Articles — RIAA awards

Want to sort out the myths from reality? While there are many more than ten myths about RIAA awards, we've covered some of them here: 1. Myth: On an album award, if the number of tracks on the record disc do not match up with the album being recognized by the award, the award is fake. Reality: It was most common for record labels to send any record they had available, and not the one being recognized, to the RIAA award manufacturer for an award. Rarely, exceptions to this occur. Here's one example of an exception with a real metal mother...

People ask us all the time which awards have the most value to collectors, and what attributes make them most valuable. It first needs to be said, to mince a popular cliché, that value is in the eye of the beholder or, in this case, collector. And despite our main article photo depicting rising stacks of gold, collectors cannot depend on any collectible increasing in value. With that disclaimer out of the way, we'll take a stab at some advice given what we have seen in our own extensive number of sales and the marketplace generally, focusing on the last five...

In this article we take a close look inside every detail of RIAA "floater" awards, which were made from 1975-81. The purpose of this article is to help collectors of these awards know if a floater award they may be considering is authentic. 1975-81 RIAA "floater" award This article reveals some very detailed information about the construction of the awards from these eras that we previously did not want to put out there. Why? Because we don't want to arm those intent on making fake awards with any information that they use to create more authentic-looking fakes that could fool buyers. However,...

In this article we take a close look inside every detail of RIAA "white matte" awards, the style of RIAA awards made exclusively by the New York Frame & Picture Co. (NYF&P Co) from 1964 to 1974/early 1975 when the RIAA mandated a design change to the "floater" style.            1964-early 1975 RIAA "white matte" award (left/top), 1975-81 "floater" award (right/bottom) The purpose of this article is to help collectors of these awards know if a white matte award they may be considering is authentic. We thought long and hard before planning this article because we don't want...

Talent-spotting television show American Idol, produced by Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, has been beamed into the homes of U.S. television viewers for 20 years now. It has been so successful that it has also spawned versions in no less than 70 countries. It has also made -- or broken -- careers for many young (and a few older) artists.  Success on the show launched a major career for first season winner Kelly Clarkson, who is a two-time Grammy award winner with hits including “A Moment Like This”, "Because Of You", “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” and more. Today she also hosts her own talk show....