Sticker Shock

At the last record swap I attended, I was shocked that a dealer was selling the Replacements' Let It Be album for $75. Usually dealers at record swaps price their records realistically, sometimes at a bargain, sometimes a little optimistically. But $75 for Let It Be seemed completely out of the ball park. I figured $15-20 was the fair value of this album. After all, it's not a rare record. Although it wasn't a popular album on the level of Joshua Tree, I'm sure it sold a lot back in the days when one's only choices of media were vinyl or cassette. So, I went on to eBay to check how much Let It Be was selling for. Sure enough, $75 is in line with the typical selling price. In fact, there were copies that sold for $175 and $200. Wow! I think we've entered bubble territory for vinyl records. (BTW rocky has a minty original pressing of Let It Be, as well as every other Replacements album, that he won't be parting with.)