Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

Yeah the flipping seems way more prevalent this year. I wonder if the pandemic is making it harder to track/punish the stores that do that - weren't the stores that did this to lose access to the following year's titles? But I've seen lots of examples of stores being pretty blatant about it.

I've seen commentary from, and talked to, record store owners that push pretty hard both for and against the day. It seems like the day works better in the bigger cities, but maybe not so much for shops in smaller markets. I can't remember where the store was, but I saw something on Twitter a few weeks ago from an owner saying he eventually gave up on RSD because the razor thin profit margins on the exclusive titles wasn't worth all the angry/obnoxious customers he dealt with for the two weeks prior and two weeks after the day itself.

Oh okay it was still cheaper than the RSD version (which Rough Trade is pressing in a run of 750)

― Just a few slices of apple, Servant. Thank you. How delicious. (stevie)

The OG pressing still sounds p great to me, and is plentiful across Discogs

the whole idea is to subsidize record stores

yeah, but that was quickly thrown by the wayside as soon as the majors got involved and continued the bullshit tradition of marking things up to a point where the stores make very little profit on anything. most of those cutout bins full of last year's shitty rsd leftovers are being sold at no profit to the store. . . or even at a loss in some cases. it's reached a point where the stores can't count on the actual rsd releases to turn any profit.

Feel like this is kinda devolving off the thread topic, but I did like Keith Fullerton Whitman's tweet about RSD:

(1/6): I didn't want to take over Damon's thread but apply the RSD modality to virtually any other independent business. As an example: PSD (Pizza Shop Day)

"Celebrate Pizza (shops) on Pizza Shop Day!"

Everyone: "I LOVE PIZZA!"

Pizza Shop (PS): "How do I opt in?"

— 🔊🔉🔈🔇 (@keithfwhitman) August 31, 2020

most of those cutout bins full of last year's shitty rsd leftovers are being sold at no profit to the store

yeah judging by my local shop I don't think ANY of these have moved in the last year. a lot of these RSD releases are so incredibly niche, just so many live recordings from bands that released all their good quality live recordings a decade ago

People have to keep in mind that RSD generates traffic to stores too. All of the criticisms are valid but are overly focused on the rabid collectors/flippers that line up in the morning and the exclusives they're after. Despite that headache, it's in the best interest of the store to take advantage of the overall influx of shoppers with other sales and fun stuff to try to get some customer loyalty out of it.

Again, I totally get that it works really well for some stores. At the same time I've seen social media posts about the "RSD rules" for a number of shops that explicitly say "no browsing" to keep people moving in and out efficiently. Hard to see how that benefits the shops from casual traffic on the day, maybe later on once the lines have died down, but still.

Well shops that do that are fucking up.

Some years ago Sounds Of The Universe had a soundsystem up for Record Store Day, just total block party in the middle of central London. That made me enjoy the day far more than any gimmicky limited editions could have.

got my second VNYL mailing today.

pleasantly surprised that it was a Lord Dying album! an actually good, recent metal band. appears to be a not new copy but w/e. I do already have this album on mp3 but not vinyl.

guessing metal has more riches cos we're into these obscure releases but the tossup rap they'll probably send me is compilations or the Friday soundtrack

friday soundtrack has some great jams, tbf.

tis true, I actually spin one of them ("Keep their Heads Ringin'") often on Touchtunes when I....used to go out *sob*

what the fuck is this

https://better-records.com/

looks like they literally just buy up copies of Bob Seger records until they find a 'hot stamper' one which they then attempt to sell for $299, fucking amazing

I mean, hell, if they can sucker people into paying more than $200 for bargain bin staples, good for them I guess?

Hot Stampers sure sound better than other records, but do they have any real "collector" value?

Not really.

How much better will a Hot Stamper sound on my system?

That's a tough question, because it involves two things I can't know: how good your stereo is, and how good your critical listening skills are. Really, the only way to find out is to try a record or two and see if the sound quality justifies the price to you.

Gonna bet they lean really heavily on that "critical listening skills" one when people call bullshit on this.

Okay, I'm done quoting their FAQs but, wow, this is an impressive one.

I kinda want to get in on this scam

there’s an NYT article about the hot stamper guy I think

anyways that’s just like luxury goods, rich ppl collector shit, I don’t think there’s much crossover into normies getting taken..

belongs in snake oil thread imo

/threadcop

hot stamper sounds like urban dictionary sex jargon

I was gonna say bathroom slang, i.e. "I left a hot stamper in that guy's bathroom just before we left the party".

Gotta chase that "Tubey Magic," man.

Which I guess could also be an Urban Dictionary term.

guess I'll be relabeling all my beat-to-shit records on discogs with the enticing term "Cold Stampers". you don't even need to be an audiophile to tell the difference!

lol

"the hot stampers" sounds like a really shitty local blues rock band that won't stop playing.

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

Just took a hot stamper

pretty sure hot stamper nonsense got discussed here before. It's the bullshittiest of bullshit

Yeah, it might actually have over in the Snake Oil thread.

Did a search, and we've actually got Hot Stamper talk going back to 2008 (on the crazy eBay vinyl thread), with bit more happening on I Love Vinyl! and finally the discussion on the Snake Oil thread beginning in 2015.

The Hot Stampers thing is some hot BS, especially the pricing, but I legit found one in the wild once, looking to replace my copy of Fleetwood Mac’s s/t I discovered that my slightly damaged copy sounded HUGE and AMAZING compared to every better-condition copy (with other matrix numbers) I came across.

well then, to get this thread back on topic, I've discovered that one good substitute for VNYL is to get drunk or stoned and order a bunch of shit off discogs, with shipping times being all over the place you never know what's gonna show up at your door

lol...my Canada discogs orders showed up already, will be waiting for the Italy forever. I didn't wanna order from there cos I know the customs delays now but I just had to have Cannibal Corpse's The Bleeding on vinyl and didn't I

I was just thinking about the hot stampers website the other day, I'm oddly comforted to know that it's still around.

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

― henry s, Friday, September 25, 2020 2:07 PM (seven hours ago)

lol

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

― henry s, Friday, September 25, 2020 12:07 PM

thread delivers!

basking in that tbh

They do offer refunds if you get the record and don't think it's worth the price tbh tbf

We’re sorry, our expert team has determined the record you returned to us is no longer a Hot Stamper

Yea they originally wouldn't take back my Duncan Sheik hotstamp even though i told them i don't suppose it's worth the price it's worth the price the price that I must pay.

They're thinking it over, anyway

that was so groan-worthy and yet, A+

lol
https://www.vinylmeplease.com/products/mariah-carey-daydream?variant=31239570751578

This is the first official vinyl reissue of Daydream, the vessel through which humanity received God's greatest gift to mankind: "Always Be My Baby." We have it on metallic gold vinyl.

i mean. . . they're not wrong. . . i guess?

me and another ilxor found a original vinyl copy of 'daydream' for two pounds(!) a couple of years back in a local secondhand store. think he ended up selling it for ~£150 or something? the man who ran the shop charged a fortune for any rock records but that one was just some pop garbage to him. weirdly he has now gone out of business

i say 'we' - he found the vinyl in the bargain bin and then one week later i went back and found the sleeve!

haha that's awesome, good teamwork!

it certainly was one sweet day

Haha, that was me, got some sweet bargain priced house and techno that day too.