Music Chat: Those INSANE Prices for Classical Music on Amazon

[@StuartMcFarlane]

I don't know if it's happening in the classical music market but I read an article once about the extremely high prices for some "ordinary" items on Amazon. These were attributed to money laundering. So the items advertised for outrageous prices weren't actually for end consumers but for organized crime to launder their money through shell companies.

[@ssballs]

Fascinating.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

This could be adjacent to the scam of auction houses and grading houses being owned by the same sharks who "grade" ridiculously common items like video games and VHS tapes and then claim they're rare and jack up the prices artificially. There are lots of videos about this on YT. Some used book stores like Half Price Books succumbed to these fake prices and jacked up their own in-store clearance, with $5 on absurdly common VHS tapes like Austin Powers that are as common as dirt and extant in the millions and not worth a dime. I explained all of this to the manager and after that noticed they'd lowered the prices to a fair level.

[@carlconnor5173]

How I miss the experience of flipping through LPs, then CDs at a record store.

[@MarshallArtz007]

Sigh!☹️ Those were the days.

[@geraldmartin7703]

I now do that at thrift stores. A lot more chaotic and sometimes unsanitary.

[@tarakb7606]

Happy days......

[@stevesincock941]

We still have a few 2nd hand places in the UK but they are mainly the record section of Oxfam Charity Shops. It's mainly Discogs online. The prices are standardised there pretty much.

[@vdtv]

I miss that, too, but: I'm also quite sure that in that way I would never have amassed the rarities I now own. Shops had content that didn't change too frequently, so the browsing could get a bit boring after a while when the same things kept turning up under your fingers. But yes, it is one of those experiences that is more or less gone.

[@samuelheddle]

From what I've heard, the Amazon algorithm penalizes sellers for being out of stock, so what happens is they automatically set the prices to something nobody will pay so they never actually run out of stock for certain items.

[@stevesincock941]

Interesting!

[@nedbates]

TRAGIC that contrived and unrelated algorithms and not economic principles run the economy nowadays!

[@ThreadBomb]

I have heard there is an algorithm that calculates the prices based on rarity and demand. The problem is that it assumes that an item that is rare must be in high demand.

[@philippecassagne3192]

Another related comment : it seems that there are less and less physical shops where second hand classical CDs can be found. In Paris, we have still, by chance, several such shops with remarkable stocks. I do not know if there are comparable physical shops elsewhere in the world (no more, I think, in New York or in London ?). I also buy of course very often CDs through Amazon, but I always prefer to go to physical shops (it is also less expensive).

[@philippecassagne3192]

@@stevesincock941 Many thanks for your detailed answer. I remember also two nice 2nd hand CDs shops with great stocks in Central London which are now closed. I therefore recommend you to visit Paris ("La Ville Lumière") where such CDs shops are still flourishing (Melomania, Joseph Gibert, Dame Blanche) !

[@Lohensteinio]

There are still some physical shops in the US with large sections devoted to second-hand classical CDs, for example, the Princeton Record Exchange (though several years have passed since I was last there). Otherwise, one sometimes finds surprising CD treasures at used book stores in the US. Paris is a paradise for used classical CDs. I’d love to dig through the bins at Melomania and Gibert Joseph again!

[@muzluv33]

In New York City there is one notable store called Academy Books and Music that has a large selection of CD's LP's and books in an annex across the street. I have bought from them frequently - the Cd's were always in mint condition and prices are usually fair - same goes for the LPs. The store is on 18th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues and there is a website. Also in NYC there are hole in the wall stores selling used physical music on Broadway from around the 90's through the 100's where the universities are located (Columbia, etc.)

[@caleblaw3497]

My favorite used CD store is Amoeba Music. They have stores in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles

[@PaulReynoldsJr]

Dave, if you happen to read this, I was a first year conservatory clarinet major in 2000 and was learning all of the orchestral rep at the same time as my instrument. Almost my entire music collection was made up of YOUR recommendations because Amazon was where I bought! That's how I got my Szell Tchaikovsky 5th symphony CD, which I think I must have listened to 3 times a week. You were doing the Lord's work back then, and I have a great collection because of you! Your recommendations are almost all of the things that imprinted on me.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Wow! I'm honored, really, and I appreciate your taking the time to write and tell me about it! I remember learning by clarinet orchestral excerpts (before my dog attacked my clarinet and put an end to my already unpromising career). I was especially fund of the second subject of Dvorak's 7th (first movement) because it sat so well on the instrument and I didn't have to transpose anything.

[@anaklasis]

I have the feeling that they are just out of stock and those small sellers are gone forever (and replaced by inscrutable warehouses). What's more, they have a new policy on delivery (those golden times when you could just jump from Amazon France to Amazon Germany in search of bargains, now you just can't do it). And to point at the most painful fact: big companies don't reissue normal products anymore. Just "monster boxes" deluxe gold limited edition etc. As a teenager, I managed to get a humble shelf thanks to Amazon with cycles: Beethoven's symphonies with this conductor, Brahms' symphonies with that one and so on. Now this is almost impossible to achieve.

[@timyork6150]

I buy most of my music through Amazon. It is very rare that I pay more than €20 delivered for a CD and sometimes less than €5. Sometimes I regretfully decline to purchase something, e.g. Tournemire's Moscow, because of the prices but am then pleased to find some weeks later the item being offered at a reasonable price. I often wonder who, if anyone, pays some of those ridiculous prices. It's similar with some books. I'm trying to persuade my kids that, when the grim reaper calls, they might be able to extract some value from my collection but fear that they lack the knowledge and patience to seize any opportunities.

[@tterrace]

Once the Hurwitz-inspired CD buying boom hit me in early 2020, I've gotten just about everything I've wanted in good-condition, reasonably-priced used copies by checking Discogs and eBay sellers along with Amazon.

[@Lohensteinio]

Same here

[@gusriley9785]

tterace - likewise - and not primarily relating to classical music on Amazon, - like you I shop around (always pays to SHOP!!!) and compare products I want with discogs, eBay and independent outlets, - I've never paid over the odds for anything I've bought online, and often by putting a few minutes time in searching, paid UNDER the average price. That applies for both new and good quality second hand products, - granted much of what I purchase isn't classical music, but jazz or books. Cheers and responsible shopping to all :) Gus

[@eddihaskell]

Me too -- but be very carful and do not buy used "Library" recordings. They list them as "good" and they usually have this stickers on them. Also, I just go ahead and buy a quantity of Jewel Box cases --- since the ones that arrive on used recordings are usually scratched and can break in the mail. My best luck by far is Discogs, they always arrive in great shape.

[@ModusVivendiMedia]

I released a CD for an artist that was, among other things, being distributed through CD Baby. CD Baby's physical distribution program made titles available on consignment through the US distributors Alliance Entertainment and Super D, but they were also supposed to create an Amazon listing and sell them directly there at the suggested price (taking $4 plus a percentage of each sale). Well first they put the "manufacturer" as "CD Baby" instead of the actual manufacturer/record label. Second, it had no description or other useful information (no track listing or that it was a 2 CD album, for instance, and no mention of the name of the record label). Then they didn't actually make any copies available on Amazon at the MSRP, instead creating a listing for the title but letting others list actual copies for sale. Quickly a few copies ended up showing up at 1.5-2x the MSRP, but none at the MSRP directly from CD Baby. (Obviously those offers were by parties who had access to order from Alliance or Super D, but didn't actually have any copies on hand. The UK sellers were marking up the price by the most, obviously to account for getting it shipped internationally to them in the first place.) This prompted a prospective customer to leave a review lauding the recording but complaining about the ridiculous price and saying they wouldn't buy such an overpriced CD (obviously not noticing that this was not an official listing directly from the record label; had they looked at the artist's website, KZbin, Spotify, or elsewhere, they'd see listings pointing to the label's direct sales). Then CD Baby discontinued their physical distribution program, returning the CDs to the labels (or destroying them, if they label didn't opt to pay for shipping them back), so the new listings all disappeared. Now, Amazon is offering a single USED copy from some seller, still for 50% above the MSRP. I then added a listing through Amazon Seller Central as having hundreds of NEW copies being available direct from the actual label/manufacturer for the actual MSRP, but Amazon is hiding that listing and still showing the over-priced used copy as the default result, which is also winning the "buy" box. The manufacturer is still listed as CD Baby, despite numerous attempts to correct it by various means. Amazon did add the basic information about the CD that I added in the description, but it's unformatted and difficult to read. Overall, Amazon CD listings are a total mess from my perspective. Their Seller Central web interface feels like it was last updated in 2008 or something, and not upgraded since. Most of the data entry fields make no sense (and have little or no explanation offered by Amazon as to what they are to be used for, particularly for music CDs). Listing it on Shopify and Bandcamp were both far, far easier and more satisfactory. (And using the Shopify Fulfillment Network was far easier than dealing with AWS. The only reason to do that instead of shipping myself is if I try to ship CDs myself, the cheapest USPS shipping charge for a single CD to anywhere outside of the US, even just to Canada, is $15. Usually the total international shipping+handling charge through SFN is significantly cheaper than that, and the orders get shipped out automatically without any intervention from me.) Also, trying to get distribution through CD Baby was nothing but a disaster. One of the ideas was that Alliance is supposed to be a feeder into the online catalogs of Barnes & Noble, Presto Music, and others, but it never showed up on any of them anyway. I should have just listed it myself on Amazon and not bothered with any distributors. (I tried, but Amazon made that really difficult, actually IMPOSSIBLE to list prior to the release date, and I finally gave up.) I did have the option of going through several other existing labels, one of which did have access to Naxos for global distribution, but at a premium of $5000+ over what it would cost me to do myself. On the other hand, 99% of classical reviewers seem to be systematically ignoring my communications about the album, so probably hiring another established label or PR firm might have been the price of admission to industry coverage. (I know they happily cover much less interesting albums than this all the time. It's all very clubby, and seems to have little to do with the quality of the music - witness all the boring as sh** albums winning "editor's choice", "album of the month" or "album of the year". It seems clearly to do with albums being pushed by companies that habitually take out ads in those publications. Everyone got pissy about Fanfare asking for ads in exchange for large interviews and cover placement, but they were probably actually just pissed at Fanfare for revealing what all the ad-supported publications actually do in secret.)

[@alanmcginn4796]

Dave. Great chat. And it is so true. Some of the comments on here are very good. FYI. The Mahler 5 mehta is $22 shipping!!!!

[@larrymatheson8414]

That Mehta Mahler 5 for only $4.21? It has a $21.96 delivery charge! Via limousine, one presumes.

[@murraylow4523]

Very good observation:)

[@Lohensteinio]

Typically, high shipping prices of that sort are related to overseas shipping.

[@johnpickford4222]

@larrymatheson8414: It is hand delivered!!

[@Bigandrewm]

Some of those prices could arguably be influenced by an over-correction by Amazon several years ago to attempt to deal with pirates selling illegitimate copies of CDs on Amazon. Basically, you'd see tons and tons of stuff selling for $0.01 and the pirates would rely on bulk and cutting costs on the shipping portion of orders to make money. Now, at least with some labels, albums can only be sold through approved distributors on Amazon. This may help with the piracy, but can also allow distributors to collude to jack up prices, as long as the only "approved" distributors are actually all owned by the same parent company. At least, that's my theory. I always use Amazon as one of several online sources of music when I'm shopping because I don't trust those prices to be actual market values.

[@flexusmaximus4701]

Love this video, I am amazed at the insanity, example szell Bruckner 3, for 300 bucks! Or Suitner Bruckner 8 for 150 bucks. There is no CD i can think of, that is worth to me one hundred dollars. I Now I often get great music and sets for incredible low prices also on Amazon. I sometimes suspect these are CD R repackaged disks. Now the trend is to just drop mega boxes of complete this, or that, complete klemperer, complete mozart etc. I love klemperer, but I really don't want a complete edition . I have him performing the composers and music I like already. I love Beethoven, but don't need everything he did. The single disks are not being manufactured, and are becoming a bit harder to get, hence some of the crazy prices.

[@tarakb7606]

I had noticed price increases following some of your reviews and thought I was imagining things. (Maybe they will be increasing the price of the Mahler/Segerstam set after this review. LOL) There are some great bargains to be had on Amazon, especially with out-of-print CDs. (If all else fails, there is always KZbin 🤣.)

[@stevesincock941]

Or Discogs.

[@mangstadt1]

A few years ago I spent 36 euros on Bernstein's first Mahler cycle with the NY Philharmonic. It was at a physical store, either FNAC or El Corte Inglés, in Madrid. I love to pop in and just see what they have. Often I come away with an unexpected bargain, like the day I picked up the Theodore Kutchar box of works by Smetana, Dvorák, Nielsen, Shostakovich (3 diswcs apiece), plus a disc dedicated to Latin American composers, for less than 15 euros. I had never heard of him, but at that price I couldn't go wrong. When I see the likes of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos flashing their riches, I say to myself, Not going there. I have yet to cross over to the other side. I have yet to place an order with Amazon.

[@mancal5829]

The "Hurwitz touch" turns everything to gold. Well, music physical media at least.

[@gregt2022]

Yes insane, I usually buy used from sellers I trust and that has worked out well.

[@murraylow4523]

I’ve seen a lot of this baffling stuff. It’s mostly enabled by perceived scarcity, and if you have one copy of something that’s out of print, maybe you will find someone obsessive and rich enough to buy it (eg to “complete “ their Mahler collection). Many of us can get carried away with collecting, “completism”. I recall trawling for years for the only volume I didn’t have of that Robbins Landon biography of Haydn and you nearly find yourself throwing in the towel and agreeing to some ludicrous price just so the process is done. I didn’t, eventually found it cheaper. These crazy prices may also be a bit functional for Amazon (and other sellers) as they start to normalise higher prices more generally. After a period where cd prices got less and less, now they are more and more, I heard partly because Amazon is in a struggle with the labels over wholesale prices.

[@onesandzeros]

Another explanation for the irrational amounts could be dynamic pricing. An algorithm takes a few parameters into account and comes up with a price, and sets it. But, the algo or the parameters are bad, further there's no kind of sanity checking, and the result is a $1290 cd set.

[@mariannehepple4907]

I think you're right. I've noticed insane pricing from certain bulk used CD sellers. It's either a mistake or an algorithm

[@OperationPhantom]

It's still up for sale, amazing! Funny also that the condition is rated merely as "acceptable"... better get it now then, before it further deteriorates. At least the shipping is "free".

[@finosuilleabhain7781]

Honestly? That makes it more hilarious - 'Acceptable' is one step above terrible.

[@jimcarlile7238]

I think Amazon still fulfills some orders from their own warehouse, but yeah, I remember when they were being seen as the successor to the Schwann listings. Meaning like, everything.

[@jerrygennaro7587]

No longer have confidence in Amazon's purported "price guarantee." On two occasions, my order was cancelled due to its being "no longer available," only to see it re-appear at a much higher price!

[@robertwiegand49]

I heard somewhere that sellers used ridiculously high prices as place holders until they actually got another copy of the item. That way they wouldn't have to do the work to reenter the item.

[@ModusVivendiMedia]

I am fairly certain that the sellers listing, at inflated prices, "new" copies of an album I put out did not have copies in their possession.

[@zachcarstensen]

Pricing on Amazon is often done dynamically without much input from the third party sellers. It is beneficial for putting a premium price on rare or in demand product when availability is low. But it also helps drive the price down when an album is not popular or there is a lot of copies out there on the market. Pricing is decoupled from whether a recording is "good" or "bad." Prices can be crazy at times, but that's just how the technology works and it is not specific to classical.

[@karlevans8200]

I'm a little more sanguine about this issue. Over here, in the UK, there are places where you can buy classical CD's at the unbelievably giveaway price of 5 for £1.00 ! - I kid you not. Ok, it is a bit hit and miss on what you might find, but I have had some incredible bargains of benchmark recordings in excellent condition. The attitude of the sellers seems to be that CD's are old technology, soon to become obsolete and that there is no demand for them.

[@zdl1965]

That's totally nuts. Nobody with any sense will pay that kind of prices, even for hard-to-find antique LPs, unless they know they can hawk it at higher prices later. A fool and his (it's always a his) money are soon parted.

[@josefkrenshaw179]

I had a few run-ins with a regular reviewer on Amazon. He was often factually wrong and those errors substantially undercut his reviews, For example, he would rave about the great remastering of a disc that hadn't been remastered at all. He lived in New Mexico.

[@petekohn]

Ah the Listener. Lover of Lenny, hater of Ormandy, and very thin skinned.

[@josefkrenshaw179]

@@petekohn I knew there had to be some kindred spirits here.

[@classicnorthwest]

Oh, lord. I remember him. When I was a naive teenager I took all his recommendations at face value. Looking back, it's obvious that he just uncritically repeated received opinion: Ormandy was shallow, no one beat Karajan in the German repertoire, etc., etc. He repeated some frankly ridiculous prejudices too, considering Nielsen and Shostakovich second-rate composers, for example. He liked mannered performances. He always needed to hear some "personality." In practice, this meant fussy performances from the likes of Rattle and latter-day Abbado got five stars, while clear, exciting performances from Ormandy, Mehta, Ozawa, or anyone else out of favor circa 1975-1985 (presumably when he formed his impressions) would get two or three stars for no other crime than received opinion. I missed a lot of good recordings on his account.

[@josefkrenshaw179]

@@classicnorthwest I never really discussed his arbitrary tastes with him. That would have been useless, I got to the point where I doubted he even actually heard a disc before reviewing it. I bought the same bad-sounding disc that he claimed was remasted when it obviously hadn't been. That was that. I have some odd things in my personal tastes myself. A good review is less about what the person thinks of the record, and whether I will like the record. Can I take their biases out and put in my own from what they say? Dave H. does this or I wouldn't be watching his videos as long as I have been,

[@timdexter7600]

I find the prices on Amazon to be quite volatile. On a number of occassions I've had a look at a recording, opening the page that has the purchase links, then I decide that no I'll pass. However if I change my mind the next day and go back to the page with the intention of buying, I find the price has jumped up by £10 to £20. My question is am I just unlucky, or is there an algorithm that hikes the price once you've shown an interest, which raises the question: If we are in the same country, do we all see the same price?

[@Lohensteinio]

In my experience, the price fluctuations on the Amazon Marketplace can depend on the prices of what happens to be on offer from sellers at any given time. For example, on the German Amazon, if a used CD is being offered for, say, €15 by a certain seller and is the only copy on offer at that time, that seller’s price may sink after another seller posts a copy for less. And it can work the opposite way when more expensive copies are posted. Thus, a copy with an inflated price may keep the prices of other copies hovering abnormally high. Once the far-overpriced copy sells (or is otherwise removed from offer), many of the other prices tend to become more reasonable again. Presumably this all depends on whether a given seller has programmed their pricing to remain among the lowest on offer. At least this was my experience buying directly from the German seller Medimops (a.k.a. Momox) for many years. Their pricing is affected by the fluctuations of the Amazon Marketplace, in which they participate.

[@TheTmackey]

There is always an algorithm….

[@richardevans3624]

Yes. I've seen that too. I thought it might have been due to CD companies not making CD's anymore and so physical media is just drying up. But then I checked discogs and ebay. I've seen el cheapo elloquence cds for almost AUD$100 on amazon. Total nonsensical stuff even when considering the "Australia" premium. I've also noticed the Amazon-Japan offering things at a relatively cheap price but then mysteriously it becomes out-of-stock when you actually order it. So beware of anything offered by Amazon Japan if they only have 1 or 2 available.

[@NigelRamses]

That Mehta Mahler 5 for $4.21 ships for $21.96 unfortunately. An odd situation for Amazon reviews that sort-of worked to my benefit was for the Brahms cycle with Columbia Symphony Orchestra and Walter. Even now it’s rated 1.7 stars, because some people were using the reviews to warn others that sellers weren’t sending all four disks. I chanced i and got one of four. However, I was issued a refund by Amazon. Tried to purchase again, but it was cancelled, because the seller couldn’t find all the disks. The third time I got lucky. Each time I purchased, the new price went up and subsequently the used followed. I got them cheap, but now that some time has passed you can get the set for less than $2 plus four something shipping. I have found that when chasing your recommendations that buying used is frequently the way to go. I’ll let you know if any of the goodwills that I buy from is ever in Milford, CT.

[@robh9079]

Reviews in general are helpful for general 'stuff', so why would Amazon disallow them for CDs? With a pinch of salt I find CD reviews helpful, sometimes entertaining and I'm afraid I enjoy writing them - do I need to feel guilty!? Searching your purchases is handy to help avoid duplication, though selections often 'bend with the tide' of pricing and availability. On the whole though I continue to get lot of good discs cheaply. In UK some branches of 'Oxfam Books and Music' have really good classical sections - though slightly pricey. Love your channel btw and have a few of your recommendations.

[@eugenebraig413]

I'm deliberate in boycotting any Amazon affiliate that I see to be grossly overpricing hardcopy music. I saw one of the Foerster symphonies on MDG asking more than $400 via Amazon! . . . Before the boxed set was released; the price dwindled after. And those performances are kinda limp to boot. For used hard copies, I tend to prefer exchanges like Discogs. Availability of used classical music tends to be better and more transparent regarding source there.

[@frankdberger]

Many Discogs seller charge ridiculous shipping fees.

[@eugenebraig413]

@@frankdberger, indeed. I avoid them. The Discogs interface is transparent, listing each vendor's bottom line in comparison to other vendors with the same item.

[@DavidRoth-f1m]

Do you know if these inflated offers are selling? Very curious.

[@GaryShafer-x7h]

Good news! The Mahler Segerstam set is now $27 cheaper at $1264.91!!! I did notice that it was from Japan, for whatever that's worth. And you can get the MP3 set for $66.57.

[@dr.impossibleofcounterpunc1984]

The problem I have with Amazon. You can't see what Third Party Sellers are selling. That goes for DVD, Books, VHS, etc... All you get is a description by the seller, that's it! The times I've had stuff come through, either scratched or not as described by the seller. Yes, there's times when you get what's described. Amazon is highly devisive in my view. When a company becomes bigger than anything ever developed in business and has its tentacles in so many pies, you know you're in trouble.

[@jeffheller642]

Mercifully, the insanity you point out is still laughably rare, as long as you don't insist on getting the absolute greatest performance. Another example is the jerk who charges next to nothing for the unit and $30, give or take, for delivery, in the belief apparently that Amazon shoppers are so stupid as to be unable to add. On the whole however the situation is still advantage consumer. Big time. I myself have done marvelously well, for a year now, building my collection of great 19th and 20th composers (all 24 of them!)

[@williamwhittle216]

Would be very surprised if anyone pays those prices. I get most of my cds from Amazon, but NEVER pay big prices.

[@barryguerrero6480]

It's tough to find a bargain these days. It takes a lot of digging around.

[@neaklaus52]

Not to mention the insane prices of Classical Music downloads. Some of them are higher than the CD's!!

[@daawesomedude6119]

Jeez and I thought Honeck’s Exton Mahler was expensive…

[@ahartify]

Thete are plenty of online sellers nowadays, and they are cheaper to buy from. I'm not confined to Amazon, and I haven't bought anything from them for a few years.

[@samuelstephens6163]

So it's not just me noticing. It's why I have a streaming subscription now.

[@johnmarchington3146]

Those people are surely "away with the fairies". I have to admit I haven't bought any recorded music through Amazon for ages.

[@markfarrington5183]

"Now in the enter ring, ladies and gentlemen, for those with more money than sense...a' And to think that, in 2015, I snagged the newly remastered Solti RING for (after tax & shipping...drum roll, please)...$34.76.

[@RequiemAeternam01]

I hardly ever buy CDs from Amazon, unless I'm unable to find it anywhere else. Discogs is my first choice.

[@bwpm1467]

I cannot agree with the notion that only "professionals" should be permitted to review music. I have read innumerable non-professional reviews of music across multiple genres that have provided more useful insight than the so-called professional reviews have offered.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

It depends how you define "professional." It's a question of standards, not academic qualifications.

[@thomaswilke6312]

I remember my dad wanted to complete the mahler cycle by Ricardo Chailly with Mahler no. 7. The boxset wasn’t released yet. And I saw it in on Amazon for $500 for that CD because it was out of print. I wonder who would actually buy that CD at such a price!

[@stevesincock941]

Noone I am sure.

[@montymonto6430]

This is not limited to classical CDs. You find ridiculous prices for books easily available from Amazon itself from a different seller!

[@caleblaw3497]

CDs are not normal things people buy nowadays. They have become collectables for collectors. These 3rd party sellers, as long as they have real products and are not cheating, can list their products any price they want to charge. I don't have any problem with that. We as a consumer do not need to buy any of these over-priced items if we think the price is too high. If someone badly want to buy something to complete their collection and they are willing to pay insane price for that, good for him and good for the seller.

[@artje123]

Mahler cycle is translated to motorcycle in the subs

[@mike-williams]

It wouldn't surprise me if the $1299 was actually 1299 Yen that Amazon had transferred from a Japanese vendor. If you spend a lot of time outside of Amazon US you see errors like this all the time. For instance release dates in the uniquely US MM-dd-yyyy format are picked up on other Amazon sites with the day and month swapped. It's useless reporting this to Amazon as they just don't take bug reports. The best you get is a moron suggesting you reboot your device, which they suggested as the solution to a misspelled Kindle screen command.

[@lmanna]

One word ... Discogs ! I no longer use Amazon to buy music.

[@angryjalapeno]

A person who ponies up the money to buy a recording and listens to the recording is a person entitled to express their opinion about it. The idea that only "professionals" provide reviews of products is like only allowing professional fashion workers to review clothing.

[@tarakb7606]

I'm inclined to agree.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I agree, but if that's the plan, then don't hire professions to do the same. This isn't about first amendment rights, it's about how to effectively sell a product. That is all I'm suggesting--not that people have no "right" to express an opinion.

[@brianwilliams9408]

I remember the comments. They no longer have them. People used to get really nasty with each other in the comments section.

[@revivalharpsichord5078]

There's no doubt the Amazon classical music pages are a total mess; I've sometimes surmised it's because the classical market is so small that Amazon just doesn't care and has hired high school dropouts who are smoking crack to enter the date. Countless times the composer is listed as one of the performing artists (I never realized I could get a recording of a Beethoven sonata played by Beethoven himself), or vital information is just missing (I once saw a recording of La Traviata that listed the entire cast EXCEPT the soprano singing the title role). Unlike you, I value--up to a point--consumer reviews. It's usually pretty apparent who knows what they're talking about and who doesn't (this is also true of "professional" critics; getting a paycheck is no guarantee of competence), and multiple points of view can be enlightening. Consumer reviews are more problematic because Amazon more often than not includes reviews of other recordings of a work; sometimes it is apparent when they mention a performer who isn't on the recording in question, but many other times you have no idea if they're reviewing the same performance or not. Like you, I've frequently been gobsmacked by insane prices (this also happens with DVDs), but more mystifying to me is how often only one used copy of a particular recording is available from any seller anywhere. Are the labels only printing ten copies of a recording? You'd think in the entire world, there would be more than one person selling a used copy of something.

[@robhaynes4410]

I sold thousands of CDs from my own collection on Amazon. Most were not the only copy available. Those, it's easy. List it for slightly less than the lowest other disc (controlling for condition of the disc). Many others were rare, including dozens of product pages that I myself had to create on Amazon for individual titles (I worked in music stores for decades, so I was more than competent at this). For these ones, sure, you try to get as much as you can - within reason. Maybe you can sell Carl Orff's Antigone for $99. Good for you if you can. Maybe you have to periodically drop the price until you can sell it. But listing something for $1291.99 means either (1) you don't actually want to sell it or (2) you're an optimistic moron.

[@frankdberger]

I'm OK with calling him a moron, as long as you (we) don't call him immoral. There is nothing immoral or unethical about charging a ridiculously high price. If you get it, then maybe there's a buying moron as well as the selling moron. Whatever, it's their business, not mine to judge.

[@johnpickford4222]

@robhaynes4410: Orff’s ANTIGONE for $1291.99?? WTF! Who would pay that much when Joan Sutherland isn’t singing!! (I ❤️ Joan Sutherland and she never sang it but I wouldn’t buy it even if she did.)

[@mariannehepple4907]

A few years ago I sold a then very rare folk CD for NZ$150. Next year it was re-released. Phew!

[@robhaynes4410]

@@frankdberger I don't think morality or ethics ever enters into it. He owns it, he can do what he wants with it, including listing it for an exorbitant price. The only thing "wrong" with it is one of utility: If he really wants to sell it, listing it for this price simply isn't going to work. It's the approach that's wrong, not the motivation. I'd never begrudge anyone trying to sell something for as much as they can.

[@carmelaalbanese124]

Worst part, they ship in a lunch bag and it arrives destroyed.

[@geertdecoster5301]

Good morning this early Sunday morning everyone from hot Southern California from me on holiday here. Back in rainy Western Europe we have a real multitude of those pages to look through and it's just grant to look for a real bargain that way. The pit fall is however is that Amazon is nowadays more often than in the past linking them said performances that one is looking for to the wrong dics. Horror! Please do be careful out there for that. It's a misery ordering something like that, especially when one is expecting it to be a great recording against still a fair price 😀

[@angryjalapeno]

The Amazon marketplace (or any marketplace) tests people's will power and rationality: the people who believe much higher price = much higher quality will lose. Reminds me of eBay and other online auction sites: if you can't control your emotions, you might end up in some irrational bidding war and get fleeced if you actually do win the item.

[@1-JBL]

I love those ".99" on insane prices. "I woulda bought it if not for that .99! Not givin' em that!"

[@DavidJohnson-of3vh]

M E R C Y !

[@jameschen2168]

The asked price is of course ridiculous. But then have a look at so many other products being hideously overpriced (“luxury” stuff like handbags? / wine?). In the end it’s capitalism: if you’re ready to pay the price asked and be happy with it, that’s fine. If you are not, that’s also fine. Plus: what’s USD 10 for me and you might be USD 1,000 for a rich person. After all, people are also willing to pay absurd prices for LPs these days if they can get a CD which sounds better. Remember when CDs were the most expensive option and LPs the cheap ones? That’s the market. Nothing to do with the actual “value” of any product. And collectors are not reasonable most of the time when it comes to their hobby / passion.

[@Jackgrahamphotograph]

also..not impressed with the few purchases I made from Amazon-have got some wrong records.. and some in bad shape--I will not buy from Amazon!

[@scagooch]

User reviews are usually somebody shilling another recording.

[@issadad]

That $4.21 Zubin Mehta Mahler 5? $21.96 delivery -- another popular tilt-o-whirl favored by certain sellers. At least some of what you describe might be ignorable if the search engine still worked. What an embarrassing debacle that's turned into, although from the first Amazon never grappled with the reality of alternative versions of the same music or movie. As a rare bookseller, I can share that this pricing nonsense is way more over the top in used books, where predatory amateur sellers like to assume that any title no longer available new from Amazon for $9.99 is not only out-of-print but also exceedingly rare, overnight. So instead of upping the price from $10 to, say, $15, they now mark that copy at $491.99. But most inexplicable to me are the sellers who want to be the highest-priced. Everybody's familiar with the "race to the bottom" -- sellers undercutting one another by a penny until the cheapest copy may actually reach $0.01. But there's also a race to the top, where's there's 40 used copies of that $10 item, 36 of which range from $10 to $39, while four of them are $169 to $1199 -- for a book or CD that in any bygone brick shop would have been shelved for $6. Or less.

[@Lohensteinio]

The $21.96 shipping for that one $4.21 Mehta Mahler 5 appears to reflect shipping to the US from India, where the seller seems to be located. Your remarks on the race to the bottom and race to the top in Amazon pricing are spot-on. Interesting to hear it from the perspective of a rare bookseller!