The musician who sold the most expensive album of all time: “We used to play the vinyl in those days”
There’s a lot of money in music. It might not feel that way as we’re constantly talking about the issues and financial crisis that new and young bands face, but at the top, or going back in time, there is an obscene amount of money being thrown around, like six figures, just for one vinyl.
The world of music auctions is where that money lies. Every now and then, a news piece pops up declaring some new and eye-watering sum that some rich person has spent on a piece of history. David Gilmour’s old black Stratocaster sold for £3million. Kurt Cobain more than trumped that as his beaten-up acoustic, played during the MTV Unplugged set, sold for £6million and became the most expensive guitar ever sold.
It goes far beyond instruments, though. While a good guitar can already be pretty pricey even if legendary hands never touched it, some of the stuff sold at auctions puts a major price tag on something that was almost worthless before. Someone once paid £2,500 for a detention slip John Lennon got at school; a bit of Britney Spears’ chewed-up gum went for $14,000. It seems there’s a market for everything, as a fan even paid $8,000 for Jerry Lee Lewis’ nasal ointment.
Early additions or signed vinyl often fetch a lot, but one thing that is forgotten is the fact that chances are, a musician does in fact own a copy of their own album. Imagine being able to own the record once owned by the music maker themselves—Ringo Starr granted a fan that opportunity once.
In December 2015, at Julien’s Auction House, Ringo’s copy of The White Album was up for sale. Having been kept in perfect condition all that time, stored safely for several decades, it was marked with the catalogue number 0000001. That doesn’t mean it’s untouched, though. “We used to play the vinyl in those days,” Starr told Rolling Stone about the sale, “We didn’t think, ‘We’ll keep it for 50 years and it will be in pristine condition’. Whoever gets it, it will have my fingerprints on it,” making it even more valuable.
Having been held in his own personal vault all that time, we can only imagine what else might be in there—first editions of the other albums, special merchandise and instruments, sure. But imagine the more personal items in there, maybe ticket stubs from early flights when the band hit the states, personal diary entries about their fame or insider considerations about their split. The whole history of the band is likely in there, as well as the information that could solve long-standing mysteries and debates.
But at this auction, he’d decided to part ways with the 1968 album. Clearly, he’d gotten to that actual, genuine first-ever edition before any of his bandmates, and by the 2010s, that was worth a good amount.
By a good amount, I mean $790,000, which is what it sold for. Instantly, that meant that Starr’s original vinyl became the most expensive album to ever sell, earning him a Guinness World Record trophy to replace the spot on the shelf where the LP used to sit.
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