Saturday, May 20, 2023

Vinyl Records India - Review after One year

Well, this is the new craze of Vinyl Records in India. I have been collecting Vinyl records for over a year now and have 250+ records, mostly Bollywood movies.

When I started collecting records, the prices started from 500 rupees, which a year back I found expensive, the new records were released at 1200+ which was again expensive.  The records prices changed based on rarity.

Some 6 - 8 months back, started seeing online stores adding more categories to rare, like Angel First Recording, Polydor first recording, Odeon First Record, Oden Double ring, HMV Red Dot ... and many more and prices of some not rare records also touched the roof. Not only this, online resellers are selling records with printed covers also with very high prices, according to me a rare record is one with 1) Mint or near Mint condition 2) Mint or VG++ condition for cover. 

Not only old records, but new records with DIGITAL recording, release some 5 - 6 years back are also getting sold for some ridiculous pricing online, like DDLJ is being sold somewhere between 25,000 to 50,000 online.

I personally don't understand this pricing, especially for the new records which are digitally pressed, you can very well get CD's for the same or even wait for a few years for SaReGaMa / Venus / T-Series and others to release them again if this craze continues. For OLD records, you can wait for some sale online, especially if some collector sells the records.

I have personally stayed away from any such pricing and my max paying for any record stops at 3000, I am NOT a collector of records, just want to enjoy the experience of playing Vinyl records but not at these pricing for which the records are sold online.

Some of the websites to buy records from -

1. The Revolver Club - A decent collection of records ( Bollywood ), good customer service, the major plus is that their record grading is excellent. Website - https://www.therevolverclub.com/

2. Blisstainment - A very good option for new release of Hindi movie records, especially from Ishftar ( Venus ), they are generally very good with their services and pricing. Website - https://www.blisstainment.com/

3. MusicCircle - They also have a good collection of records, although recently old records are not in Good condition and pricing of new records is way off the charts, Rudali is being sold for 25,000 on their website so are some of the new records. They do describe the record condition correctly, you can go for VG+ records, Website - https://musiccircle.co.in/

4. Facebook sellers - I have not really come across any good Facebook seller, usually they are very expensive and don't Grade their records correctly, I would suggest to stay away, unless you have a seller at your city / town and can physically visit them.

5. SaReGaMa - Recently SaReGaMa launched Vinyl records selling directly from their website and have released 8 records, good ones, you can try them from their website here - https://www.saregama.com/vinyl/buy-now

6. RGH / NGH - these are 2 sellers in Delhi, which NGH is very expensive, their record grading is pretty accurate, RGH on other side provides records with very poor grading. NGH - https://newgramophonehouse.com/ , RGH - https://rghindia.com/

There are other websites are well, but I found the above ones which update regularly. 

I would say that Vinyl collection is pretty EXPENSIVE hobby and have got more expensive because of recent prices that sellers are selling the records, the Gear is also expensive, all depends on how much you can afford, storing is definitely an issue and you would need space as all these physical media requires storage space. Also you initially would love the music but eventually most end becoming collectors, where you just want records and probably would only hear them once or twice or not even that.


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