were worth £200 a pop at one point, but original pressings are now only fetching about £50 because you can pick up all of them as new remasters for £20 each... whereas Marilyn Manson's 'Nothing'-era albums that had proper vinyl issues (Mechanical Animals, Holy Wood, The Golden Age of Grotesque and Lest We Forget) are commanding up to £300 each, when a CD copy would struggle to get you more than a quid...

that's because vinyl became a niche format by the early-mid 90's and pressing numbers were minute, was largely removed from sale/production for a few years by the major labels (3-5 years?) because it wasn't financially viable. the labels then re-introduced vinyl - production levels haven't gone up since the late 90's - the labels have just managed to milk the format by marketing it as being collectable and charging way for more than they did then. cd prices have gone down, and vinyl has more than doubled. £12-15 for a 7" single when through the 90's and early 00's they were about £1/2.99. i remember hmv flogging off lps that are now pretty rare for about £3/4 in the very late 90's because they struggled to sell them.