What is the rarest release you actually possess?

The rarest record I own is probably this art project by this local artist/musician called Spunkle. He did this thing called the Prepared Vinyl Project, where he painted 7" singles, so you can't actually listen to them. I don't know how many he did, but I guess every single one was different. It smells lovely though.

Of course, if you're counting releases by bands that I was in, I've got some incredibly rare stuff (haha).

I have a Movietone 7-inch that I believe was pressed in a run of 100, and then Modest Mouse's "Birds v. Worms" single was either 500 or 1,000 (at one time that single was going for $70 on eBay, but probably not any more.)

"Upside Down" 12" Jesus and Mary Chain
"Andii in a Karmann" Senseless things mini-album
"Julian Cope Demos" - Island Records Promo cassette
"All Tomorrow's Parties" Velvet Underground and Nico

I don't know what Stewart Anderson means by "I can no longer manage to produce a CD that makes triple figures" (see here - money or number of units?), but it looks as if anyone who has bought a recent 555 release owns something very limited.

...and a 2x7" comp put out by "Abo", who recorded as Yeast Culture--heavily silkscreened and scribbled-on. Portland, OR/ Seattle, WA oddities--Smegma, Yeast Culture, Ultra, and an offshoot(?) of Strength Through Joy. 100 copies released with an extra 7" featuring the "Dada Action Group". I can't remember the title...Bird...Bird...
something...

I really need to get round to flogging that on ebay

I kind of agree, but that basically translates into rare = $$$, which Matt said he didn't mean.

I do have the "limited edition" Stooges boxset, The Complete Funhouse sessions, which is also completely useless.

Oh, and I have the cd-single of "Motown Junk" by the Manic Street Preachers, which I'm told is worth a little bundle. I certainly don't remember buying it, however.

As BJork and Tori Amos have the richest fans, their rarities are many moneys, granted.

Rare means you want one but can't get one. There are singles of limited edition but if the shop still has 480, it's not rare.

Killer version of "Don't Touch My Tomato."

I had loads of the early sterolab records which I later sold when I got bored of them. Again, I regret. I also had an original of Tigermilk which I sold for £80 thinking that was as high as the value was going to go.

Whereas, xxxxxxxxxxx fans are poor so cannot afford to push values up to inflated levels.

Well, it's just that who needs twenty-eight consecutive takes of any song, y'know? The box only served to demystify one of the greatest albums of all time (to my mind, of course). The thing about Funhouse is that it sounds so loose (pardon the pun) and spontaneous, and the box set only serves to ruin that illusion, portraying the band as rather suprisingly meticulous and (relative) perfectionists.

Limited - god alone knows. I have two C90s each containing about 40 home demos from Track & Field's token Cardiff band The Loves. I doubt more than about five copies exist of either.

worth most money and a 500 copies is probably the orginally version of the Dinosaur 24-24 album with Arthur Russell

I've got that. I'd say Lake or Youngs' Advent records are rarer.

Rizzzx: did you get my email?
I'm not sure if it sent properly, but I DID send you a list of tapes.
If you didn't get it I can resend it tonight.

I own a Christian Marclay/Burzum collaboration that was pressed in an edition of three. It's a one sided, pressed onto a tablet of salt collected from the Dead Sea. I don't know what it sounds like yet because it is supposed to crumble to dust after one play.

x-post -Yeah, I didn't figure on retiring early.

I had loads of the early sterolab records which I later sold when I got bored of them. Again, I regret. I also had an original of Tigermilk which I sold for £80 thinking that was as high as the value was going to go.

I still have several early Stereolab 7"s and 10"s, and I still have my Electric Honey Tigermilk autographed by all 8 members of the classic line up, man.

Also:
Ride into the Sun - 1-sided Velvet Underground 7", was originally given away with a French magazine I think?
Shimmies in Super-8 - 2x7" on Duophonic
Far Out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman - white vinyl 12", 500 released. "Limited release on white vinyl in a clear plastic cover with Japanese writing. Not identified as FSOL on the label. No label or play speed, or side ID is given, and all tracks are mixed together. Supposedly released and deleted the same day."
Carter USM - Fat as Fuck t-shirt, 101 made.

Ian, could you resend it to jheheemskerk AT home DOT nl

cheers

I bought some records off Kool Herc after he switched over to Serrato. Unfortunately I was a little starstruck and didn't inspect them until I got home. Some of the 12"s were scratched to the point of being unplayable and had to be thrown out. But I did keep two Incredible Bongo Band "Apache" 45s, they're probably worth like $6 together, but priceless to me, as they literally birthed hip hop.

Probably the Ippu-Do box set. It's not THAT rare, but only a limited number were printed and it sold out in about a month. I'm sure I have something more rare, but this sticks out because I cherish the music so much.

Some of the kind folks at Social Registry gave me a garbage bin destined pressing error entitled Gang Gang Gang Dance.

i've got this Tyrants In Therapy 12" that has a lil writeup on the discogs page. a few hours after i posted one of their songs to my site, they added me to myspace. pretty funny. so i wrote the guy if this was true and all he said was "yes, it's very rare"
http://www.discogs.com/release/523025

zorlac, Dec 28, 2005
This is a very rare record from the 80's The new wave band Tyrants In Therapy released this record in 1984. This record specifically, 3 People Nude Below The Waste 12", is a very rare and historical release. The release features a groovy electro clash new wave track crossed over with scratches and drum machine work from the legendary Knights Of The Turntables. This crossover (electroclash, new wave with cuts) alone was a rare occurance in 1984.
Mike aka Tyrant Mike has direct ties with the famous Los Angeles based label JDC Records (early electro label). I personally called JDC, as a record dealer, and was informed that there were only a few of these 12"s in existance. Mike, the lead singer, owned all 3 of them. This was rare in the mid '80's and is very rare today.
I personally believe that someday this 12" will finally be recognised as one of the first for this type of crossover.
The only other new wave record that I can compaire this release to is Visage-Frequency 7. Though Visage's Frequency 7 is without scratches it is also a rare crossover very similar in electro style.

Pocahaunted's "Out of a Common Bowl" 3 inch CD. i have #2 of 32 made.

Boredoms "Vision Creation Newsun" 2cd box and "Super AE" limited edt. in the yellow plastic packaging.

oh, and a bunnybrains 3cd live thing. i think there were only 200 or so made.

I have 5 perfect condition original Velvet Underground & Nicos at my house and about 12-13 peeled banana copies in storage. Whenever I feel gloomy or just down in the dumps, I take one of the pristine ones and peel the banana off. It really brightens up your day.

Boredoms "Vision Creation Newsun" 2cd box and "Super AE" limited edt. in the yellow plastic packaging.

over 10,000 of each in existence...

i have copies of the first two 12" of this labels output : http://www.ds93.com/ds93.html

93 copies of each release are being printed up, and no more.
so thats pretty rare i'd say.
oh, and both are brilliant of course.

I have a golden amber wax encaustic cast impression of La Monte Young's nutsack. It is sustained from the elements by resealable Japanese polybags (in triplicate).

apparently the record i posted about above isn't very rare if i just saw a copy of it in a store. oh well.

but was it $2,500?

Was just reminded of this thread, and to contribute... I have the original pressing of James Blackshaw's album Sunshrine on Digitalis, his first non-CDR release. Limited pressing of 30 copies; I have #18.

im not a collector but i do have prince buster 'gangsters' orignal on 45

Annie - The Greatest Hit - Telle 7"

well I sold the NWW CD from upthread but now I have a Tranko CD in an edition of 50.

I suppose my copy of the first Mirror record is still the rarest since it has a unique painting on the cover, but there were 100 copies.

I used to have mayhems dawn of the black hearts on cd...pretty much thought i was elite or something until i realized it was a mass re-release or something that like everyones grandpa had

Well, I finally got ahold of a cassette tape (the only format it came in) copy of Octofetus by The Mucus Membranes, which I never thought I'd manage to do. Noise rock opera about a guy with 8 personalities, and it's wonderfully awful (or vice versa). Completely unknown to the internets, as far as I know.

tranko cd owners unite

My most prized music possession, an Alden Penner 7" from juuuuust after the Unicorns broke up, limited to 100. And absolutely amazing.

i have that alden penner record -- it's great.

i don't know if it's rare, but i've never seen another copy around: i have the single that the guys from Animal Collective put out when they were in an earlier band called Auto Mine.

I have a couple of "art editions" of records that were only released in editions of 20-25.

later this year I am getting a cd-r from christina carter (of charalambides) that is an edition of 1...

I was just thinking of those C Carter subscription CDRs the other day!

I have the first couple of Foetus singles on his Self Immolation label, plus the "Ache" LP with crudely mimeographed copies of the manually-typed press releases that were finding their way into the NME at the time.

The singles are borderline unlistenable, and the packaging is pretty ugly, but they're the sort of thing that ought to be worth a lot to somebody in theory, though I've watched someone else fail to sell them on eBay several times.

Roger (the funk band on head heritage) recorded and released a second album.
no copies made the shops, and it all fell through.
so the copy up in the archive is a rather rare.
not cd-r, not promo. proper pressed up/artwork edition.
having said that, suspect nobody but me knows of them, meaning its rare but unwanted.

i just remembered i have a promo of the unreleased sukpatch album on grand royal, which i've never even seen mentioned anywhere

lucky it remained unreleased because it's rubbish

ahh sukpatch.
i take it then jim you never got the album they released on moshi moshi ?
(2 albums released on supposedly "cool" labels - wtf !?)
not totally rubbish, but not totally worth hunting down.

i do have that, it's not half bad.. i like most of their catalogue, but the unreleased album is an embarrassment

I have the Sunn O))) Live White CD + 3" CD, released on the Archive label. First pressing of 200 copies. Mine is stamped #006.

Probably just self-pressed stuff by friends bands I guess. And if you're into noise stuff you wind up with all kinds of super limited cassettes and great things. I had a Simply Saucer tour-only disc (#7 of 100 iirc) that I sold thinking I could get more than the $10 I payed for it on E-Bay, which ended up selling for exactly $10.

And my copy of Sticky Fingers is some bizarre Russian or eastern European pressing? Until I downloaded the album about a year ago I had no idea what half the song titles were.

There are other things I'm not thinking of, but most of my collection is about 8,000 miles away at the moment.

I don't think in all my music hoarding I've ever thought in terms of collectibility/rarity.

Just discovered, almost a year after the fact--a co-worker gave me a whole bunch of albums her father-in-law was getting rid of--that one of them seems to be valuable: Fifty Foot Hose's Cauldron. The only reason I kept it (most of them were junked before I even took them home) was because it was sealed--I've never heard of them, and only found out who they were when I was looking through the pile for something to play tonight. Her father-in-law was a country fan, so it makes sense that it was never opened. The $1.97 price tag is still on it.

Irrational, in that I sense it's weird and I probably won't have any use for it, but I'll open it and give it a listen.

No copies of Propeller? Shocking!

I just sent the person who gave it to me a Facebook message...praying she doesn't ask for it back. (I don't think she will.)

I do have a US stock copy of "Who loves the sun/Oh sweet nothin'" Velvet Underground

I have a cassette by Lack that had a limited release of nineteen copies

Maybe Lynndale's Burning, the Husker Du First Avenue '85 "12.

apparently a tough one to find according to thirdav site

I've got Nina Nastasia - Dogs on Socialist. It's a CD, but it has sold on discogs for way more than 95% of any of my actual records that have value.

No copies of Propeller? Shocking!

no propeller, but I've got original pressings of gbv's sandbox lp (first gbv thing i ever owned, randomly pulled out of a bin at pier platters in hoboken along with the grand hour 7-inch the day after i saw my first show) and forever since breakfast ep (bought at a wfmu record fair while standing about 10 feet from robert pollard. i was too sheepish to ask him to sign it because he had already signed a 7-inch i had found 20 mins earlier).

my most prized vinyl, though, is dwight yoakam's guitars cadillacs etc. etc. ep on oak records. prized because it's rare but also, more important, it was such a formative record for me. one of my main gateways to a lifelong love of country.

Cool story, FCC--should have got that ep signed by the man!

sold my copy of propeller during one of many broke phases. cover was a collage featuring a botero odalisque w/ a gun pointed at her butt (or crotch or whatever you know). back was the usual propeller back w/ crayon coloring etc. bought it at schoolkids records in durham, NC. fall of '92 i guess? also bought sandbox the same day, orig copies of which were still floating around. not as good, but i miss it just the same.

No copies of Propeller? Shocking!

no propeller, but I've got original pressings of gbv's sandbox lp (first gbv thing i ever owned, randomly pulled out of a bin at pier platters in hoboken along with the grand hour 7-inch the day after i saw my first show) and forever since breakfast ep (bought at a wfmu record fair while standing about 10 feet from robert pollard. i was too sheepish to ask him to sign it because he had already signed a 7-inch i had found 20 mins earlier).

my most prized vinyl, though, is dwight yoakam's guitars cadillacs etc. etc. ep on oak records. prized because it's rare but also, more important, it was such a formative record for me. one of my main gateways to a lifelong love of country.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, August 14, 2014 10:02 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is cool... I really wish pier platters was still here in Hoboken. I moved to town when it was already gone.

what is the rarest possession you actually release?

should have got that ep signed by the man!

i know! and, yeah, i really miss pier platters too.

Going through some 7"s this weekend, I saw that my wife has a Jawbox/Jawbreaker double 7", with one blank side per record hand-decorated by the bands. There are only 100 of those out there, and my research tells me they usually sell for $200-$300. She got it from Vintage Vinyl for $10. So that record has officially supplanted the Dolly Mixture Demonstration Tapes double CD for our rarest.

er...double LP