Customer Reviews

The Official Price Guide to Records, Edition #17

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am no stanger to The Official Price Guide to Records by Jerry Osborne . I was reading his price guides over a decade ago and each edition keeps getting better and more detailed ,not to mention more artists are listed in the 13th ed. that were'nt listed in the past. I have to admit the print is smaller on this edition,but still worth the price. I recommend this to any record collector novice or expert.

I decided to buy this book (now in it's 12th edition) after deciding my 3rd edition (from the 80's) was no longer readable. I used it then and I will be using this new edition for a while. Despite an occasional ommission and a couple blatant price misprints, this edition is the largest (over 100,000 prices) and most complete of any. Unless you are a record store owner or archivist, you are not likely to find many records (including 45's, 78's, LP's, 12" and more) on your shelf that aren't listed (including date of issue, label variations and cross references by musical group belonged to) and priced in this book. If you do, there is a yet larger edition called "Rockin' Records" by the same author which supposedly WILL list it! I believe there are also separate editions for the Elvis and Beatles fanatics to whom every label printing smudge creates a new variation. This book lists ALL the top 100 chart recording artists (alphabetized by artists or group name) of the 1900's, including any group they ever appeared in and EVERY record they ever produced! Some of the prices are, as I mentioned earlier, questionable, but it gives an excellent overall relative guage to the value of your records

Jerry Osborne has made me realize the current, REAL $$$$ value of my 45 RPM, album, picture sleeve, EP, promos and record set collection. Very detailed and precise. Very easy to read. His knowledge of the vinyl market has been so informative. Thank you Jerry!!!!

I originally had the 1997 edition of this book and then recently purchased this one. The type is smaller in this newer edition and some of the groups are now omitted. Also, I found some of the prices to be off quite a bit. However, this book has a lot of records listed and most all of the information is accurate. It's a great starting off point for anyone wanting to price their collection. However, I don't think of this book as the definitive record pricing Bible. No one book could be.

The book was very informative about history of records. I was looking for something that would help me with pricing, unfortunately this book did not help.

I'm disappointed with this book for several reasons, first off, you'll notice the tiny tiny print, it is very hard and frustrating to read a lot of this book for a bit of time, second, many many records are missing,also quite a few groups and artists are missing,3rdly it seems quite hastily organized, and can be quite confusing, 4thly there seems to be more emphasis on the labels and the manufacturer than the songs themselves.I realize that there are and were millions of records and songs etc,but there is a significant bunch of major hits and minor ones missing in this guide.Some of the flip side of the big hits is what is given as the value, and not the hit side, I know, because I have a lot of records from years past, as I said , there has to be better guides out there, and of course they probably do cost more.I do not dispute the values given for the records listed, because, as everybody knows, value is a relative term depending on the part of the country, the music that one likes, how much one is willing to pay for something etc.

The book didn't include but one of several hundred older records i had.

Bought this book to look up some very old records that my folks had. Maybe 1 out of 50 is listed. This book is a piece of doodoo.

Having primary interests in local records, I was amazed to find such a thorough job of research by Jerry. The midwest produced many fine records from many fabulous musicians. Though most have never hit charts or made the bigtime, Jerry has uncovered information I didn't have and, once discovered, found quite helpful. I have checked out several record books and have found Jerry's the most thorough and helpful. Keep up the good work and keep the historical info coming.

It is the handiest book of its kind that I have read. It does have its drawbacks, but then no book is perfect. I wish that it (or some book) would cover the myriads of compilation albums (the K-tel classics, for instance) out there. Still, for your basic top 100 stuff, this book has no equal.