Most Valuable Vinyl Records Worth Money
Kin Cheung / AP Photo
Vinyl record culture has come back from near extinction to 41.72-million vinyl record sales in 2021. That’s up 51.4 percent from 27.55 million in 2020 and the 16th consecutive year vinyl album sales grew.
While that’s a fraction of the world’s estimated $16 billion recording-industry revenue (most from cheap digital downloads and streams), some fans are still willing to pop a bit extra for a physical, quality copy of their favorite music that won’t vanish when their iPhone melts down.
A healthy chunk of those sales comes from reissues of classic albums by everyone from The Doors to Dylan. However, collectors know the real vinyl money lies in original pressings and rare vinyl records. And so, we’ve compiled a list of the 35 most valuable vinyl records. They are worth over a combined $2 million and would make the crew from “High Fidelity” drool.
Before We Drop the Needle on This Licorice Pizza
Here’s a quick record glossary:
RPM: Stands for “revolutions per minute.” This is the speed at which a phonograph turntable revolves a record.
Vinyl: A synthetic plastic polymer, usually the color black, used to make a phonograph record.
Acetate: A metal, lacquer-coated disc that’s produced on specialized equipment, often on the fly, for a demonstration recording of a master tape.
Shellac: A record made from a brittle wax between the 1890s and 1950s, often for a disc that plays at 78 rpm.
34. Miles Davis, “Kind of Blue” (Tie)
Year: 1959
Format: 12-inch vinyl, 33-1/3 rpm
Song you should know: “So What”
Value: $1,000
Bottom Line: Miles Davis, “Kind of Blue”
While it’s not this list’s priciest record, “Kind of Blue” will always be on the short list of very desirable collector’s items. Nothing will knock out your jazz-cat friends like casually tossing an original 1959 pressing of this platter on the turntable.
What you want is Davis’ hard-bop classic on Columbia Records’ so-called “6-eye label,” which sells for about $1,000 on eBay.
Cool, baby, cool.
Fact Check: Miles Davis
Miles Davis retired from performing in the 1970s due to his poor health but returned to the spotlight in 1981, kicking off a decade-long stretch that garnered him the strongest commercial reception of his career.
When Davis began performing and recording again in 1981, he did so in front of sold-out crowds but refused to perform his early work, like “The Birth of Cool.”
Davis died in 1991, at 65 years old.