Jan 28, 2017

Collecting log: LAST AMERICAN HERO FROM ASBURY PARK, N.J., Japanese custom promotion-only compilation LP (reprise) — Information sheet originally included?

Never seen before this Japan-only extreme scarcity that is
accompanied with a 7-page info sheet from the company 
(CBS/SONY Japan)
Recently, this mega rare vinyl LP was up for a major Japanese auction site and the competition closed last weekend. The copy went to someone (not me!) who paid over $1,100 (129,500 JPY exactly) as a result of a cumulative total of 36 bids. It is interesting to note that this is the fourth copy of this custom promotion-only album auctioned off here that I saw less than a year ago. The first copy was put on auction last April in 2016 and the winning bid was 241,000 JPY with a cumulative total of 30 bids. The second one came out last June and was sold for 219,500 JPY, which involved total 58 bids. Late December last year, the third one was won for 193,000 JPY with total 44 bids. As far as I examined the images that were shown on the individual auction pages, these auctioned records were different, independent copies each other. I think this is quite a rare case that such an extreme scarcity suddenly emerged four times on the auction site within 10 months, taking into account the frequency by which it appeared on auction in the past and the limited copy number pressed back in 1978 (reportedly 100 copies, the unconfirmed number of which has been exported to the US; check the previous blog).