What is your price range for used vinyl?

The thrill of finding that $1 nugget is tremendous, happens with some frequency at garage sales, but is not something I like to see trumpted on the boards. Seems a bit tacky to me and it appears to occur here with increasing frequency of late. Some may enjoy such threads but I don't. I know, I know, I don't have to read them. I don't. End of mini-rant... ;-)

I have found very nice LP's in the $2-$4-$8-$12 range at local stores (many in the Bay Area, CA) and from internet sellers (I rarely go the E-Bay route when buying). I can generally get by at a bit lower price because I don't usually put much of a premium on cover condition. If the vinyl is nice, I can close my eyes to the cover. ;-)

I am also like Scott in that I hate to pay more than $30-35 for an LP, But, if it is pristine, hard to find, and one that I covet, I make exceptions. I will admit that I have paid as much as $75 for couple of UK pressings that I just HAD TO HAVE. There are others I'd love to buy that cost even more. I also will pay the obvious premimum for some of the newer vinyl in the hopes that it will continue to be manufactured and perhaps come down in price if more folks buy.

In the end, I will NOT buy an LP that I will not play. In other words, I am a "player" not a "Collector". To me, crowing about having a mint copy of some fine recording and leaving it on the shelf for display purposes only is damn near sinful! :-)

I got a book for Xmas called "Vinyl Junkies" by Brett Milano a 2003 release which is really funny as it's all about one collectors adventures.

Personally I have been burnt on Ebay, as record grading has become Rocket Science.

I came back to analog w/ just 40 lp's to my name, & found that my local sources where dried up on anything of quality.

Frustrated, I was lucky to just 3 days ago to purchase a Agon members 1400 mint classical Lp collection. A fellow whom I had grand experiences on Ebay with Sacd's & Xrcd's. It was a once in a lifetime deal, which after my back recovers will keep me busy for years to come :)~

The overall average price among my near 2000 records collection is $7 per near-mint record.
That includes a COMPLETE collection of Can that has records upto $50 worth including Can artists solo albums as well.

IF you can find a good used record store, vinyl will be cheaper than buying over ebay. I've bought around 90 or so albums on ebay because of where I live now (in Georgia) and you end up paying that extra $10 or so for shipping from England or Japan (where I most often buy from). The trick here is to read between the lines to determine if the seller really is grading correctly and you must buy only lp's rated "Mint" or "Mint-" as the grade "Excellent" will many times buy you a chewed-up surface-noised LP.
At the Princeton Record Exchange in Princeton NJ I used to buy on a regular basis MFSL LP's in Mint condition for as little as 8 bucks... Most I've ever paid for an LP was $50 for MFSL Steely Dans's Katy Lied, and $75 for a sealed MFSL Supertramp Breakfast in America.

Free!, $0.18, $0.23, $0.50, $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 $7 $10 $20 $30
Over that I buy the CD!!!
I have only paid $30 for two LPs: Miles Davis Sketches of Spain six eye 1b 1c sides M-... And a PJ Harvey LP.
Also only a few $20 ones. (four)
And a lot of $10 Jazz...
Most stuff aside from these items averages $0.40 each for thousands of LPs. (And yes this includes Barbara Steisand, but no Mitch Miller or Barry Manilow... a LOT of excellent classical shaded doggies and six eyes in there)
I have over two dozen places to rummage through in my local '10 minute freeway ride' area, about half of those are pretty good.