Original pressing collectors. Are there any records that you have all but given up on finding the original of and bought a reissue instead?

For the most part, I collect first editions whenever I can. I have no logical reason for doing so, I guess I just enjoy the hunt. I’m not above dropping decent money on an original if I can make it happen.

But there are a few records where I’m 90% certain I’ll never have the original pressing of and have brought reissues instead. A few I can think of off the top of my head are:

All of Nick Drake’s albums

Nick Drake sold very few albums during his lifetime. But in the years following his death, his music has become the stuff of legend. The original pressings have become quite expensive collectors items, and even the early reissues are pretty valuable. Unless I find myself super rich someday, my modern reissues will do fine.

Almost anything from the 90’s

The 90’s (followed closely by the 2000’s) was vinyl’s low point. Most anything worth having is expensive. My modern reissues, cassettes and CDs will do just fine.

Feelings - Jay Richford & Gary Stevan

This album is an old library album that was released in Italy in 1974. Not the kind of album that would get a wide amount of distribution. It has since become a cult classic, and the original pressing fetches thousands of dollars. Fortunately, there’s some great sounding reissues available for not a lot of money.

Greyhound Blues / Lonesome Jailhouse Blues - D.A. Hunt

This is by far the rarest one. D.A. Hunt was a blues singer from Alabama who only recorded this one single for Sun Records. An old school acoustic blues record had a very limited market in the early 50’s, when the R&B market preference was electric blues and the folk revival wouldn’t gain traction until late in the decade.

For years, only 78 RPM copies were known to exist, and those were still very rare. Sometime in the late 90’s/2000’s, an original 45 was found and sold at auction for $8,000. A few more have since come up for sale, also fetching crazy amounts of money.

Fortunately, there are affordable reissues. Unofficial reissues are common, and Third Man Records did a reissue in 2013, which was a part of their Sun Records reissue collection.

So what are your “yeah, I think I’ll just get a reissue” records?