People don't like to part with old things. We have been storing items for years that have not been used in everyday life for a long time. They gather dust in the farthest corner of the closet and are only taken out when renovating or moving. But some of these things can be sold to someone who will truly appreciate them. For example, old vinyl records.
Previously, every house had a whole stack of them: songs by Alla Pugacheva, Valery Leontyev, as well as rarer copies with foreign music- The Beatles, Queen, ABBA and many other performers. But the time has come for electronic media. And only a decrepit, usually no longer working record player, and a collection of old vinyl remind of bygone times.
But those who carefully preserved the records can now make money by selling them. A lot of people are ready to buy them. Among them there are both collectors and lovers of real sound.
The struggle between analogue and digital sound
But we’ll start, perhaps, with why exactly people hunt for vinyl. With such a category as collectors, everything is clear: someone collects stamps, others badges and medals, and there are those who acquire rare copies of records. Very often they are not even unpacked, and they are simply part of the exhibition.
But there are also people who prefer to listen to music on this medium. Compared to a compressed digital format, the sound on vinyl is richer, brighter, and has more depth. Cassettes also lose in this competition, since their frequency range is significantly reduced.
Digital formats are more convenient in many ways: by compressing files on one medium, you can store a large amount of music. They are compact, convenient and do not get damaged when played. That is why they are leading the market today.
But a minority of the population - connoisseurs of rich and deep sound - remained faithful to vinyl. Their army is replenished by individual representatives younger generation. Today we can safely say that digital media has not completely won, just as the film industry has not been able to completely replace the theater.
Now let's return to the question of where and how to sell records profitably. Moreover, there are quite a few places of sale, and they all deserve attention.
Commission shop
In every city, even the smallest one, there is a consignment store that accepts various goods for sale - books, equipment, interior items, dishes, things, etc. They also accept old vinyl records of the USSR and foreign performers.
This sales method is attractive due to its quick implementation: if there are connoisseurs of this product in your locality, they will buy it very quickly. The downside is the price. Here they offer 10-15 rubles. per copy, rarely where the cost reaches 50 rubles.
However, if you don’t want to delve into the topic and need to quickly sell all your existing records, this is the best option. Fast, cheap, no hassle.
Flea market
Large cities have various flea markets and stalls. And if you make an effort, the product can be sold there. They usually work on weekends, so even a working person has the opportunity to start selling himself.
Here the price is much higher - 60-200 rubles. But there are also disadvantages. Firstly, you need at least minimal knowledge about prices and the potential value of each record. Secondly, there is no guarantee that a buyer will be found, while you will definitely waste your own time. Thirdly, the market is a very special place where sellers coexist with the homeless, marginalized, asocial individuals, plus they put up with all the vagaries of the weather.
The advantages include higher profits and, at a minimum, interesting experience.
Music store
Since many music lovers are interested in buying vinyl records, there are, accordingly, retail outlets where these products are available in a huge assortment. These are various music stores, for example in Moscow - “Sound Barrier”, “Vinyl-Time”, “Phonograph”, in St. Petersburg - “Vinyl”, “Plastinka”, “Recordmed” and many others, both in these cities and across all over the country.
In a vinyl record store they often take goods for sale - especially rare and valuable things. They will offer a good price for them here. But it will not be possible to sell copies of large quantities profitably here - the cost will not be higher than in a banal purchase.
However, this is a very good option for those who are completely new to the prices of old vinyl. Here the entire collection will be examined, rare ones will be identified and the approximate market value will be announced. After visiting a vinyl record store, you can independently display your product on online platforms or leave it for sale.
The main disadvantage of this method is the loss of time during the trip, the long implementation period, and the low probability of having a valuable rarity.
Internet platforms
Today you can buy and sell absolutely everything on the Internet. And if you are looking for where to sell used vinyl records, then you can turn to the help of such trading platforms as Yula, Avito or Ozon. They have specialized sections with this information. You can also try to put the product up for sale in thematic sections on social networks.
In order to submit an ad, you need to take a couple of photos and set a price, and, therefore, understand what you can sell and for how much. Then you just need to wait, as the implementation period may take a long time.
One of the disadvantages of this method is the high risk of encountering scammers: they monitor all advertisements in order to find a gullible simpleton.
Specialized sites for buying/selling vinyl
There are also little-known specialized sites where you can buy or sell rare items - 33ob.ru and similar resources. Here live those who are well versed in the matter and have the most extensive knowledge on the topic.
On such a site they offer the highest prices, but only for a worthwhile item. The disadvantage of such resources is mandatory registration; a commission from the sale is also taken, or the ad itself will be paid.
In general, in order to sell records here, you need to have something truly rare and interesting in your collection.
The price of vinyl records depends on several important factors. These include:
- Release date. The older, the more expensive. But sometimes the old artist was later released additional edition- this reduces the cost.
- A rare specimen. The record was released in a small edition, which makes it exclusive. Collectors hunt for such things, and they are always expensive.
- Country where the recording was made. Domestic media Soviet period do not have much value, whereas among vinyl with foreign performers you can find an interesting specimen. Especially valuable are those recordings that came into the country bypassing the Iron Curtain.
- State. It is almost impossible to sell records with a serious defect, but if there are abrasions and scratches on it that have little effect on the sound frequency, then the buyer can still demand a discount even for a rare item.
- Playback speed. All other things being equal, a record with a high turnover rate costs more.
The retail price of vinyl records can range from 500 to several thousand rubles. If we talk about highly valuable and rare collectibles, they cost tens of thousands of dollars.
How to find out the condition of an item
For the convenience of buyers, special symbols have been invented that will help understand the condition of the media without visual inspection:
- Mint - new vinyl, never played. The designation “SS” may also be present here - the packaging has not been opened.
- NM is an almost new record, listened to it several times. The packaging is without damage or scuffs, the vinyl surface is in perfect condition.
- Ex - excellent condition. Small defects are allowed on the surface of the media that do not affect the sound quality (rustles and light crackling are not considered sound errors). The packaging is in good condition, slight creases in the corners are acceptable, but all seams are intact.
- G - good condition. The packaging looks bad - scuffs, tears, dirty/greasy stains, etc. The vinyl has a lot of scratches but is playable.
- F/P - poor condition. The only reason to buy this item is its collectible value. Not suitable for listening.
Pre-sale preparation
Before you decide where to sell used vinyl records, you need to get them in decent shape. In other words, pre-sale preparation is needed. All of them need to be sorted out to make sure that the packaging matches the contents. Then you need to wipe the envelopes from dust and glue them - this will give them a more presentable look.
It is better not to touch the surface of the vinyl - dust leaves traces when wiped, and this delicate procedure should be left to those who understand this topic.
Special attention should be paid to compiling a list of the collection - name of the record, manufacturer, year of publication, circulation. This will help facilitate the dialogue with the seller during the purchase or save time when submitting an ad.
So, now you know how and where to sell used vinyl records. And how much you will earn from this depends only on whether there are items of value in your collection.
Buro 24/7 talked to people for whom vinyl is more valuable than life
Moor, SuperDJ
How much does he spend on records?
Almost everything. I leave at least for life.
The most valuable specimen
It's very difficult. It's the same as saying what your favorite record is. You can’t name your favorite, because there are others, and the question immediately arises, why are they needed? But I have an INXS record from, I think, 1985, signed by Michael Hutchence and the whole band. It is more valuable than anything else.
Object of desire
There is a wishlist with about 5 thousand positions. I recently had a bag with 80 records stolen, and now I really want to restore everything I lost. This is my number 1 desire now.
Where does he buy it?
Online stores, markets, vinyl fairs... When I travel abroad, I try to find vinyl stores. You can always find something for yourself in any of them. And in which online stores is this secret information.
Who has the best collection
A record collection is tailored to the person who collects it. Collecting for the public is not a collection. For further sale - also not a collection. A collection is when the chosen music causes a shiver, a heartbeat, you want to own it, that’s why you collect it. For this reason, losing 80 records is like losing a part of yourself.
What to lose on
Nowadays they produce a lot of all kinds of equipment. In the 80s, the Chinese made a bunch of tape recorders: the sound was plastic, impossible to listen to. This suited some people, while others bought expensive cassette players. The main thing in a turntable is how it spins, everything else is the speakers. Also, a lot depends on the needle. There are players that many people don't even play records. You put them on, and the record jumps. Vinyl is different, it can be heavy, and the needle has to cope with it.
I have three record players at home. Just because I'm a DJ.
Andrey Smirnov, founder of the Aby Sho Music vinyl label
(released on records by Onuka, The Hardkiss, Brutto)
How much does he spend on records?
It's difficult to answer. I order from a supplier in bulk, he sends it to me once every six months. A total of 800-900 dollars.
The most valuable specimen
A few years ago I released vinyl Depeche Mode- this was the first Ukrainian publication, and I have the first record out of three hundred. This is my favorite. And for the money - the first press of the band's The Dark Side of the Moon album Pink Floyd cost me £600.
Object of desire
A record by Japanese porn star Reiko Ike, which was released only in Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I'm looking for a first press, it costs about 500-600 euros, I'm still trying to find something cheaper.
Where does he buy it?
Where I see it. Overseas, on Discogs and eBay. I order from the supplier from the list of new products that he provides me.
Who has the best collection
I have never measured myself by collections. Everyone has their own: one of my friends collects only autographed records, another collects old rock first presses, someone collects more DJ music. I'm closer to my collection.
What to lose on
Everyone chooses for themselves. Many people have a negative attitude towards DJ equipment. Real music lovers dream of some kind of “airplane” for 10-15 thousand euros, so that it sounds best. But I am far from prejudice and play everything on a regular DJ turntable.
Vadim Glina, entrepreneur
How much does he spend on records?
Sometimes it's $20, sometimes it's nothing. I buy and sell records, do business [Vadim has a point on the Petrovka market, pavilion A28. - Buro 24/7], because my expenses are such that I can recoup what I spent. It also happens that I buy a record that I’ve been dreaming of for a long time, listen to it, but I don’t like it. You have to sell or change, but sell more often.
The most valuable specimen
This is the Let It Be box - The Beatles. It includes the box itself, the record, the poster and the book. In 1970 it cost about 20 pounds, and nowadays it costs about 4,000 dollars. At that time it was crazy money. Also promotional copy The Doors- they were printed in order to send them to radio stations and music critics.
Object of desire
It’s so hard to choose... Just imagine: you are sitting at the table, and in front of you are oysters, black caviar, works of culinary art. It's very difficult to choose. That's how it is here.
Where does he buy it?
On eBay, for example. In general, a narrow circle of music lovers brings me records for sale, and I choose. It could be vinyls, which are in every home, or some kind of Soviet pop music. And there is, for example, Larisa Mondrus, a singer who emigrated to Germany, where she released several albums that were not successful. In the USSR, her records were published in envelopes" Soviet stage"with an abstract drawing. And now Larisa Mondrus, whose record was worth nothing, is valued at $25.
Who has the best collection
Everyone thinks they have the best collection. In Los Angeles I went to one store, where a person had about 100 thousand records for sale. His own collection is about 25 thousand. At the same time, he also has the rarest vintage audio equipment.
What to lose on
A record that was produced in Britain should be played on British equipment, in the Soviet Union - on Soviet equipment. Each manufacturing country has its own standard.
Photographer Eilon Paz left Israel in 2008 to try his luck in New York. At that time, it was the beginning of the crisis and it became very difficult to find work. All he managed to get was a position as a salesman in a vinyl record store. It was there that he got the idea to make a project about record collectors.
Paz has met collectors of all types. His favorites were those who kept special collections, such as only copies of The Beatles' White Album or only Sesame Street records. And although all collectors were different, they had something in common. “Vinyl records are much more difficult to collect than MP3s. It's expensive. They weigh a lot. You have to constantly monitor the collection. Even to listen to a record, you can't just turn it on and forget about it. She demands attention. I think people who collect vinyl respect the music a lot more."
Joe Bussard displays one of his rarest vinyl records in the basement of his home in Frederick, Maryland. In the middle, all the paper packages have faded - the result of Joe constantly looking through, sorting and taking out his favorites. He has been collecting this collection for 60 years. (Eilon Paz)
In January 2011, Paz traveled to Ghana with Frank Grossner. They met Philip Osei Kojo, an 80-year-old man from Mampong, who invited them to his home to look at his collection of vinyl records. He hasn't listened to them in 30 years because he can't get his record player fixed. When they first played the record, his reaction was unexpectedly emotional. (Eilon Paz)
Alessandro Benedetti from Monsummano Terme, Italy, holds the Guinness World Records certificate for the most large collection colored vinyl records. In this photo he is in his home where he lives with his father Marinello (right). Alessandro is holding a copy of Ozzy Osbourne's album Bark at the Moon. (Eilon Paz)
Oliver Wang, a vinyl record collector, composer and music journalist from Los Angeles, with his home collection. (Eilon Paz)
While packing his "jewelry" for the move from London to the Philippines, Keb Darge pauses to listen to Teddy McRae's Hi-Fi Baby. (Eilon Paz)
A musical number is partly a number about what is not there. In the world of mp3s, blogs and collections measured in hundreds of gigabytes, few people care about the actual music. New albums do not evoke trepidation; you want to get rid of the newly downloaded album as soon as possible. The only object that still evokes tenderness, envy and simple human interest in people is a long-forgotten vinyl record. Alexey Munipov found out how the Moscow vinyl world works and met with the main collectors.
“I tried never to change with anyone. And he didn’t let me listen to his records. If you have money, buy it, if you don’t, go to hell...” It’s hot in the basement of Transylvania, and overhead is a sales area with tons of CDs: there are no vinyl records there, but this is the main music lovers’ point in Moscow, and where to start asking questions about collectors if not here?
The owner of Transylvania, Boris Nikolaevich Simonov, was once the president of the Moscow Society of Philophonists and, in theory, should know everyone. His own collection is legendary. They say that everything there is only on vinyl. That it is not inferior in size, or even surpasses the Transylvania collection. That a separate apartment has been allocated for her. And that, of course, no one has access to it.
All this turns out to be true.
“I started collecting records in the mid-60s,” says Simonov. “I knew for sure that no one would give me the records, and I didn’t want to beg to listen to them either.” I didn’t run through the forests or through the crowds - I only bought and sold, and only from trusted people. There were several serious black marketeers in Moscow. They made money on other things - on mohair, bologna raincoats, scarves, watches, jeans. They unloaded sailors, artists, journalists, athletes, and various diplomats. They also brought vinyl, but no one really knew what to do with it. On the one hand, it seems fashion item, on the other hand, no one understood music. Well, they knew Tom Jones, the Paul Mauriat orchestra, The Beatles... Our people, out of greed, bought vinyl at sales, and there, oddly enough, they came across interesting things. So I selected them. He kept the best and sold the rest for the same money. It wasn't a business - I could just listen a lot and keep a lot for myself. Well, some things have accumulated.”
Other collectors speak with a mixture of envy and admiration about what exactly has accumulated there. “I wouldn’t mention any forty-five, Boris is right there - but I have seven of them! — said DJ Misha Kovalev. “Well, seven times, sell one,” I say. And he - no, how can I sell it? She's good! Boris has this logic: if he lets a good record slip out of his hands, then all sorts of fools will ruin it! It’s better to let it lie down.”
Simonov does not say out loud that compacts are for suckers, but in general the approach is clear. There is basically no vinyl in Transylvania. “How to trade the most expensive? These little people will come, start looking, touching, wanting to listen, God forbid, scratching them... Well, shouldn’t we kill them for this? Dangerous!"
In the Soviet Union, the life of a record was bizarre and often fleeting. “A fresh long-play cost 50-55 rubles. But in the early days it could cost 100. Some Creedence “Cosmo’s Factory” comes along and the “writers” who record music for money immediately grab it, transfer it to film from morning to night and justify their money many times over. After that the record turns into mush.” There was no idea about rarities, curiosities, collector's editions - in short, about what is now called collectables and described in thick catalogs - there was no idea. “Even then I didn’t understand that the first printing is more valuable because it sounds better. What people are now paying a lot of money for - some original King Crimson, The Beatles on a yellow Parlophone - used to be something you could just kick with your foot.”
It was a world of complex schemes, endless chains, dotted lines “from the Bolshoi soloist to the composer Artemyev,” calls and resales, honest store managers, quiet swindlers and serious collectors - Dosi Shenderovich, Rudik the red and Rudik the black, Vasily Lvovich and Vasily Dmitrich. According to Simonov, there were at least several collections in Moscow that were an order of magnitude larger than his own. But this world seems to have ended long ago and irrevocably. It's hard to imagine young man, who now goes to other people's apartments to buy vinyl. Why and who might need this?
***
Vova Terekh, guitarist of the band “Roaring Strings”, is quite a young man, and has hardly heard of the two Rudiks. Terekh stands in shorts in the middle of his two-room apartment, cigarette smoke hangs in the air, around there are records, records, just records. The only furniture is a bed, a table and a barbell. Terekh pours tea, puts a 1969 Edgar Broughton Band record on the player and, after waiting for the first chords, says what every collector says first: “Well, listen for yourself - it sounds completely different!”
Sound is what people are supposed to buy vinyl for. Vinyl has an analog sound, a compact has a digital sound: collectors call it flat, squeezed, unnatural - whatever, the main thing is that there is no life in it. “I wasn’t a maniac,” says Tereh. — I listened to compacts and collected a decent amount. And one day, for nostalgic reasons, I decided to listen to the album Deep Purple“In Rock” - I loved it as a child. I bought a branded compact - everything seems to be in place, but the music is somehow not the same. I got another edition, then a remastered one, then an expensive Japanese one - it’s not the same. Well, one day while visiting I came across an old record, put it on the player - and realized that we were being deceived.”
“Back then there were no CDs, no DVDs, no cassettes - vinyl was the only medium,” says Tereh, rummaging through the boxes. — All the best engineering minds in the world were doing only what they wanted perfect sound. Some records sound like that - you can’t believe they were recorded in ’68.” Collectors hate the word “remastering” especially fiercely: “Some guy sits and decides how to improve the old album. How does he know?! Well, yes, you can hear details there that were not heard before - so maybe you don’t need to hear them!”
Terekh collects garage, psychedelic, punk and krautrock; It’s clear that for him even holding the original edition of the legendary “Nuggets” record in his hands is already an adventure. Or find it on a junk compilation of Lou Reed - under a pseudonym, even before The Velvet Underground. All this is addictive: the same albums have different circulations, different versions, English, American and other editions. The most unpleasant thing is that their sound is also different. “American oak has such a mass, a deep path, and the sound really crushes. I like this one. The English ones sound completely different - no better, no worse, just different.” That’s why Terekh has seven of The Velvet Underground’s first albums, and all of them are different.
***
And, of course, design. To amaze the neophyte, he is always shown miracles and beauty. All this goes under the slogan “This doesn’t happen on CD.” At the plate The group Faces eyes roll. Sergeant Pepper includes a sergeant's mustache and epaulettes. The Jesus Loves the Stooges EP comes with special glasses that reveal a 3D dead donkey on one side of the sleeve and a 3D big-lipped Iggy on the other. The Jethro Tull "Stand Up" sleeve has paper cutouts of the members inside. Leather envelopes, gold embossing, colored vinyl, plastic windows, posters and inserts - quite a lot of things.
Dmitry Kazantsev, a designer and part-time blues musician, has about 5 thousand records - mostly old, American. Contrary to expectations, they do not take up much space - two large shelves, that is, half a room. The owner takes out a CD without looking: “What is there to compare? It is almost 9 times smaller than the plate. If you reduce the image by 9 times, all the details will be lost. The compact cannot be a collector's item at all. His price is ugh, nothing. It costs pennies to produce. And the record—that’s how much paper it took.”
There are unsorted stacks on the floor, on the chair, on the closet. Dmitry picks up the top plate and shows: “Well, here it is. The Beach Boys album "Love You". You first take it, look at it - what a brilliant design, how everything is thought out and drawn down to the smallest detail. Then you turn it over, and there in the middle of this brilliant design is some idiotic amateur photograph. And so you think, what kind of idiocy, you look at the name of the photographer, you think: how is this possible, is the photographer an asshole or who? That is... Do you understand? You haven’t even started listening to the record yet, and you’re already having so much fun!”
Kazantsev demonstrates rare common sense: he doesn’t chase different versions of one album, he’s seen collectables in his grave, he pays attention only to the music and the quality of the recording. “On the first albums of The Velvet Underground, it’s terrible what’s going on! And they play somehow, and the recording is monstrous. Or the first editions of The Beatles: they now cost crazy amounts of money, they are very difficult to get, and they are almost always killed, and most are generally monophonic. I’m also happy with later reissues.” But in the end he suddenly admits: “Here, of course, you need to understand... There are fewer and fewer records, and there are more and more of us. Almost all the vinyl in the world has already been collected, described, and prices are rising. And so you sit and think: maybe I should buy it for future use? Then it won’t happen.”
***
From this “for future use”, from thinking about the difference in sound, from the phrases “I’ll take two, one just in case,” a crazy collecting streak begins to beat in people’s heads. There are vinyl stores in Moscow, but real collectors don't go to them. At least not the ones that are visible. There are two or three points on Gorbushka, there is a strange store at Melodiya - with unopened Pugacheva from the warehouse, and of course, there is the Sound Barrier on Leninsky and its owner Pasha. Everyone has a lot of complaints about Pasha, but no one can compete with the “Sound Barrier”: there are more than a hundred thousand records here - and there is no such collection of Soviet vinyl anywhere else.
The quiet collector loves secret places - like the point in 1st Smolensky Lane, which is run by Andrei Mikhailov, also known as Andrei Daltonik. This is a room filled from floor to ceiling with records - not a sign, not a bell, not a hint. Here, as if by themselves, heartbreaking stories are born - about drunken collectors, perished collectors, about people who ate only canned food and corn without butter. One artist walked around and got drunk. There was one chemist who drank himself and drowned. There was a couple, mother and son, nicknamed the Doodle Sharks - tenacious as hell. We collected only classics, and only old 78 rpm records. Once they showed a record of Bella Vrubel - this is the wife of the artist Vrubel, she sang a little, recorded 3 or 4 records. The price is 1500 dollars, at least. And they bought it from an old woman for 50 rubles.
“The jazz that they collect or rock is nothing,” says a local consultant, thin, toothless, wearing a sweater that remembers Andropov. — But if you start collecting classics, that’s all. With ends. Take Mozart’s clarinet concerto: it’s in minor, then major, and then suddenly it throws you into the abyss. Hellish. The beginning is in the middle, the middle is at the end, the end is at the beginning - nothing is clear. Like Blavatsky. If you start collecting this stuff, it’s a lost cause. Classics—they stifle people.”
And then there are stamp makers or catalog makers - they collect entire catalogues: say, all the records released on the Vertigo label. It was said about Andrey Daltonik, who really loves Italo-disco, that he has 5,000 records from the German label ZYX Music in his collection. Andrey rejected the figure: “Yes, it turned out to be only three thousand. And yet I still don’t have enough positions. Five thousand is if you count all my Eurodisco.” In total, his collection contains 12 and a half thousand records. “They are in a separate room, no problem. The family doesn't mind. But no one goes there without me.”
By all indications, vinyl is on the rise right now. The market is growing, sales are increasing, people are willing to pay big money. Sellers should be happy about this - but it seems to only irritate them. “I don’t like working with the same oligarchs. — The store owner frowns. “They are all in vain, they don’t know what they want.” Tiring people."
Those who don't know what they want buy their Deep Purple "In Rock" and walk away. There are some of our own left, and you can deal with them. This is a thin but strong network - a kind of collector's Web 2.0, a system of people who know each other, which no eBay auction can compare with. In addition, Mikhailov says that prices on eBay are often higher than his. “Since it became possible to buy from Russia, everything has skyrocketed incredibly. The hungry came. I just see it." It’s more difficult, but also more reliable, to use personal connections: somewhere in Sussex a box of unopened vinyl was found, and in Krasnoyarsk there is a buyer for it. And it will not end up on any eBay. An auction means anonymity, but collecting always means communication. On eBay, God forbid, they cheat, but even if a person cheats, then here he is, next to him. It is better to find your seller somewhere in America or people who travel to England, Japan, Finland and Holland for records. The main thing is to establish contact."
***
The dating network is also the network of contempt. Here everyone knows everyone and everyone can’t stand each other. Collectors of orchestras and music of the 50s - collectors of punk and psychedelia. Jazzmen - collectors of "Melody". Fans of prog rock from 1968-1971 - those who also love 1972-1973. Music lovers are hucksters. Hucksters - students. The students are Nazareth fans. Krautrock connoisseurs are Italo disco connoisseurs. Buyers of old vinyl are buyers of modern vinyl. Narrow specialists - broad ones. Connoisseurs of the classics - everyone else.
The lowest on the ladder of hatred are those who collect exotic music - Japanese pop, Dutch rock, African twists. In a small apartment, where there is no space, but only paths to the bed, record player and electric organ, Misha Kovalev plays me a seven-inch record from some idiotic Dutch: bought at a flea market for one euro. Kovalev is a GITIS teacher and DJ. Collects all sorts of fun. I am very pleased that no one here is chasing this kind of thing: once in the “Sound Barrier” they managed to snatch part of the collection of Tsvetov, the main Soviet international Japanese specialist, - no one else needed the Japanese stage. Another time, a cabinet with Cuban music appeared there: the main Latin specialist in Moscow died, the widow brought everything “to Pasha.” Each record had a hand-painted bookplate, and in some places even homemade covers. The cabinet stood for a couple of days, we managed to dig up a few things, then the collection went to England - in the West, Cuban vinyls are terribly expensive. Collections of the dead are generally a rich topic. Relatives used to throw them away, sometimes taking them by truck to Gorbushka and selling them by weight. “We got a lot of good things,” said Simonov. - But I recently had a flood - only the records were flooded from the dead. I won’t take from the dead anymore, to hell with them.”
Kovalev says all the right words about sound, about the sense of time, about the fact that this music is simply not on CD - no one remembers groups that released three singles and fell apart, and there is nothing about them on the Internet. The main thing says in the end: in these records the music itself was somehow preserved. Life, warmth, breath - God knows what. And he listens to his seven-inch records, but he cannot listen to them, rewritten on CD. No cover, no envelope - he can’t even remember what it is. “I once walked into a DJ store in Amsterdam: thousands of records, all in white envelopes and with the names blurred out. I almost died there.”
And then, you can’t buy too much on vinyl: it’s expensive, it’s tedious, and you get tired of carrying it. Vinyl is selection, and selection is exactly what is needed now. Without search, without effort, without these seemingly absurd barriers, music withers, shrinks, disappears. It seems like there are gigabytes of everything - but there’s nothing to listen to. I don't want to.
“Go,” Kovalev advised at parting, “to Gorbushka. There people have been reselling the same records to each other for years. That's what they are - collectors."
***
The red tent in the courtyard of the Rubin plant is a strong place. People who collect only The Beatles or only “Canterburys” from the list and from the catalog, change Sweet to Slade and Slade to Boney M - they are all here. This is the Moscow Society of Philophonists in the form in which it is still alive. Saturday and Sunday - collection in the morning. Simonov, having heard about him, only said: “Well, they’re finished.”
Here is a man who has 4,000 records, and everything is only Deep Purple: all the editions, and all the solo albums, and the solo albums of everyone who played on the solo albums. There’s a Beatles specialist walking around: there are collections of eight thousand, young man, and only the Beatles. In the middle there is a specimen with glasses: he can’t say much, he can barely stand, and the neighbors are chasing him away because he seems to have shit himself - but he’s holding the string bag with the records tightly. “The oldest client,” says the current president of the society, half apologetically.
It smells of decay, greed and pepper. And also lack of will: it is not people who gather under this red awning, but the collections that have taken possession of them. Any collecting is, in essence, an absurd desire for order; to the opportunity to arrange, collect, preserve and describe at least a tiny piece of life. In the end, Deep Purple is not infinite, and nothing is infinite - sooner or later all the rarest positions will be closed, and the collection will become complete, perfect, perfect.
But there are no complete collections. You can collect “Melody” all your life, find rare Soviet jazz, recordings of drunken pianists - and completely accidentally find out that at the Tbilisi branch of “Melody” at night, on the third shift, for money they wrote and published fashionable music like cover versions of Nino Ferrera . These records are not in the official Melodiya catalogue, which means they do not exist - but they do exist. Or hear about the record library of a modest KGB officer from the 5th department, where they sent 20 copies of each (every!) Melodiev record - including prohibited ones. Where she is and what is there is unknown.
“Nobody really knows anything,” says Kazantsev. — There may be an envelope from one country, but the record was made in another. Released in Holland, written “Made in Sweden”, and made in England. Or they started printing on one label and finished printing on another. They sound different, but they differ only in that there is some tiny R there. Or it's not even worth it. No Internet will help you, this is not described in any catalogues. I have a Donovan record – no one can even figure out where it was made.”
Somewhere in the depths of Gorbushka fat man, surrounded by records, almost shouts: “You don’t know what collections are! You don't know what rarities are! These are not collectors, but wow! Real rarities are not sold, exchanged, shown, or talked about. Real collections do not fit in apartments! They are stored - in hangars! They are transported by trucks!” Obviously, I will never see them - while talking about labels, reprints, rarities and Evstigneev’s jazz record library, imaginary trucks slowly go into the distance. Like dreams of peace, like the ghost of a world where there is nothing but music. Like Moby Dick, who is completely impossible to catch up with.
