Discogs a Blessing or a Curse?

Hajidub

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
I just started cataloging my collection into Discogs and I've purchased a ton of LP's and cassettes from the site, but one thing always goes through my mind when I think about Discogs. Is it a blessing or a curse? I mean you can find pretty much any album you ever wanted; I exclusively deal only in USD, USA sellers, VG+ or better, from sellers with 98% ratings or above (a safe bet I get what I ordered). I've only had 1 issue in all my ordering and that was due to dealing with a drop shipper, order took a month, but I could have avoided it entirely if I would have done my due diligence and read his feedback prior to ordering.

The downside (curse) of Discogs: "you can find pretty much any album you ever wanted."

So that rare, sealed, 1st pressing of Big Star #1 you were going to sell for big bucks, well there's 25 copies for sale on Discogs, all sealed, all 1st press, and competitively priced to sell :( . Discogs and it's massive 10 million collective inventory has pretty much tanked the resale market, though not in every case. In a few occasions it's ballooned some albums from reasonable (in the past) to inflated, but for the majority it's tanked. The site has make folks delve deeper into what they have, looking for deadwax numbers to determine pressing and location information. Is this bad? No I think it's awesome, kind of a way to "get to know your collection."

Take BarterTown as an example. Many BT sellers of media now link Discogs to display median pricing, pressing info, and song listing. Super convenient, but prior to Discogs could that seller have sold that album for $20 instead of the identical condition asking price of $12 on Discogs? So is Discogs a blessing or a curse? Curious what you think (and no it's not that I'm a money hungry mongrel, just putting it out there).
 
The downside (curse) of Discogs: "you can find pretty much any album you ever wanted."

So that rare, sealed, 1st pressing of Big Star #1 you were going to sell for big bucks, well there's 25 copies for sale on Discogs, all sealed, all 1st press, and competitively priced to sell :( .

We old time record traders ran smack into this situation when the "rare vinyl" trading thing got going @ Ebay many years ago, learning that stuff we touted as "tres rare" wasn't always while the relative rarity (and subsequently demanbd and bidding $$$ for) other vinyl goods, especially so-called "private press" or "vanity label" PSYCH shot through the heavens. DISCOGS ain't doin' nuthin' Ebay hadn;t already done to the rekkid tradin', um, trade. Spot on about that Big Star album #1 Record (1972), 'cuz even though Ardent (subsidiary of STAX) was not (and never became) a BIG label, it was sufficiently large to move product. IIRC Big Star's sophmore effort, Radio City (1974) was indeed the more rare of the two and as Ebay got going the cost of clean copies of Radio City surpassed #1 Record by a hefty margin. And on and on and on it goes. Then @ Ebay "everything" became rare, heh heh. Oh well, those who know their LP histories know what's what and those stats @ DISCOGS carry far less weight than the auction results. Just my two kopecks on the topic.
 
I like Discogs for all the information. It's great resource for figuring out what I have. I haven't bought or sold on it, but have posted stuff that was super rare. Meaning it wasn't there until I posted it.

It's also kinda cool knowing that the random $1 record you bought may be worth $$$.
 
I buy stuff there and think it's great. A huge wealth of information. A quick glance will give you an artist's entire catalog.
That said I'm not a collector by any means. I buy to listen only.
 
Still trying to figure out how one of my albums, for which I paid around 10 cents, has sold on Discogs for over $1000. Seems totally weird to me.

https://www.discogs.com/Gounod-Bize...-Faust-Ballet-Music-Carmen-Su/release/5221361

I've steered clear of buying from Discogs, so the OP's advice is well received. Thank you.

Such "surprises" were made very clear to many of us, via Ebay auctions, by the late 1990s. It was a wild time of "market correction" among the LP & 78 collector community. DISCOGS has only served to make it even more "convenient" to carry out investigations of value, etc. Popsike, too.
 
flipper's paradise: cell phone access to ebay and discogs. the lazy ones (no shipping
or auction posting) use CL.

there are ways to get around some of these features/limitations...
 
I like it, mostly as a place to catalogue my collection. One thing that has surprised me is the increase prices for early CDs made in Germany and Japan. I was into CD very early and wish I had taken better care of some of my first editions.

One of the curses down here is the price on Australian pressings of local artists such as AC/DC(Alberts versions) , Spy vs Spy, Sunnyboys and the Go-Betweens as they are opened up to a worldwide market. The worldwide demand for original Aussie pressings has pushed up the prices in local second hand record stores, especially those with uniquely Australian covers.

Case in point my local record store has a Sunnyboys LP I had my eye on, but he's checked out Discogs and has a $80 sticker on it. Too rich for me, so I managed to get one via auction.

Midnight Oil seem to have missed out which isn't a bad thing.
 
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Still trying to figure out how one of my albums, for which I paid around 10 cents, has sold on Discogs for over $1000. Seems totally weird to me.

https://www.discogs.com/Gounod-Bize...-Faust-Ballet-Music-Carmen-Su/release/5221361

I've steered clear of buying from Discogs, so the OP's advice is well received. Thank you.
I think that is one of the rare RCA LS titles.
The people that search those out can be, um, a little 'obsessive'.

One of these days I ought to sort through my Living Stereos, and see if I have any gems money-wise. I know I've got a few that are gems music-wise.
 
Nothing is perfect on this earth...

Some experiences and observations:

* Discogs is only as good as the entries that people make to it; multiple entries of the same album, no entries on some relatively common albums, erroneous information perpetuated for some releases (my album [the one actually by me] was added by someone else, and has errors that I can't quite figure out how to change)

* I haven't purchased anything from Discogs yet, but my "want" list is growing exponentially

* It's a bit tedious entering everything in, even with the app; I've been at it for a year and a half and I've only scratched the surface of my relatively small collection of vinyl, CDs and tapes

* When I finally get things organized in my collection "the way I want them" (dream on, right?), I will likely still need to enter everything in a private database program, as Discogs doesn't do exactly what I want/need it to (or I haven't figured it out yet!)

* Along with lots of other reasons, Discogs and eBay have falsely contributed to a sense of "everything is super rare and expensive and worth a ton of $$!"-ism (again, this is a people/perception issue, not a program/site issue) (see posts above)

* Regardless of these problems and more, it's still an amazing resource nobody could have imagined having at our fingertips in the past!

So I guess the short answer to the original question is "Yes!" (it is both a blessing and a curse, and it also depends on your role and viewpoint in the collecting community).

GJ
 
As I posted above I think Discogs pusses up the price of records because this is what happens.

A specific title might be the only one posted at a given time making it look rare. You also might just have a dummy buying a over priced record because the seller is just as dumb and arbitrarily throws a price out. If they get a sale people start posting the ones they have. But instead of posting the price at the common average price they jump to the highest price thinking all buyers are dummies.

If I got a fairly clean copy of something and you have low, med and high sales. I balance my price towards the medium and what the asking price is for an average one for sale.

We also have to look at the site as worldwide and that there is a currency exchange rate to take into account.
 
>>>>A specific title might be the only one posted at a given time making it look rare. You also might just have a dummy buying a over priced record because the seller is just as dumb and arbitrarily throws a price out. If they get a sale people start posting the ones they have. But instead of posting the price at the common average price they jump to the highest price thinking all buyers are dummies.<<<<

This is a problem here at the peak of the "vinyl resurgence" in general. Everyone thinks that every record is worth money now-- even all of the common never-sell Jim Neighbors and Percy Faith have crept up in price now at GW and SA. Very common Beatles records in less than "Fair" condition with a battered and cat-pissed cover are posted with outlandish asking prices (I see this more on CL and LetGo more than Discogs or anywhere else).

I think we are really nearing the peak of the curve. I'm still beefing up my vinyl collection, but I'm looking for deals on CDs just as much, which are still more reasonable and in-line with appropriate prices across the board.

GJ
 
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