Victim of growing popularity in recent years, the vinyl market is now overheated as supply struggles to meet demand. Sniffing out the good deal, collectors push the bottle a little too far and sell the vinyls of certain Quebec artists at exorbitant prices that can reach a few thousand dollars.
While surfing on the eBay resale site, we can also come across a reseller who is trying to sell the vinyl of the album Liar of Jean Leloup for no less than $ 2,200. The same collector does not do charity for the LP either All Dressed by Plume Latraverse, offered for the modest sum of $ 2,600!
“It’s not worth that at all. I sold Liar last month at $ 60. It’s around $ 50 and $ 100. As for Plume, I’ve sold a vinyl of him for $ 200 before, but it was a much rarer album than that. There is no vinyl worth $ 2000, except maybe that of a limited edition of an obscure singer, and more… ”comments Eduardo Cabral, co-owner of the record store Sonorama, which has been established for ten years. years in the Mile-End.
He is not the only one to ridicule the greed of this anonymous dealer. The host and collector MC Gilles also made fun of it this week on social networks, which brought the attention of many collectors to these two unattractive offers that have been lying around the Web for a long time now.
No one seriously thinks that one day someone might want to pay four figures for a second hand vinyl from Jean Leloup or Plume, no matter how fanatic they are. And this, even if Liar, Jean Leloup’s first opus, has become a true piece of anthology, immediately disowned by the rocker from Sainte-Foy upon its release in 1989.
Exponential growth
These offers may well be caricatural, but they bear witness to the outbidding that fans and collectors have been engaged in on the vinyl market over the past ten years.
“It’s common for people to pay too much on the Internet for vinyl records. There are buyers who are too impatient and sellers who are too greedy. It is the meeting of the two that results in an increase in prices, ”illustrates Jean-François Rioux, owner of the Le Vacarme boutique, in Plaza Saint-Hubert.
At this independent record store, as on the Net, some vinyls are more difficult to find, since there has been no reprint for ages. Good collectors therefore know how to be patient, sometimes for months before getting their hands on the coveted record.
However, Mr. Rioux notes that it is a faculty which is lost more and more today with the on-line purchase, which accustomed us to have almost everything here and now.
“Twenty years ago, the only people who were still interested in vinyl were collectors or music lovers. Today, it’s really everyone, ”adds Sébastien Desrosiers, one of the biggest collectors in Quebec.
The figures tend to prove him right. Before contracting slightly last year due to the pandemic, the vinyl market in Quebec has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, with sales having time to double between 2015 and 2019.
Feather flies away
This increase in demand does not necessarily translate into higher prices for Quebec song classics. Even if they are very popular with music lovers, most albums by Jean-Pierre Ferland, Robert Charlebois or Harmonium, for example, remain affordable. The offer remains abundant, as tons of copies found buyers at the time and reissues have taken place since.
On the other hand, the work of some artists has gained a lot of value over time, because of the scarcity of their material. This is the case with Offenbach, but above all with Plume Latraverse, who in just a few years has become one of the most popular Quebec singers on vinyl.
“Plume’s first album, Triniterre, I have had it four times in my life. Each time, I sold it for $ 250. But today, if you find a copy in perfect condition, you can sell it for $ 500 in a matter of minutes. Plume fans dedicate such a cult to him, a little as if he were an American rock star, ”says Sébastien Desrosiers, who specifies, however, that no album by the king of Quebec dirty folk is worth $ 2,600, such as currently posted on eBay.
Mr. Desrosiers also has his favorites when it comes to Quebec music. The founder of the reissue house Trésor national has already paid out $ 500 for a 45 laps by the Sinners, a legendary rock group from the 1960s in Quebec.
As a rule, music lovers who swear by the turntable snapped up the records of groups from this period. Out of nostalgia, mainly.
However, a new generation is also starting to take an interest in vinyl, even if it has listened to its favorite albums on CDs or cassettes. As unusual as it may seem, Sébastien Desrosiers is increasingly asked for vinyl versions of Marie Carmen or BBs, for example.
“BB’s first album is easily found on vinyl, but the second, Snob, which was released in 1992, is much rarer. At the time, we were in the process of transitioning to CDs and there were only a few vinyl copies. If I find any, it can easily go between 150 and 200 $, estimates the one who says not to see the end of the progression of vinyl.