Ah, but this harkens back to when the recorded music had value and was prized by all. I remember when the going rate for an LP in 1969 was $4.50. Run it through the inflation calculator and you'll see that everybody was paying the equivalent of $26.55 then for any run-of-the-mill mass-produced vinyl LP. If you were a typical teenager/early 20's guy working minimum wage, an LP represented 3-4 hours pay.
06-22-08: Pryso
...There are three basic choices for buying vinyl today. First there is a growing supply of favorite (and some not-so-favorite) albums being reissued. Most of these cost from $30-$60 when remastered by established engineers. Other label-generated reissues with unknown mastering may sell for $10-$20.
As for audiophile special releases, I remember paying $10 in 1974 for the Sheffield direct-to-disc "Lincoln Mayorga and Friends vol. II," which in 2007 money is $46.19. So the $50 I just dropped for the 2-LP 180g 45rpm reissue of "A Meeting by the River" is in the ballpark, and is actually a better and better-sounding album.
So I guess the real question is, are you ready to throw off the de-valuing of music through CDs, CD-Rs, ripping, and digital downloads and pay for a (relatively) laboriously made analog copy of what went down in the studio that day?
True enough, though these record stores often have dollar bins, and I've gotten a lot of records in excellent shape from such. Sometimes I don't even know how the record ends up there. I've gotten some ECM releases and some of my favorite rock/pop from the '70s/'80s from these.
Next is the vinyl resale market on line or from a few remaining stores. Here you can expect to pay from about $5 to three figures, depending on rarity and knowledge of the seller.
I got a near mint 2-LP Gordon Lightfoot "Gord's Gold" at such as store for $2.99. I like Lightfoot, especially what's on this particular collection.
And if you're at a good store that is picky about what they'll accept and put out for sale, the $5-10 range gets you some great music in excellent shape. Last year the store with the best selection in my town (Seattle) had a half-price sale on everything through the summer. I came out with some great music in great condition, including most of the Beatles that I wanted, the Police discography for about $10 total, several of my favorite jazz albums, etc.
And if you like classical music, these stores practically give it away. I typically pick up like new LPs for $1-3, including RCA Living Stereo, DG w/Herbert Von Karajan, stuff with Heifetz, Rubinstein, etc.
... and Neil Diamond, John Denver, Barbra Streisand, and Jerry effing Vale. Hoo-boy. It's rare to find a popularly prized album (that holds up over time) in a thrift shop. I've gotten one Rolling Stones album at a thrift shop--only time I've seen one. Neven seen any Beatles, Beach Boys, Led Zep, etc. I once saw a Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, but it looked unplayable to me.
Lastly, there is something known as "dumpster diving". This entails visits to local thrift stores to scrounge through their collections of used LPs. Prices can be cheap ($.25-$4) but it can be dirty and time consuming to sort through all the rejects to find anything of interest (artist, music, and condition). Who knew there were so many copies sold of Firestone Christmas music, Ray Conniff and Herb Alpert?
But it also depends on the thrift shop and your taste in music. I picked up a huge stack of Haydn on Nonesuch at about 50 cents per, and last week I just came away with 16 box sets from Time/Life's "Great Men of Music" series at $1/box. Each box has 4 LPs, and is of a specific composer. I got (among others) Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Ravel, etc. These are mostly culled from RCA Living Stereo archives, so they feature Fritz Reiner & the Chicago Symphony, Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony, Artur Rubinstein and Van Cliburn on piano, Heifetz on violin, Julian Bream on guitar and lute, etc. And one thing I found out--people almost never played these subscription series box sets. Most of the vinyl looks gleaming and unplayed.
There are two more ways to get vinyl--the Internet via eBay, Amazon, GEMM, and the like, and local private transactions via moving sales, garage sales, estate sales and Craigs List. You can often get excellent condition stuff privately, and I've gotten some really cool things off eBay, including some still-sealed new old stock at reasonable prices and a collection of unplayed special broadcast pressings that included both volumes of Ella and Louis on Verve and The Monster by Buddy Rich (also on Verve).