Up until now, all year long you’ve seen Most Expensive Items Sold-posts written by our very own Grippo. At the moment however, Grippo is on paternity leave. Congrats to that! I guess that there are some things that money just can’t buy. For everything else, you go to Discogs.

It’s summer time! High season for tourism but low season for Discogs. After Prince broke the bank it will probably take some time before we will see another ‘Most Expensive Item Sold EVER’ and we certainly won’t be seeing it this month. People are going on vacation and saving up for that, and temperatures are rising.

We took a quick look at the global weather forecast for these locations: Santiago (Chile), Phoenix (Arizona), Newark (New Jersey), Recife (Brazil), Köln (Germany), Lagos (Nigeria), Oslo (Norway), Liverpool (UK), New York (USA).

Out of these ten locations, Phoenix had the highest temperature today (31°C / 88°F), and by some crazy coincidence the most expensive item sold in the Discogs Marketplace in June is also from a band that hailed from Arizona! Bear Mountain Band’s ‘One More Day’ (don’t confuse them with Bear Mountain, which is a modern day Canadian indie band) is a rare, bluesy, psychedelic hard rock album from the early seventies. It went for $1700.00 and guess what: there are still two for sale in the Marketplace! Get ‘m while it’s (31°C / 88°F) hot! (actually, please be careful with your vinyl in high temperatures).

If you’re in – or going to – a location where it’s not that warm (Köln, Oslo and Liverpool only 18°C / 64°F ), maybe you want to warm yourself up with a little dancing. Take for example Sparkle’s ‘Sparkle’ album, or Martin L. Dumas, Jr.’s ‎’Attitude, Belief & Determination’ 12″, numbers three and two on our June list, which sold for $1500,00 and $1671.00.

Maybe you are going for a slightly more tropical place. Los Vidrios Quebrados are considered one of the greatest Chilean rock bands of the sixties and on their debut album (nr. 5 in this list, sold for $1340.00) they made almost all of the instruments themselves. Zé Ramalho and Lula Côrtes‘ collaboration album ‘Paêbirú‘ from 1975 appears on nr. 4 in the list and was sold for $1500.00. It is also a little warmer in Recife today: 28°C / 82°F compared to 22°C / 72°F in Santiago. It’s not the only Brazilian classic on the list either.

A little further down the list we find two Nigerian releases (it’s a whopping 33°C / 91°F in Lagos today): Geraldo Pino & The Heartbeats’ ‘Afro Soco Soul Live’ is some great afro-funk and its ‘Blackman Was Born To Be Free’ was used as a sample in Madlib’s ‘Street Hustler’. They’re on nr. 7, sold for $1325.00, followed by their fellow countrymen Orlando Julius & His Afro Sounders ‎whose ‘Orlando Ideas‘ almost made the Top 10: it was sold for $1104.00.

There’s actually one country on this List of Most Expensive Items Sold In Discogs Marketplace For June 2016 that cannot be visited anymore. On nr. 27 we find an $888.00-worth record from the USSR. It’s a reissue (apparently) and it features some works from famous classical composers, but since my Russian is very very very rusty I can not tell you what makes this release so special.

But there you go: you don’t have to spend all your money on vacation, just buy records from faraway countries. You can even travel through time to countries that are no more. Just stay in with your record collection and internet connection.

See the full list here.



