hrtshpdbox

Everyone may have different opinions on this, but I don't think EX is generally a U.S. grade at all, except for 78 rpm records. I know I don't use it, but use VG++ instead. As far as accurate or inaccurate grading, I've seen both - from all parts of the world.

I think it's fine to store 45s horizontally, though standing up is probably still preferred. LPs, though (if anyone owns any of those), have got to be vertical - they don't have the "label bump" of 45s to keep the weight from pressing directly against the vinyl.

This is Jody's primary function. So prevalent are cadences (songs) about Jody in the Army that there's several volumes of marching songs called "The Jody Call Book" (including ones where Jody's not even mentioned). Jody is very well-known primarily during basic training, when soldiers are typically missing their girlfriends (and not able to seek out new ones); the Drill Sargeants inform new soldiers, both through the songs and just in general jawboning, that they have no girlfriends anymore, that they've lost them to Jody (Sargeant's will try to allow the possibility that married soldiers might not have the same problem). The first time soldiers hear this they look at each other, wondering "who the hell is Jody?"...everybody figures it out pretty quick. Typical: Sgt: Your mama was there when you left. Troops: You're right! Sgt: Your Susie was there when you left. Troops: You're right! Sgt: Jody was there when you left. Troops: You're right!

Indeed it is, and sometimes they can have shockingly good records in them - without even the buyer realizing it! About two years ago, when I was completely unfamiliar with what's what in soul music (yes, I'll admit it, I had never heard of almost any of the groups involved), I bought a very cheap 45 lot on Ebay from someone in Arizona - no pictures, no listing of titles, nothing. I remember thinking, when I flipped through the records, "Wow, these are all in fantastic shape, too bad it's just a bunch of unknown acts" - it was all stuff on One-Derful and Marvlus and Kayvette (and even in my messy mountain of records I can still pick them out, each one was in a crisp brown sleeve that I don't run into very often).

Yeah, and I'm not really tarring the British as a whole, of course - one bad apple and all that. It's more that they've been such unusually good buyers to deal with that gets me. I can't imagine how I could have given more information about the record; this guy must've had to think long and hard to come up with an excuse to justify his buyer's remorse.

And it's disconcerting, because there is no Anglophile more obsequious than myself. I got this ebay message today: I assume he meant that I did "not" state a slight tear on label, but it's all just (as you might say) bollocks. I graded the records as "weak VG+", put up a clip of the entire song, and posted gigantic scans of each label (and, no, I don't believe there was a slight tear there to mention). Here's my auction: https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=270358982507 So, he only buys mint minus records, but bid on this VG+ one anyway, and that's my fault, I suppose. In fact, from looking at his prior purchases, he buys plenty of records that are less than mint minus (and gets good feedback, as I gave him - I wonder if other sellers get similar messages from him weeks after leaving feedback). I stated in my reply that if he's found a cheaper one he should just say so, that I'll refund his money when I receive it back in the same condition, and that I hope he hasn't played it out much. Meanwhile, I can see that he's someone who is referred to here as a buyer of some reknown, might even be a DJ, though I'm not sure if he's a member here or not; at any rate, his name inputted into your query box returns more than a few results. In a way, I sort of feel like I'm being taken advantage of because I'm just a dumb American, and that he wouldn't do this to one of his countrymen (that might be my own paranoia, though). As it is, I don't sell records as a lark, but as a way to pay some bills, and it's worse than a mere hassle to deal with any returns, particularly unjustified ones.

Junior McCants. Gino Washington.

Added Charles Spurling, Gene Burks, The Treasures... 15 or so more going up next few days.

Thank you kindly, everyone, for your comments!

King 6115, "She Cried Just A Minute"

https://shop.ebay.com/merchant/hrtshpdbox Also a few small lots that ship cheap to overseas. Thanks for looking.

I've got two NM Charles Spurling's, so I was in the process of listing one when I noticed the merest hint of a "body warp", i.e. the slightest rise and fall of the stylus while recording the clip for Ebay, and a small section of the record that lifts a fraction of a fraction of an inch off the turntable pad during spins. So, disappointed that my "keeper" copy would now have this slight warp, I fetched the other one to sell - same slight warp. They both play perfectly, and I can't imagine any turntable having any trouble with them, but I guess once you say the word "warp" there's really no qualifying it so that it's acceptable to a buyer, right? Needless to say, I've checked out many of my other King's, and everything else looks OK.

Plus the Latintones, probably one of the greatest 45s I've heard (or, certainly, had). https://shop.ebay.com/merchant/hrtshpdbox

It is alright to sell a boot without mentioning it, if the seller honestly didn't know it. What's not alright is to refuse to refund any buyer's money anytime they ask, regardless of the reason - and your reason happens to be a really good one. If you bought it on Ebay I can't imagine that they won't see to it that you get refunded.

There will never be a standard, people are all over their place in their perceptions of what's what. To my mind, a record that plays NM except for one passage which plays VG .... is VG.

Doing that would be murder for a U.S. seller who gets European buyers all the time, I haven't seen a lot of buyers anxious to pay higher shipping costs. I haven't run into any problems shipping - no one's claimed that records weren't received or were received in bad condition; even shipping a $500. 45 to Italy recently resulted in no problems. The mail generally works, and people are generally honest. I'm always puzzled by sellers who feel the need to purchase insurance from the post office (it's especially puzzling to me when the seller expects the buyer to pay the cost of this insurance, since it's purpose it to protect the buyer); how many successful consecutive deliveries does a seller need for him to realize that money is being wasted, that his cost to make good on the very rare foul-up would be less than the total insurance fees being paid? Anyway, I've asked around to try find someone who's had a problem with an insured order, and then has actually collected on the insurance, and I've never found a case of it.

Ebay did this for me once, as well, and there wasn't even PayPal as part of the equation. A seller put up 10 copies of Ruth Brown's "Teardrops From My Eyes", Atlantic 919, for a BuyItNow price of $5.99. It's a 200 dollar record, easily (and the auction described them as "mint store stock"). I wrote the seller to make sure it was a 45, not the 78, which he confirmed. Still puzzled, I bought one - and somebody else took the other nine. Guy did not accept PayPal, but had good feedback, so I sent him a money order. He turned out to be a total lunatic - claimed that someone else had posted the auction in his name, that he'd never sell such a valuable record for so little, that he didn't receive any money from either me or the other party. It was so clear that this guy didn't realize what he had until after he listed it (he was doing multiple-copy listings of other, much less dear 45s at the time as well) that Ebay gave me a 25 dollar credit for my troubles.

Oops, never mind, just figured out that popsike wants shan dells, not shan-dells, to get a result. Thanks just the same.

Just found it, love it but need to sell everything that's not nailed down. Couldn't find completed listings, have no clue on price, appreciate info.

Yes, exactly right, if you look at it longer term; a year ago it cost an American $1.96 to get a British pound, today it costs $1.46; so the dollar has strengthened by almost exactly 25% versus the pound during that period. Ebay has certainly made a lot of mistakes, screwed a lot of sellers, and tried to move away from the collectibles market towards a "retailer outlet" style of business. Nevertheless, if someone has a truly great record to sell, and they're primarily interested in getting the highest possible price for it - I think they're still going to be listing it on Ebay. It's also not completely impossible for Ebay to see some of the error of their ways and actually improve going forward (I think, for instance, that they're already realizing that the "no negative feedback for buyers" policy isn't an unalloyed success). I think it's probably difficult to quantify (or qualify) the nature of sales from one period to another - it's seemed to me that for quite some time there's been 50,000 or so 45s on sale on Ebay at any given time. I'm sure there's other measures of this, but this page, when set to "completed" auctions, shows the 40 highest completed Ebay record sales in the previous week. Last week had a "Salt & Pepper" for 3,300 dollars, a Moments for 1,777 and a Jimmy Delphs for 1,632 dollars.

A falling dollar makes records less expensive for the UK market, you get more dollars per pound.

Some sort of Resolution, which the buyer agrees to, has to wend it's way through Ebay - or the seller won't be refunded Ebay's cut on a record that never actually sold. I've just launched today my first-ever dispute against an Englishman, and it's most odd. The buyer ignored my invoice for ten days and although I could've filed an "unpaid item" dispute, I instead went to the "auction cancelled" column - I no longer want his money. His contact info has an address that is the same name as a rather notorious English bootleg record "company" out of Ramsgate Kent, and the (non-soul) record he'd bought was right along the lines of what they've booted previously.

https://shop.ebay.com/merchant/hrtshpdbox Thanks for looking.

QUOTE (hrtshpdbox @ Dec 17 08, 05:36 PM) Right, I'm just unfamiliar with how it all works. People inquire about the value of records so they know what they can sell them for. Which is a bit of a puzzle for me, as on Ebay if you start at a dollar you'll still get whatever it's "worth", if you're lucky. I like to know what they're worth, but mostly just so I can admire them that much more when I flip through them. And, nz45s, your entire "reply" is rhetorical, I guess, or merely directed at the wrong poster, as it wasn't my list or thread in the first place. I'm fretting that I won't be able to stop acting like a newjack, though, until I can figure out what that means (still, I'll manage to get through it).

Right, I'm just unfamiliar with how it all works. People inquire about the value of records so they know what they can sell them for. Which is a bit of a puzzle for me, as on Ebay if you start at a dollar you'll still get whatever it's "worth", if you're lucky. I like to know what they're worth, but mostly just so I can admire them that much more when I flip through them.