Rare Disco Records

[discoqueen]

Hello everybody my name is Laurie and im new to this board.
I'm writing for a bit of advice from you disco experts. I'm currently a house dj but im planning to explore the territories of disco music. here's the deal, I know a widow that has about 10,000 records in her house and she's willing to sell me a bargain lot of records. i get to dig through all the records and choose what i want. is there a website online where it lists all the rare and hard to find disco records? im confident that there are many hidden gems in that collection and i'd like to take advantage of it before she throws the records away.

any help is appreciated. thanks
laurie

[K-Bee]

Hey Laurie.
This is a very difficult subject. The net is loaded with information about all things disco but very often it's hard to find the right biblographical reference in order to clearly verify the subject in question (sorry for getting all librarianship-like on you). The internet needs quality control in this area as well

If it was me though, i'd problably get the whole thing just to find out I didn't have room for anything at all... but that's just me :roll:

Hope that helps you out :)

[NickNack]

Do you know if this is a former dj's collection or just an avid record buyer? If it's the former, you might be in luck to stumble upon gems, promotional and otherwise. Then again, the average person doesn't buy 10,000 records so either way you're in luck. Don't get hung up on finding "recognizable" songs and artists. As a lot of us here will tell you, some of the best disco never made it to the radio.

Not knowing your age or anything, it might help if you know some people who were around during the era and partying to the music. That's how all of us are learning here. People talk about the stuff they heard, the stuff they played and we say, "Where is it?" :D .

Good luck and if you have time you should check out this sites Vault, Forums, Disco 101 and both Top 500's. (Though we're not happy with the latest list due to 'outside' interference :x .) Bernie's put a lot of time into getting the music and history out there.

[bobbchap]

Hey, If I were you I would take advantage of this golden chance and take all. {If she's throwing them out}. Not only might you find rare disco records, but there are so many records out there that collectors will pay big money for. Someone like that might have a treasure chest of LPs. You lucky person you. Stop reading this and get over there with a truck. The library has many books on what old collectible records "might" bring. There is a market out there, it's just a matter of finding that "one" person who's willing to pay...but I'd worry about that after you get that truck over there........ :D

[bobbchap]

Shame on me.... :roll: I sounded so greeeedy about those records..... :P Hey....you know what they say...
"Opprotunity comes but once,
and comes again no more.
Temptation bangs and pounds
until it crashes in your door."

psssst...got the truck yet?????

[Giovanni]

Please, Queen, take me with you browsing all that stuff!!! :D

Of course the best thing to do is taking everything, and then selling what you don't want. There are so many record fairs to sell old records.... (biggest in continental Europe in Utrecht, Milan & Barcelona).

Another question: is capturing all that stuff for free or are you going to pay? And if you pay, how much does she asked?

[discoqueen]

thanks for the replies.

basically, her ex-husband used to be a big time dj and he also ran a record pool. so about 90% or more of his records are promos. i dont know if she is willing to sell all the records as a whole lot and i know i dont have that kind of money to front up anyway. hehe all djs get greedy when it comes to rare records. ill update you guys on the situation but in the meanwhile what records do you suggest i keep an eye out for?

thanks again.
laurie

[bobbchap]

Hey discoqueen,
I'm not an expert in records, it just depends, I guess on if the records are "REAL HARD TO FIND" and with promo albums I bet there's a lot. I'm sure there are a lot of people in this forum that will be able to help, but it's hard unless we see the collection for ourselves and know what she's got. I've notice there are some great people here when it comes to disco music. I myself love looking for "picture discs" or "color vinyls". Also I look for albums with "DISCONET", "HOT TRACKS" or "HOT CLASSICS" on them. These seem to be going for big bucks. Especially the early ones, {beginning to mid 80's}. I had number 1 thru 34 of the HOT TRACKS as they came out but sold them back in the late 80's for I needed cash. :cry: Oh well. Anyway, hope she doesn't ask toooo much. Good luck. And I'm sure you'll get some other help here from others. Let us know what you got. :D

[K-Bee]

You're right Bobbchap!
A large amount of promos make it way harder to decide. There's a great chance of missing out on some highly sought after gems that are impossible to find elsewhere.
Get as many promos as U can, Queen. You can always throw 'em away afterwards (or give 'em to me :lol: :lol: )

Might be worth looking for labels like West End and Salsoul (especially the 12"'s). They are not nessecarely rare, but the music's guarenteed to rock (almost everytime)

[Jimmy-Michaels]

Well,

There are many hard to find and rare disco gems out there. Most of what was actually played in the discos are now all impossible to find stuff and have never been released on CD (or if they were, they are way out of print now). Pretty much take all she's willing to give or sell you, id take the whole collection. If you are a DJ im sure you know that 2 copies of the same record can come in quite good use :D Here are some decent labels to look for that you cant go wrong with for the real hardcore disco stuff:

TK Records (sub divisions Marlin, Inphasion, Drive)
Prelude Records
Salsoul Records (sub divisions Gold Mine, Tom N Jerry)
Westbound Records
Moby Dick Records
Casablanca Records (this was a great label that had alot of hardcore underground stuff, however they did have some lame stuff but most of the time from years of 1977 - 1979 ya cant go wrong with Casablanca)

DJ Jimmy M

[NickNack]

You know, supplying labels is not a bad idea. Better than trying to list the hundreds of names of artists and forgetting most of them, especially the one-shots. Here's some more to look for:

Island/Mango
Ariola/Hansa
Unidisc/Uniwave
WB (Warner Bros)/RFC (Ray Francis Caviano)
SAM
Vanguard
Polydor
Motown
Importe/12
20th Century
RSO/Curtom
Solar/SoulTrain
RCA
Discomagic
Megatone
Record Shack

Gawd, there's so many. There's a good chance that the labels that are active today have released some (very little, but some) stuff on CD so I'd shoot for the off-labels first.

BTW: When you're browsing Casablanca, if you see a group of ten (10) 12" records labeled: "Music from The Original Soundtrack of THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY Collector's Gift Series", GRAB IT! They'll be in special jackets which differ from the bulk of the Casablanca records. To my knowledge, this wasn't widely released and has some very nice disco (remixed) versions of songs that were on the lp soundtrack.

Also, like artists, there were a lot of one-shot labels so please don't take this list as all-inclusive. Just trying to help out. Some of these one-offs had the best music out there.

[Mixmachine]

I’d also recommend grabbing any pre-77 promo 12” you see, if this guy was a DJ and head of a Record Pool he must have lots of commercially un-available 12” only distributed to a few record pool VIP’s and DJ’s reporting to Bill Board Magazine at the time, in those early years, disco 12” were produced in small quantities and are very rare and hard to get now, just about any pre-77 12” that hits EBAY sells for big bucks.

PS: See if he had the Mexican red vinyl 12” of “Woman” by Barrabas, it sold for more than 2K last time around

[discodan]

laurie the top 500 list here is a good place to start to get some of the best classics , theres another site called gemm.com where you can find disco records and u can get a summary about the song and artist that will help see if u have any records in that collection worth taking ,good luck in your search -discodan

[jack]

Laurie...as an added FYI...lots of 70's soul / funk is going for BIG bucks these days...more so than "disco"...a lot of the labels listed above fall in both categories, so don't throw out the soul and keep only the disco !!!