"I get these Japanese collectors that spend a few thousand bucks"

every article on vinyl includes this quote, or one like it. evidently there are hordes of obscenely wealthy japanese record collectors who will swoop down on american stores and spend the cost of a new car on vinyl. what is up with that? i thought japan's economy was depressed like ours?

your stories/myths about crazy japanese collectors here.

they're called "vinyl chasers".

most are young HS/College aged kids who are sponsored by shops/entrepeneurs in tokyo and osaka and have been employed for last 20 years to travel into urban and rural areas to buy up scarce product, filling up uhaul trucks that consolidate freight into west coast container ports for shipment back to japan.

most move on to other work but some start their own companies mostly there, but a few stay.

this practice is not just particular to vinyl, but also many other products (americana, antique french cookware, jewelry, etc.)

that came out weirdly: this has been a common practice of the past ~20 years in europe, SE asia and north america.

I would happily sell 95% of my possessions to a rich Japanese person.

my local record store has told me stories of overseas collectors coming in and buying up lots of old old stuff like Julie London.

steve, that's really interesting. thanks for that info.

at the store i used to work at, this japanese guy came in a couple of times and loaded his car with 500+ classical records.. said he makes big bucks selling em back home

yeah, the mark-up is soooooo huge. no fair that i can't go to japan and buy great japanese pressings for cheap though!!

Yeah, we get a lot of Japanese guys buying stuff up. Jazz & classical & hip hop mostly, but also reggae & some vocal pop and soundtracks. They turn $3 Duke Ellington records into mad bank apparently.

From what I understand from a guy who has been running a guitar shop since the late 60s that this very practice kind of the jump started vintage guitar prices going loco back in the 80s. It kind of started a vicious cycle as these guys were coming over from Japan buying vintage guitars and selling them at home for huge bucks which reset the worth of the instruments everywhere, then with this huge jump in value, it led a bunch of investor types into getting vintage guitars as they were really going up in value fast and the price jumped again and again.

Stuff like early original Les Pauls or Strats, especially in odd colors or with unique looks or histories have gone up bunches and bunches.

all i kEn say is as long as they keep buying my rareholygrailboogiedisco rekkerds for mad yen on ebay GOD LOVE AND KEEP THE JAPANESE PEOPLE.

it's like having a country that is also a museum for the greatest artistic triumphs of western culture. cuz you know they keep that shit pristine.

murakami knows what's up. holla!

http://akaso.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/mura600.jpg

^^^ that dude bought records from me once.

"are you a writer?"

I saw Murakami hatin' on Coltrane in the Paris Review!!

are you THE writer iirc.

masters of materialism, scary

Last time I heard this phrase, it was tailed by ".. on Dead or Alive rarities"

fyi.

Bless their hearts, they feel it is important to preserve mass culture.

yeah, the mark-up is soooooo huge. no fair that i can't go to japan and buy great japanese pressings for cheap though!!

― scott seward, Thursday, October 15, 2009 9:13 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

actually you could do it in reverse, perhaps not subsidizing the cost of the trip the way they do, but i know someone who is doing what you describe. he's an american doing doctoral research over there, certain rare soul or wall records have eye-popping prices but releases of the past ten years are cheap. so he grabs beck odelay, pavement, or sunn o))) indie easy sellers and does huge ebay lists reselling $15 records for $50-$60. i guess american buyers don't care because they't not reissues per se, or they just think having a jp pressing is cool. what's strange is there are very few native japanese doing this, i guess they're all on yahoo.jp auctions.