Nick Mango

May 21, 2009

Quicksand - S/T White LTD 1000

So it's obviously been a long time since I posted, but I recently got a little wake up call from someone and it reminded me that this blog is fun.
Quicksand S/T on white. It's so hard to believe that this damn record came out in 1990. Think about that, almost 20 years ago this record was made. And what's even more amazing than that is what Rev put out that year. Shelter - POD, Youth of Today S/T, Quicksand S/T, Inside Out - NSS, and Judge Storm II. I think they pressed about 25,000 copies of those 5 records. Pretty incredible for a label that only had 20 or so releases.
Some odd things I saw with this record. I'm all over ebay, all the time, non stop. I search out records that I own and I watch them to see what they go for. It's one of my most favorite things to do. I like to see the tendencies of the buyers. I like to see a record sell, and then come up again, and sell again. Then compare the two records and try and figure out why one sold better than the other....yeah I have no life. But I write a blog about vinyl, so this news is really not that ground breaking. Well in my ebay searching I noticed this record do some seriously strange things. It all started in January when I saw it sell for $118. Needless to say I was stunned. Never before has this record sold like that. It was absurd. I called my brother up (@tsmango) and basically just babbled on and on about how this record sold for 118 bucks and I had never seen it cross 60 before. Well I knew what would happen next. People do what I do, they watch records they own, but not to compare and decipher the many ins and outs of auctioning collectibles. They want to see what they're worth, so they can decide if they want to sell theirs. This is about the dumbest thing you can do. Let me explain why. Auctions go nuclear like this for one of three reasons. One, the record hasn't been on in a while and people bid the hell out of it. In other words, the record is rare. The second reason is the person who owns the record has a friend bid it up. It happens, but not often. The third reason why a record goes nuclear, is two schmucks, who don't know a record from a paint can cover, happen to stumble upon something they believe is rare, at the same time. The record gets bid like mad and goes for some stupid amount of money. Well, this record isn't crazy rare, it's on ebay a lot. And it wasn't bid up by the owner because it's not usually this obvious. Owners only bid it up a little, because they don't want to risk out bidding the real bidders. This record easily doubled in price. So we're left with reason three...and reason three should be considered reason one now a days. A lot of new people are into records and they drive the prices up like crazy.
So part two of this story. Like I said, when I saw this thing go for 118 bucks I knew what would happen next. I've seen it a hundred times. Some dude, who has this record, and doesn't have any cash, thinks this record is worth 100+ dollars, and gets it up there quick as hell. But It's not worth 100+ dollars. It's only worth 100+ dollars to two people, and one of them owns the damn thing now. But this guy doesn't realize that. Maybe it's because he doesn't sit up at night and debate why a copy of VOD Still just went for 9 bucks and two months ago it went for 11.50. Or maybe it's because he's got a box of old records that he thinks he wants to get rid of, but isn't sure. Who knows. So what does it sell for you ask? 35 bucks! See there's a few things at work here. One, the guy left has no one to bid against to bring the price up to absurd amounts again. Two, he's now seeing the record for a second time in 2 weeks, and this alerts him to the fact that it isn't rare. And finally three, the guy thinks it's rare, so he might not even be looking for it again. You see? He might think he lost his only opportunity to get this super rare record. There's so many forces at work here. Part three to this story is another jackass then put's this record up as a buy it now for 90 bucks. It sat there for more than a month. I think he took it down, or some sucker bought it. Sorry if that was technical and shit, but I really love ebay, and I love talking auction theory. Maybe next time I will tell you some more of my ideas. I got a ton of's the result of 10 years XXX, being a workahlic, and girls never wanting to talk to me. Man I suck.
I'm also going to try and do a post on this weird Sons of Abraham Termites LP that Pat from Immigrant Sun mentioned in his comment a few posts back. He got me thinking, so I did some research, and with the help of Marcus Endless Quest, I think I might have a handle on it. Thanks!

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