Anybody buying LP's as a long term investment at current prices is dreamin'. If you had the foresight to do it 10 years ago, that's another story. But buying now at these prices better be because you love vinyl and never plan on reselling.
Domestic prices are high because Baby Boomers who have lots of cash from refinancing their homes are chasing their memories, and Gen X is (still) chasing what they think is "cool". "Mod" is the profitable buzzword for anything selling on Ebay - put that in your title and get an extra 25%. Once these generations are over all that (which won't be long) prices on nearly all genres, etc. will decline. The DJ craze contributed to LP's reaching the younger generations - but many DJ's are moving to CD Decks now. And once the fad cools do you really think the younger crowd is going to care about 50's/60's jazz or 60's "psych" or Pink Floyd and Led Zep? - no more than the Boomers now care about the previous generations' Glenn Miller, Rosemary Clooney, or Artie Shaw. Or even - Doo Wop - remember that. Five Satins and Coasters records were going for big bucks in the 70's and early 80's.
Do you think the next generation is going to have the time and money to throw tens of thousands of $$$ at wildly priced collectible LP's instead of an acceptable sounding consumer format? They're going to be working 16 hour days just trying to buy a house and pay for their kids' kindergarten.
Overseas prices are up now because (classical mostly) lp's are a popular in Asia right now. For a while it was Deutsche Grammophon over there - then they figured out those were crap, then it was anything with a cello in the title - now that's cooling a bit. "Unaccompanied" Bach of any sort is hot but slowing. We've seen what happens with most Asian fads. They get dropped like a stone very suddenly for the next big thing.
Everything is a Beanie Baby right now - "Income" properties sporting negative cash flow and bought with Negative Amortization loans, hot Stock Offerings in unprofitable Solar Power and Search Engine companies, Muscle Cars, "vintage" crap from the '80's, and yes - LP's. There's like 12 or 15 amateur "dealers" who hang around my local Goodwill stores looking for anything they can put on Ebay. People are buying portfolios of unknown, not particularly talented, artists' works as investments figuring, assured by art dealers that they'll score with one or two of them. People are advertising beat up lp's of Abbey Road or Magical Mystery Tour on Craigslist here in San Francisco for hundreds of dollars, thinking they found a real score in their parents closet.
Our economy is totally dependent on foreigners lending us ever-increasing amounts of our own money back, our kids can't afford to buy gasoline, not to mention houses, our politicians' ethics are at a deplorable low, our reputation around the world is in shambles, our high tech military has been shown to be an emperor with no clothes. - And we just can't get enough beat up old "Northern Soul" 45's and Blue Note lp's. Keep bidding! It's a cultural phase of greed and delusion that the US is going through and it'll end just as every other phase has.
At the same time, no doubt, a digital or even some new analog format that makes mincemeat of Vinyl will come along and we'll all be quaint old men with a bunch of old-timey records destined to be given away to someone who'll just take 'em after we're gone.
I have many big $$$ records that my wife would love for me to put on Ebay - and I would if profit was the motive. If ever there was a time to be selling it is NOW. But I ain't selling my good ones - I'm buying more, because it's fun. BUT - I consider the cost as an "expense" not as an "investment"!
