CDs as investment?

[L'enfer]

Are CDs perhaps a good investment after all? I don't remember what I paid for the Rafal Blechacz 3 CD set of the Chopin Piano Competition but it certainly wasn't anything like the £47.93 demanded now on Amazon. Some of the 2 CD sets in the Great Pianists of the 20th Century series are also now costing an arm and a leg.

I just bought the Arthur Rubinstein: Complete Recordings it's a nice box with something in the region of 130 CDs, 2 DVDs and a hardback book complete with catalogued discography. At the time it was £200 on Amazon UK it has dropped to just below but it still cost near enough £200. I didn't pay £200 for my box I found it elsewhere on-line for half the price and it was sent by courier and with me the next morning. I don't think anyone will pay a premium for a used boxed set used when it can be had new on other sites for less you just have to know where to look.

Having said that I don't like boxed sets but having just started buying CDs I find they are more cost effective and I've ended up with several different boxed sets lately. In the few months I have been buying CDs all bare none have eventually gone up in price even those still stocked by Amazon. I don't understand the prices the marketplace ask for on Amazon I haven't seen anything sell at inflated prices.

I would think in years to come everything will be released either on a new optical disc or sold digitally at a higher quality than your standard CDs today. So I don't think they are much of an investment just something to be enjoyed while they last. If you can sell them and make a profit though I'm all for that.

If anyone knows of a unloved Glenn Gould Collection I'd be interested.

[umslopogaas]

"If anyone knows of a unloved Glenn Gould Collection I'd be interested."

So would I. And assuming this is the same CD series of which I have several examples, entitled "The Glenn Gould Edition" issued on Sony Classical, and its a complete set, I'd buy it like a shot. There would then be a few duplicates available. Wonderful musician.

[L'enfer]

"If anyone knows of a unloved Glenn Gould Collection I'd be interested."

So would I. And assuming this is the same CD series of which I have several examples, entitled "The Glenn Gould Edition" issued on Sony Classical, and its a complete set, I'd buy it like a shot. There would then be a few duplicates available. Wonderful musician.

It's "complete" however I'm not sure if it's still missing one or two recordings. In my experience with boxed sets so far you tend to find even the most comprehensive boxes are missing something. The box can be found here, I would love to buy it, I can afford to buy it but what I cannot do is give someone the satisfaction of selling something for £1,500 when I doubt they paid £100 for it. If I find it elsewhere Umslopogaas I'll let you know.

[umslopogaas]

Thanks l'enfer, those prices are way out of my league! I recognise several of those covers because I have the original LPs, but my CDs are not that edition: mine are Sony Classical and have a standard red and white format, each one with a different black and white photo of the man, sometimes a portrait and sometimes in action at the keyboard.

One of the CDs is Glenn Gould's debut recital at the Salzburg Festival in 1959. He played Sweelinck's Fantasia in D, Schoenberg's Suite fur Klavier Op. 25, Mozart's Sonata K330 and Bach's Goldberg Variations. The critics went into orbit. Here, apparently, is Hans Georg Bonte of the "Salzburger Nachrichten": Gould "is made up entirely of nerves that are stretched to breaking point: he is a shaman of the salon through whom the deity audibly speaks and sings. Whereas this tendency to dance along and sing with the music's inner expressive drive often verges on posturing affectation in the case of other performers, it is altogether genuine in Glenn Gould's case, the sign of a genius beside and in whom there lurks a very real demon. Stylistic objections carry little weight in the face of such eruptions on the part of a natural genius." etc etc, its too long to type out in full.

Hmm, if dealers are prepared to put up the CD reissues of his original LPs at those prices, I wonder what I'd get for my LPs? Must have a look on ebay ... not that I've any intention of selling them.