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I've encountered a lot of record guys on forums that only seem to collect rarities, they don't necessarily want all the standards, even if they are better than some of the rarities. I think it is kind of dumb to be that way, I want common and rare stuff and everything in between.

Ok, here's a funny story. Back in the '90s there was a record store that sold mainly rock, psych etc. but had a small number of metal vinyls. After a trip of the owner in Germany, he bought the vinyls of a record store that went out of business. When the records arrived he asked me to help him to put prices on the metal vinyls because there were many that he didn't know.

The metal vinyls were around 500 to 600 hundred and except the mainstream stuff (like Maiden, Dio, Manowar, Metallica etc.) there were many power metal vinyls (like Cirith Ungol, Hexx, Vicious Rumors etc.) that he didn't know their values. Our deal was that i would price all of them and if i find something that i was interested i would put it aside, so we could make a deal and i would buy them.

The only records that i was interesting in were the HAMMERWITCH and the ARMED FORCES (Iron Works). After all the work, i got the 2 records and we started to make the deal.

My plan was to pay $10 for the Armed Forces (which back then was a normal price, you could easily find it back then for that price) and $50 to $60 for the Hammerwitch (most of the dealers back then listed it for $75).

So i start telling him what my proposal was and before i finish he says "Oh man, the Armed Forces is a very rare LP, it is on the same label as Jag Panzer so $10 is very low". I tell him "but most of the metal mailorders have it for $10 to $15 !!!" and he goes "No, i am certain that it is an extremely rare record but for you i can give it for $20". You may understand how angry i was because i was sure he did not even know the record, he just thought that i was trying to get it cheap. And i felt like a fool for helping him and for being honest.

So i tell him "Ok, if the Armed Forces is so rare, what about the Hammerwitch?" and he goes "Oh, i know this one too. It is a very easy to find record so you can have it for $3" !!!!

I trust you told him what it was really worth Chatzial.

Hmm, I'm broke, but I think I could fork up $3 for Hammerwitch. Anyone?

Great story although i already knew it , i wish things were always like that whenever we stepped in a store, the same store privided me with 3 copies of the German No Mercy lp and 4 copies of the Overdose To the top at similar prices!!It cannot beat though the glorious moments i lived when i picked 2 copies of Warchylde for $4 each and 2 copies of salem's wych for $8 each at the basement of the great plan 9 store in virginia in 2000, whats even more amazing though is one year later i descended the stairs believing my chances were slim of finding private stuff as had the previous year,but there it was, one more copy of the warchylde lp,i tried to check what was going on but the staff members assured me they hadnt bought any bulk copies, what were the chances for that? One of the moments i felt it was meant for me to be there at the right place and the right moment,cheers!!

Holy shit, nice finds there XCEL and Chatzial.

I guess today such luck would be like winning the lottery.

Just a quick note that all is well and am spending time with my glorious son!!!! Will try to post something in the next days, cheers.

Here's a mailorder story. Back in the '90s there was an English small mailorder company that carried mostly Hard Rock and classic metal (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc.) but from time to time had a few good NWOBHM for low prices. They sent me their catalogue every 3-4 months but i rarely could find anything to order.

One day i came home from work early and i found out that there was a letter from a bank and the new catalogue of the above mentioned mailorder.
Since i was early home and the banks were still open i decided to go the bank. I knew that this bank usually had long waiting lines so i also took the catalogue with me to browse.

While i was waiting i saw that they had the MR ICE (Toky Blade) rare vinyl The price was very low (around 5 U.K. pounds) so i was very excited and could not wait to go home and order it. I thought, "let's see if they have anything else, so i may not order only one LP".

This catalogue had a sign on the left of every new listing, so if you have read the previous catalogue you could read only the updates. Since i was not finding anything interested in the new stuff and since it was not my turn at the bank cashier i started reading the entire list, only to find that they had the DECOY PARIS for 8 U.K. Pounds

I left the bank and phoned as soon as i got home (pre-Internet days).
Both were available. Funny thing was that when i searched their older catalogues, i found out that the had it for almost 1 year

Quite good opportunity for me from chatzial to share a few old dealers lists stories with you ,soooo,back in 1990 i was just starting to buy lps from lists found on record collector magazine's pages ,good stuff at reasonable prices-at least for those days- until one day i got a reply letter from a seller from derbyshire with the stuff he got for sale ,among them were some titles i had never seen before like slender thread,sinner,shaftsbury- i still have it- but i was fearful enough not to invest on any of those,so i bought gap filling stuff like diamond head canterbury-quite rare here back then- and jaguar powergames,should be a total of 12 or 15 lps at around 10 quid each,something like that ,i send payment through one of my own patent "clever" ways and about 2 weeks later i receive the package which to my surprise contains apart from the stuff i had ordered, 4 gift items which i didnt know but one-the three were 2nd sparta w/cover,dagaband 2nd,lions in winter with small water dsage on back bottom and the one i already knew was fist back with a vengeance ,which i just left lying on the floor for a couple of days until i decided to pick it from the floor and to my amazement i saw it was on yellow vinyl!!!!!!!!!!!! Little did i know it would become one of the most precious items of my collection even 21 years later,more stories to come when i have time, cheers

XCEL, have you made a sacrifice to the Metal Gods or something?

Xcel, I always meant to ask, that photo of the Dark lp, is it in your collection? One of my favorite psych records but of course I don't expect to ever have a real one.

not really a rare record, but a very old memory:

in 1991 I moved to California for work. I was basically flat fucking broke after 3 years in college and no job, I had some little bit of $$ given to me by my mother to help find a place to live, I had a 1 month free rent at an apartment, I spent ALL my spare time after work hunting for a place to live, trying to conserve cash until I got some of my first money, etc. etc. This gave me little time to find records but I had this itch to find some. No record player to play them, It was still in storage, But I still had to buy some. I knew I could always play them later. I knew there had to be some cool record stores in the bay area. I didn't know anyone at all in CA so I just had to open the yellow pages, get in the car and try to find some places. I figured that driving to SF was a bad idea because I didn't know my way around there and was still trying to cope with the crazy traffic of living in a highly populated area. So I picked Berkeley, found Rasputins, Leopolds and Amoeba in the phone book, map said they are all basically in the same place, hadn't heard of them, so figured this is a good place to start. Drove up there (1 hour drive from my apartment) and the first record I found was Angel Witch S/T for $2. Not rare, but I knew about it of course and had been looking for a copy for years in Oregon, where there were few records to be had. Even then I knew it was a giveaway price. I'll never forget that moment, I don't remember what else iIbought but the next years were filled with combing the shops trying to find cool records with my meager amount of spare cash. I should have dug even harder back then, I didn't know that while I was being semi-lazy soon all the records vanished into the mailorder catalog of Jan Svanhill.....

No Rob i dont have it , that would be far out of my league as far as spending for records is concerned, i have the old re and the very first akarma run re ,although i was among the first to know about the existence of the lp back in the 80's by a pen writing friend and collector,after we know who stepped down that london basement store and discovered what would be the biggest discovery of all time progressive hard rockwise . As for the angelwitch its the sentiments that matter and not the actual value , and a tip to all wannabe collectors members of this forum- metal never reached such ecstatic unfathomable depths since that humble band recorded that lp,a definite must of our music and a "trip through hell" of heavy metal although not as rare in money value ,cheers

I love that Dark album too, quite happy with my reissue. I was told an original gatefold copy goes for about 9000 euros.

One copy including the booklet sold for nearly 7000 GBP's this year if I remember correctly.

Dirty Rocker wrote:One copy including the booklet sold for nearly 7000 GBP's this year if I remember correctly.

What is this record you're talking about???
7000GBP is really insane, actually in one league with some of the Krautrock rarities...

EDIT:

Ah, I got it.
Seen the prices on Popsike for that DARK record.
Is it that good musically???