Going back to 1971 or so, EJ Korvettes (Brooklyn) sold albums as follows:
Category D for $2.99, Category E for $3.49, and Category F for $3.99, when on sale. Different labels went on sale each week. Non-sale prices were roughly 50 cents more.
What comprised each category? To a 14 year old, who knew? Release year had something to do with it. Hard Day's Night cost me $2.99 and Tarkus cost me $3.49. Four Way Street was a double album and cost 2 times E.
Fast forward to 1984, J&R Music (Manhattan) sold most albums between $6.99 and $8.99.
After that I started buying CDs, which started out costing 50% to 100% more than albums.
Rich
Rich |
Rich didn't mention that you had to comparison shop Sam Goody's with Korvettes (Paramus, NJ, in my case) because Goody's might be 20 cents cheaper (or 20 cents more expensive) on any given record at any given time, depending on which labels were on sale at which store that week.
Marty |
EJ Korvettes, wow, that brings back memories! I was once told that the name stood for "Eleven Jewish Korean Veterans", any truth to that?
-RW- |
I bought Electric Ladyland- a double LP at my high school bookstore in 1982. I think I paid $12-. Most single LP's were $6.9 or so. Some of the pressings were rather sketchy around that time. I remember buying King Crimson on the EG label and it had a "pop" in it brand new. Zeppelin "In thru the out door was $8.99. |
RW, thought it was Eight Jewishk Korean War Veterans. Used to buy my LP's from the Edison store on Rt 1 (maybe Woodbridge?)in NJ. Also from Two Guys From Harrison store in Middletown where I grew up. Most albums were from 3.99 new to 6.99 . |
RW,
You might be confusing EIGHT Jewish Korean veterans (Korvettes)
with
The Nevele Hotel in the Catskill mountains which was purportedly named for the ELEVEN original Jewish investors. Nevele is eleven spelled backwards.
No idea whether either story is true, but I have heard both any number of times.
Marty |
EJ Korvettes was founded by one man who died just this year. I can't remember his name but it wasn't Korvette as I recall.
I also bought alblums there as a kid thru early teens and $3.99 sticks out in my mind and more for double alblums. In real prices adjusted for inflation I bet that $5.99 record is now much more than the 20-30 bucks we spend for new tiny productions of records. |
Pretty standard throughout the mid to late 60's 2.49-2.98 for Mono and 3.49 to 3.98 for Stereo.Stayed like that for awhile.Cutouts,deletions and punched hole copies were aplenty at drug stores and your good old supermarkets and department stores for .49-.99 each,and i am talking outrageous records you would crawl across the desert for now.These were serviced by "rackjobbers" who would do a regular route and re-fill the racks every week full to the brim with the latest deletions.Labels would sell out stock or wholesale cut out dozens of records at a time.
I Worked for a store that bought these cutouts from a distributor and i vividly remember the day we went down to "record row" on Pico Blvd. in L.A. and there was a mountain,i'm taking 25 feet wide and 15 feet high of newly arrived "cutouts" from Chess records.Boxes and boxes of Muddy,Sonny Boy,Wolf,Little Walter not to mention Soul,Jazz,Gospel.......25 cents each!
In late '69 we opened the first discount record store in Santa Barbara and after Christmas we had our grand opening sale and featured the then newly released "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor for an unreal 2.49 That was about 20 cents above cost from the label.Those hippies could not buy enough of that!Of course,in those days things used to fall off those delivery trucks and there were deals to be made.
As a record buyer in the 60's i always bought one mono lp and one single instead of a stereo lp.Finally got a Sears stereo with the pull out speakers and i could buy one lp-Beatles 6- that 12 string guitar sounded so amazing.Thanks Dad! |
All us old farts that remember Korvettes. OK, let's go for broke. Who purchased records at A&S and Mays?
Rich |
Hey, we used to go to the Nevele as a kid! I did not know the origin of the name. Nice trivia!
A lot of my records came from Cheap Thrills in New Brunswick, NJ in college. $5.99 sounds like a familiar price but can't remember exactly (1978). |
I remember in the late 70s to early 80s a good deal was about $3.50 - $4.00 each for new LPs. |
Best prices at Korvettes. Best selection at Discomat in NYC.
In 1984 I was paying $5.99 for a LP. But I would pay much more for an import...close to $20. |
In the mid 80's most new releases came out at about $8.50 and I remember people older than me complaining about how expensive records had become and how thin and flimsy they were. I normally only bought on sale for $6.50-$6.99. Now I wish I'd bought a lot more. |
EJ Korvette's in Douglaston, New York (northeast Queens) was my source for LP's. I used to spend a lot of time there just browsing the collections, which sometimes seemed endless. For three to five bucks you could buy almost anything. I think the first album I ever bought was CSNY Deja Vu (I still have it) when I was a sophomore at Cardozo High School in Bayside, and I probably bought a hundred albums at Korvette's between late 1972 and 1975. Wow, the memories suddenly seem so vivid..... It was a great place to buy records. |
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I'm from Rochester NY and we have what was back in the 70's through the nineties the largest record store in the world called The House of Guitars. An album back in 1985 which is when I graduated from high school was $7. When I say largest store I mean the most albums. You can look it up. People came from all over the world and the walls are signed by all the great rock bands of the era. Very high volume guitar sales at this store as well. |
Rich,
A&S was another great store from those days. Please don't tell me that it wasn't Abraham & Strauss, because I do remember that one .... and I don't care if Wikipedia claims otherwise!
Marty
PS Modell's or Alexander's anyone? |
Around 1969 to 1970 era Boston shopping for records at either the Children's Inn or Harvard Square COOP, prices were generally $3.99 for first pressing standard issue, single vinyl, no gatefold, such as Disraeli Gears, Are You Experienced, Led Zeppelin I. Gatefold issues or Beatles as I recall were $4.99. Double albums were usually $7.99, a huge amount of money for me as a school boy but I still have many of these and now they are worth at least as much because I took so good care of them, despite hundreds of plays with a "magnetic" cartridge. |
in 1972 in springfield mo there was a great headshop/record store named kaledioscope. it is still there but no records in stock now. lps were 4 dollars each or 3 for 10 bucks. i went there every friday after payday[i was making 3 bucks an hour ha] and bought 3 new releases and was in heaven. |
Marty,
A&S was awesome, but had a limited selection. So did May's. I would go to the stores on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn. Mays, Woolworths, EJ Korvettes, and A&S all in a row.
My dad was an appliance repairman and many of the manufacturers' service centers were downtown also. So, while he did his thing, I did mine.
Mays and A&S had more cut-outs than Korvettes. And yes, A&S was Abraham & Strauss.
Rich |
A&S was indeed Abraham and Strauss-used to go the the one in Red Bank, NJ in the 60's. |
I picked up a mint copy of L by Godley and Creme yesterday which was released in 1978 and it had the original price sticker on it for Music Plus of 4.98.
The first album to list at 9.98 was Hard Promises by Petty and he threatened to sue if they didn't list it at 8.98. Don't remember what happened with that but look at the album cover. |
Here is the scoop,guess Backstreet records backed down. Interesting tid bit on John Lennon too. Lennon was supposed to be in the studio recording when they were recording Hard Promises but was murdered before he got there. Etched in the master is We love You JL. |
