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Articles — collector guides

Latest RIAA Top 10 Sales All-Time: AC/DC Rising

Posted by James Duncan on

Since announcing in the past year that the the Beatles infamous White Album had been certified 24x Multi-Platinum -- moving it into fourth spot on its all-time sales list past Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I & Volume I -- Aussie hard rock veterans AC/DC have now taken spot #4 from the Fab Four with their 1980 release Back In Black. Clocking in at 25 million copies, the hard-hitting rock masterpiece just keeps on selling no doubt in part fueled by nostalgia after the tragic early passing of founding brother Malcolm Young in late 2017. Incidentally, the White Album is still the top multi-disc set of all time and is actually the...

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5 Tips To Spot Fake RIAA Awards

Posted by James Duncan on

One of the tricky parts of collecting RIAA record awards is avoiding the fakes that do occasionally exist in the marketplace. Here are five tips that can help you avoid buying a fake RIAA award: 1. Certification: Does the certification date versus the award type make sense? This can be a very tricky area because a recording is not certified officially by the RIAA until the record label submits the paperwork. In some cases, there can be years-long gaps before Platinum was issued on recordings which in reality quickly sold numbers that were at the Platinum level. This is fairly common...

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Elvis Lives On!

Posted by James Duncan on

This past weekend marked 43 years since Elvis Presley left us. The King passed away on August 16, 1977 at the too-young age of 42, leaving an entire globe of fans mourning his passing. But Elvis, in reality, never really left. His legacy lives on with his many contributions to rock, pop music, and film. He still holds the record for the most Gold Album Awards awarded of any artist in RIAA history. He is a three-time Grammy award and was a Lifetime Achievement award winner by age 36. He has the most albums charted on the Billboard 200 in the tally’s history...

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Top 10 Most Expensive Guitars Ever Sold

Posted by James Duncan on

Guitars, despite their wood, metal and wire construction, have always had a human quality to them. Guitarists who hold one in their hands for enough years will tell you that they become extensions of themselves. Rough edges get smoothed. Spots get worn. Belt buckle rash appears. Their wood gets stained with sweat, booze, even blood (just ask Pete Townshend). They've traveled the world. They've been played on countless stages and studios. And so by now they're just about perfect. Any collector will tell you to get one of these well-traveled instruments that was used to create some of their favorite...

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New World Record Set At $6M For Nirvana Guitar

Posted by James Duncan on

In an auction held today June 20, 2020 at Julien's Auctions a bidder bought Kurt Cobain's acoustic guitar used during the infamous MTV Unplugged performance. The purchase cost the lucky buyer a record-setting $6,010,000. The buyer, whose name was announced publicly as the auction concluded in a somewhat unusual occurrence, was Australian Peter Freedman, Founder and CEO of RODE Microphones. The Nirvana MTV Unplugged concert was recorded on November 18, 1993 in MTV's New York City studios and telecast on December 16. The recording went on to be a best seller for Nirvana. The guitar itself is a 1959 Martin...

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