Eras to collect jamaican music

[blakbeltjonez]

any time up until the mid-late 90's was probably a pretty decent time to be buying records if you were somewhere that had some kind of Jamaican community - wherever that may have been, US, UK, or Canada (the classic 3 choices for Jamaican emigration).

London, NY, and Toronto were well known big cities to go on a record spree, but i am certain that in a lot of places back even up to the 90's you could find all kinds of stuff.

in my part of central Florida, i had 3 or 4 Jamaican record shops i could go to in my area - one of them had a ton of oldies dead stock, and hardly any new records ever (late 80's). Studio One 12"s for $5, 7" singles for $3, all unplayed store stock... lots of LP's and singles of all kinds. i still kick myself for stuff i passed up on thinking "i'll get it next time". i was buying a mix of oldies and then-current dancehall, but it was impossible to buy everything i wanted spending $50-60 every 2-3 weeks or so.

the death of the little record stores signaled the end of the easy pickings. and once the JA music industry was done with vinyl, that was pretty much it.

[blakbeltjonez]

Yes, good analysis. But this "I think we're now in the golden era of collecting reggae at a bargain" is only true for represses. Prices for original pressings seem to go through the roof and higher and higher .... and I wonder, if they will ever stop.

yeah, prices for original pressings in pretty mediocre to bad condition are confirmation of a crowded market and the Greater Fool theory. it blows my mind to see people get in a lather about some flogged soundman copy in VG- or G+ condition just because it's an original press. i generally won't bother with anything less than VG+, i don't need noise, scratches and pops to remind me of it's "authenticity".

if a repress sounds good, i have no problem buying that over some POS "original". that said, we seem to be well away from any "golden age of collecting at a bargain".