In a recent article about the 30 most expensive items sold on Discogs this August, it was revealed a copy of Pink Floyd’s 1969 album Ummagumma sold for a humungous $14,000.
The only other record to have sold for more this year was a pressing of Prince’s Black Album for an astonishing $27,500.
A big fish in the Pink Floyd vinyl mythos recently surfaced on Discogs, selling for almost $14,000 to a lucky buyer.
The last time the band topped a list like this was in February this year, when their 1971 album Meddle sold for around $4,400 – but that number comes nowhere close to Ummagumma.
Ummagumma was the band’s most popular effort before they released Dark Side of the Moon in 1973. The LP was also recorded with the Pink Floyd’s second lineup, which didn’t include founding member Syd Barrett.
Ummagumma was also more experimental, allowing each band member time to show off their virtuosity; Sysyphus was Richard Wrights’s exploration into the keyboard in which he utilised various synths, organs and pianos, while David Gilmour’s Grantchester Meadows was more folky, something unlike anything the band had previously done.
The price can be explained two-fold, firstly hiking up due to the disc’s nature as a Japanese promo copy, secondly to the abnormally rare red wax. In fact, coloured records were not originally meant to be consumed by the public, according to Discogs’ vinyl specialist Brent Greissle.
“The label used red vinyl for promos at the time, and the Ummagumma promo happened to get that treatment.”
“Early 45s were all coloured vinyl, and a few releases in the ’70s were entirely coloured vinyl. But for the most part up until semi-recently, the majority of stuff is on black wax.”
Not to mention, the record was in mint condition. Brent also reckons that all “radio stations would have played their copies to death, so good, clean copies would be hyper-rare.”
Via Discogs.
