Feb 22, 20205 min read

9 of the Most Expensive Vinyl Records Ever Sold

Updated: Jul 11, 2020

Here are the 9 of the Most Expensive Vinyl Records Ever Sold ! At Auction...and I am the YouTube host Josh Levine, of Josh Levine Speaks, Last Week at the Auction & 13 Totally Random and Useless Facts..plus the writer of the blog, if you are reader. (People still read these I hear.)

Disclaimer....there are other auction records or records out there, but I tried to avoid anything "signed" as to deal with some actual record lps you may actually stumble across at yard sales, flea markets, storage lockers. etc....I've always called records, scratch off lottery tickets.

So lets get to it....what I call 9 of the Most Expensive Vinyl Record LP Ever Sold according to Josh....

at 9 - A Sealed Stereo Juke Box Edition of The Beatles Second Album brought $2400.....this was pressed by (Capitol 1964) & was The second of three Compact 33 records manufactured by Capitol for jukebox players. It featured "Thank You Girl" "Devil In Her Heart" Money" "Long Tall Sally" "I Call Your Name" and "Please Mr. Postman" This recorded included the three mini LP cover photos and the three Seeburg title strips. These are rarely found at all and still sealed ? Shocking !

Next up @ 8 - The Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd – $3,800 Mind you, it was a rare Japanese, released edition. Many say D S O T MOON is one of the best albums of all-time and is definitely one of the best selling. It was once estimated that one out of every fourteen people under fifty years of age in the United States owns this album...in fact it still makes appearances on the Billboard 200 charts, despite being released in 1973.

Talk about a cult following. This is particular albums value & rarity comes in the fact it was accidentally printed upside down...so an error...of course this only happened in the first run and when discovered...they were pulled from the shelves....of course a few managed to slip thru & sell. This one of which I speak sold for $3,807 dollars and their are obviously more out there.

Look up the list of other errors and misprint records out there...there are several desirable pieces just waiting to be found...in fact there's another one on our list.

7 - The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground – $25,000 Fronted by the late Lou Reed and John Cale, The Velvet Underground was an iconic American rock band formed in 1964 and the pioneers of art-rock, indie, and the avant-garde music genre in general. This first album is thought to be some of their best work. The album is hard to miss with its cover designed by Andy Warhol. As in the case with the rare variant records, when this album was 1st released there were extra and rare songs not released on the album in full production. Since these rare versions of the album contained these "missing songs" songs, they're highly sought after and no wonder this one sold for $25,000.

6 - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan by Bob Dylan – $35,000 has almost the same story...Bob Dylan, the American Folk Singer musician and political activist, has released over thirty-six studio albums But Freewheelin’ is his second release...this was his 1st to feature largely original songs (eleven out of the thirteen) un like his first debut album. This kind-of makes it his first real album in the eyes of many.

Anyway, why was this one sold at for $35,000 dollars? Besides being in mint condition, this particular album contained four extra songs that were quickly removed by Dylan. Only a few versions of this particular album exists, as they were quickly pulled from the shelves to be replaced by the version without those songs. See a trend here...in Dylans Voice.

5 - Yesterday and Today by The Beatles – $39,000 Lots of Beatles records on the list. This album was their ninth record on the Capital label, and their eleventh overall in America. The album original came out in 1966 and was only released in the United States, Canada, at first. When the album was first released in featured a cover of the band wearing butcher clothing, while they all held meat and blood covered baby dolls. It sound worse than it is....look tame to me. It's known to collectors as THE BUTCHER...and it was an outrage...being still a little prudish in the US, after all it was 1966 (everything was offensive and disgusting)....that sounds familiar....anyway...Only released in select markets, these were pulled of the shelves that same day, i think it was On a Tuesday. Anyway, Capitol replaced the cover with a big decal cover....they really wanted to destroy the original ones, however a few were sold...you know, those crazy kids waiting for the release....anyway, One of these extremely rare albums was sold for $39,000 at an auction. They are still out there...I did find one a few years back but it was hammered...$900 ?

4 - My Happiness – Elvis Presley – $300,000 Obviously, if you have a pulse...you know who Elvis is. Definitely one of the most influential icons in all of music history. This particular record happened to be a test pressing of Elvis’ first ever recording. A Fun Fact is Jack White, former half of The White Stripes, is the guy that bought it back in 2015. He's known as a huge collector of vinyl, especially the rare and unique. At the time it was the third most expensive vinyl record ever sold.

3 - Double Fantasy by John Lennon and Yoko Ono – $400,000 After The Beatles had gone their separate ways, John Lennon worked with his wife Yoko Ono to make a few records, including Double Fantasy, released in 1980. One copy of his records sold for over $400,000 at an auction back in 1999. Why ? This was the one Mark David Chapman asked John Lennon to sign before he assassinated him in December of that year. This particular album was used in court as it had Chapman’s fingerprints on it, and helped convict him for a life sentence. Chapman currently still remains in prison to this day. I just got another idea for a show.

2 - The Beatles (White Album) – The Beatles – $790,000 For the longest time, this vinyl record was No. 1... Regardless, being second is not to shabby. This one in particular had a few incredibly special things about it. First.......... it was the first pressing of the run, serial #1...something they started doing back then.

Every single record back then was being printed with a serial number starting with ‘0000001’. This record had this serial number, and it actually Turned out that the original owner was Ringo Starr himself, two killer facts for the collectors, & as you can see. $790,000

1 - Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – Wu-Tang Clan – $2 million....Why $2m...Interestingly enough, the Wu-Tang Clan only made one copy of this particular album back in 2015. There was a contract associated with the album that said whoever buys the album was not allowed to sell or profit from it for 100 years. However, the buyer could release the album for free at any time. The buyer ended up being the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, and he paid the price of $2 million for the record. That's a whole other story....lets just say the record is now in the hands of the Federal Government, as has still yet to be released. It'll turn up....

But There you go.....and, I hope you enjoy these shows and if you are finding the helpful please like, subscribe and place your comments below. And feel free to share some of your strange facts and any subject you'd like me to tackle....