COLLECTING THE BEATLES: THE PROS AND CONS OF PRICE GUIDES
The pros of Beatles price guides are many as they help to define the marketplace and what your Beatles collectables may be worth. In that regard when you come to the time when there is a need or desire to sell an item, you at least have a ballpark figure of what to seek for the item when you put it for sale.
The problem with that perspective is that Beatles collectables have appreciated greatly over the years and what one could have received for an item 10 years ago has changed greatly in a relatively short period of time. Time specificity becomes an important factor when determining what you are going to ask for an item 20 years after you obtained a price guide for reference. Price guides also do not account for potential dastardly economic downturns which even when they are not frequent, they can happen and could drastically affect when you may get financially in return for your prized treasure.
Also, as the demand decreases as the baby boom generation begins to dwindle, will that impact prices as demand for the product may decrease. That argument is often countered with the statement that new generations continue to have a strong interest in Beatles product. That in turn can be countered by stating that the younger generations have less of a desire for physical product than their older counterparts, potentially limiting demand and what they may be willing to pay for a particular product. There are also the economic concerns of inflation!
Price guides can also suffer from the same problem encountered with Beatles Discographies. Once a new product is issued, the book referencing the collectables becomes out-of-date and immediately in need of updating in order to accommodate the newly issued item. Electronically updating the new information is significantly cheaper and timelier to accomplish which may signal the ultimate death knell for print publishing.
If you are a completist type of collector, you require that you have access to the most up-to-date information available to you!
Another factor in the price you can realize for a collectable is the awareness of the existence of the item. If the product is in high demand by a significant amount of people, that helps to push the asking price up. If the demand is low, negotiation may be a better strategy to pursue! Limited edition books for example can demand higher prices for several reasons. Often, they are more expensive to produce with better quality printing materials, but the low amount produced when the demand is high automatically generates a higher pricing structure.
The focus of today’s post will be on some of the price guides that have been issued about the Beatles. This does not claim to be exhaustive investigation in that category only to create a general awareness of some of the price guides that are out there!
Price Guides can serve an excellent function, but it is a guide not a final determinant. A seller can ask what they want for any item but that does not guarantee a successful transaction unless there is a person out there willing to pay the asking price. How many high-priced items have you seen over the years that you considered to be excessively over-priced that go unsold for a considerably long time?
Yet you also see items considered to be over-priced sell-out very quickly. The demand is excessively high and a sufficient amount of people with the available funds to purchase the item vie to possess or own it and the item goes quickly. The seller either through good marketing appeals to the correct demographic audience with sufficient funds and interest and the item quickly sells-out. It will be interesting to see what prices the marketplace will endure when the two remaining Beatles are no longer around or when the release of new product grinds to a standstill. Fifty years from now, will the Beatles still be generating Herculean prices for collectables? That remains to be seen but I suspect that they will!
A favorite price guide: A Price Guide For The Beatles American Records (6th edition) Collector’s edition by Perry Cox & Frank Daniels (Foreword by Bruce Spizer)
Published in 2007 by 498 Productions, LLC, the same company that publishes the books of Beatles scholar, Bruce Spizer! This limited-edition collector’s edition of the book was issued in a slipcase and limited to 200 signed and numbered copies. This book is presented in full color and is a fabulous reference work. If you are fortunate to be able to find one for sale, I recommend that you acquire it if you can!
This is a photo of my copy and the outer slipcase:
A photo of the cover of the book:
The back cover of the book:
The signature page signed by the two authors, Perry Cox and Frank Daniels along with the writer of the Foreword, Bruce Spizer:
Publisher details:
Table of Contents:
Bruce Spizer’s Foreword:
The team that created the guide:
An earlier price guide from 1993, Michael Todd’s Beatles For Sale: The International Price Guide to LPs EPs 45s CDs
Published January 1993 by AMV and compiled/written by Michael Todd this a very comprehensive guide up to the date of the publication of this book. This is a photo of my copy of the book. I particularly enjoy referencing this work for earlier releases, it is a great resource! Since it is an early price guide, would love to one day see the author have a follow-up which included photos of the respective releases. Obviously, that is far more expensive to produce but having the accompanying photos would help a prospective buyer and seller of the recorded work.
The Foreword to Michael Todd’s Beatles Price Guide: This task was a difficult one for the author as Michael took on the task of documenting the much larger pool of international releases in his work!
The balance of the author’s Foreword
The Table of Contents:
Author’s acknowledgment page:
Official Price Guide to the Beatles Paperback – August 15, 1995 by Perry Cox (Author) – Publisher – House of Collectibles – The First Edition
The Second edition – The Official Price Guide to The Beatles Records and Memorabilia: 2nd Edition Paperback – August 17, 1999
by Perry Cox (Author)-House of Collectibles
Warman’s Beatles Field Guide: Values and Identification Paperback – January 1, 2005
by Tim Neely (Editor) Krause Pubns Inc
The Beatles Memorabilia Price Guide Paperback – January 1, 1997
by Jeff Augsburger (Author), Marty Eck (Author), Rick Rann (Author) Published by Antique Trader Books
Beatles Price and Reference Guide for American Records Paperback – January 1, 1986
by Perry Cox (Author), Michael Miller (Author) Published by Cox Miller Ltd
Introducing … The Beatles Record Price Guide Perfect Paperback – January 1, 2011
by Stanley Panenka (Author), Jerry Osborne (Editor), John Tefteller (Foreword)
Osborne Enterprises Publishing
The Beatles: A Reference & Value Guide Paperback – January 1, 1998
by Barbara Crawford (Author), Michael Stern (Author), Hollis Lamon (Author) Published by Collector Books
The Complete Beatles U.S. Record Price Guide Paperback – January 1, 1983
by Perry Cox (Author), Joe Lindsay (Author)-Publisher-Longman Trade/Caroline House
Collecting the Beatles: An Introduction and Price Guide to Fabulous Four Collectibles Volume 1 (Rock & Roll Reference Series) Hardcover – January 1, 1983
by Barbara Fenwick (Author) Pierian Press
Barbara was the primary writer and editor of the fanzine, “The Write Thing.”
Collecting the Beatles: An Introduction and Price Guide, Vol. 2 Hardcover – June 1, 1985
by Barbara Fenick (Author) Pierian Press
The Beatles: A Collectors Guide to Beatles Memorabilia: Yesterday & Tomorrow
by Courtney McWilliams | Jan 1, 1997-Published by Schiffer Pub Ltd
Though not a price guide per se, Tom Fontaine’s book represents a fine collection of rare items acquired by the noted collector for his fabulous Beatles collection
Published in 2025 it helps to give you the history of some of the very rare collectables, how they were acquired and how that can impact value.
Another guide to assist you in determining value is to peruse multiple auction catalogs before and after an auction. You can see if the suggested appraised value was met or was greatly exceeded!
Hope you enjoyed this blog piece about the many Beatles price guides that are out there in the marketplace! How many of you viewers use a price guide in order to determine what they are willing to pay for an item. Do you depend on instinct, impulse or something else when you make your purchases?
Have you ever bought an item that you knew in your heart and soul that you should not have because of the great expense? If so, are you happy that you did so or are you now disappointed?
What is your favourite item of Beatles memorabilia? Let me know in the comments.
Be healthy and be happy!
Buzz
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Thanks for spotlighting! The Price Guide For The Beatles American Records (6th edition) IS my favorite Beatles book – as it is coming up on 20 years since publication, I continue to wish for an updated version! Nothing gives me more pleasure than filling in the empty circle in front of a recording release indicating “I got a copy”! There is a second copy I gifted my Dad years ago at my parents’ house and use in case I go on the collecting hunt in their area (I will “inherit” this unmarked copy one day). My copy is so “used” the plastic coating is coming off it! I’ve resorted looking at Discogs.com to see any information on releases I find until the hopeful day a new version of this book comes out. I have definitely voiced my wish to Bruce Spizer!