Blue Note reissues as an investment?

Collectibles are generally not a good investment. Want to buy some Beanie Babies?

Look at something very collectible like the Mobile Fidelity boxed set of the Beatles. It retailed for around $300

Historically you can double your money in the stock market about every 6 years. That set was released 26 years ago so you would have had about 4 doubles in that time.

$300 x2 x2 x2 x2 = $4,800

Sealed sets are pretty rare but opened ones go for around $1,000 so it is hard to imagine a sealed one would get almost 5 times that.

It's like those late 60's early 70's muscle cars going for 100-200 thousand. Still a bad investment. Using the same math on a car that cost $3,000 in 1970 it would have doubled maybe 6 times.

$3k x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 x2 = $192,000

Factor in the insurance paid each year that would also have double in value every so many years had it been invested (take just the first year and let's say it was $200 it would be worth almost $13,000 now, each year compounded a little less but easily a few $100K after 38 years), add maintenance, garage space, and the off frame restoration it takes to get top dollar that costs probably close to $50,000 and you just lost your ass on that deal.

That doesn't include the pleasure of ownership but as an investment it doesn't do so well. Buy them because you want to listen to them and enjoy them.

Buying limited edition LPs sometimes brings up an interesting dilemma. About a year ago I found a copy of Mosaic's Jackie McLean for $150 and hemmed and hawed whether I should buy it and finally did. Just the other day I saw that a copy went for over $500 on ebay. This is what sparked my post. Now I have to ask myself, can I really justify holding on to my copy when I can use the cash to buy ten Music Matters LPs with it? There are worse problems to have, but you know...

There's a lot of randomness on Ebay, and i didn't see the auction you're referring to but that result would be a rare one. The McLean Blue Note sets have averaged around $270-$280 for years. One just went in March for $270, and there's one up right now finishing in a day or two, so watch that one. So they are trading above the original cost. But what made your set a good "investment" was not rising prices, but rather that you bought it at a below market price.

Opalchip,, that McLean on ebay right now is actually a cd set. The past auction I was referring to is too old to show up...it just disappeared a couple of days ago. Even for what you say is the average price for that mosaic set it's still hard for me to justify holding on to it. Keeping it when it's selling at that price is basically the same as buying it for that price.

Hi - Oops, for some reason, that set showed up in my search for lp's but I didn't open it to read the description. You can see a list of many past auctions here:

http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?pagenum=1&searchtext=mclean+mosaic&incldescr=¤cy=&sortord=ddate&thumbs=

And yes, as a professional stock trader, I would say your point of view is absolutely correct. If you can sell it for $300 and you don't, that IS exactly the same as buying it at that price.

Frankly, if you put it on Audiogon (with a reserve), you might do much better than the Ebay average. Jazz LP's are often going for truly insane prices here - which is a whole other discussion in itself.