Last month, we asked you if you had any of these Aussie albums in your vinyl collection, because they happen to be worth quite a bit of money, including releases from the likes of Silverchair, Tame Impala, and Courtney Barnett.
But honestly, nothing on that list even compares to the piece of wax that now holds the record as the most expensive item ever sold on Discogs, smashing the previous record held by an original copy of David Bowie’s second album.
As Discogs themselves write, “Goodbye, $6,826. Hello, $15,000.” That’s how much an incredibly rare original promo copy of late pop legend Prince’s lost Black Album went for on the famous internet vinyl marketplace.
As The Quietus notes, it’s unlikely the record will be broken for some time, since there’s fewer records rarer than Prince’s Black Album. The album, originally slated for a 1987 release, for all intents and purposes shouldn’t exist.
Prince, pulling a major Prince move, shelved the album just a week before its intended release date, meaning about half a million copies of the album that were already pressed and waiting to be shipped had to be destroyed.
A very small number of DJ promo copies survived the cull and ended up in the hands of collectors, whom over the years have produced numerous bootlegs. An original promo copy of the LP is now a highly coveted item amongst collectors.
As Discogs note, whilst the record is obviously very rare, the death of the popular music icon obviously had impact on the price tag it fetched. Discogs acknowledged that this “almost certainly” affected the high price of the item.