The Velvet Underground's Scepter Session Acetate up for Auction

It's probably the ultimate dream of every vinyl-collecting, rummage-sale scrabbler out there. 

You're looking through a box of records on some sidewalk in a big city.  You find  some good stuff, a Leadbelly 10", a Modern Lovers record, and then there's this one. It's old, the label is yellowed, and it reads "Velvet Underground. 4-25-66.  Att N. Dolph".  It's mysterious.  You pay $2.25 for all three.

Once you get it home, you get another record collector friend on the blower to tell him about your find. After much research and digging around, you come to realize that what you have purchased for less than the price of a cup of coffee is arguably one of the most important "lost" music recordings out there:  the "first 'finished' version of the LP that Andy Warhol had shopped to Columbia as a ready-to-release debut album by his protege collective 'The Velvet Underground'."  And the only known surviving copy, at that. 

This 1966 acetate LP (which Columbia passed on) is now up for sale on Ebay.   

Anyone care to guess what the final bid will be?

Comments

[heroin]

$34,000

[detroitsuperfly]

$72,476.38

[dan o.]

the current bidder, at $19000 is "emoscreamo"
sound fishy to anyone else?

[tsk tsk]

yes dan, yes it does....

http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/cboard/viewtopic.php?id=23670

[Kim Scarborough]

That "high quality digital back-up copy of the material" they mention towards the end of the description managed to find its way to the internet, in case anyone's wondering. There was a BitTorrent of all the tracks in CD-quality FLAC format awhile back. If you do a little detective work you should be able to track it down.

[Dave]

I thought "emoscreamo" was phishy, too. Or at least Phillips.

[Brian C.]

With all the mp3s posted on this wonderful blog, I've been spoiled. Also ignorant. What the FLAC is a BitTorrent?

[Mike]

Wikipedia: BitTorrent

[bitty torrence]

http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3495078

[nobu]

"As to the most interesting mystery brought up by the appearance of this item - how did such an important artifact disappear for 37 years & end up at a Chelsea New York yard sale priced at 75 cents? ...We have no answer."

I sense a highly suspensful movie in the making...

[Parq]

Maybe Laurie will buy it.

[Barmy Fotheringay Phipps]

And WFMU is having a mini-marathon fundraiser right around the same time: coincidence? Or chip-in?

[rolf]

it's on skafunkrastapunk.com--for free ;)

[Jason]

As much as I'd like to hear this I refuse to visit a site called skafunkrastapunk.
Call me prejudiced if you will, but none can deny I am a man of principle.

[rolf]

whiskey is the devil in liquid form. i'll send a zip to you.
rolf

[drewo]

Dimeadozen.org currently has 3 of the tracks available as bittorrent downloads.

[Dave]

Wanna bet most of the bids are fake?

[Detroitsuperfly]

Turns out this isn't the only copy. Moe Tucker has one. That is the source for the internet download copies. Beisdes, the bids are over 100k now. Either that guy is bidding on his own record, driving up the price or a lot of trolls are bidding with no intention of buying. It will be VERY interesting how this plays out.

If you need a copy of it, I uploaded it here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/5684326/VU.zip.html

From what I understand, this is dubbed from Moe Tucker's copy.

[Virginia]

I think it's already been established in the earlier comment from tsk tsk there is indeed fake bidding going on. I doubt that any of the bids are real at this point. Whoever wins is going to have to shell out the big bucks. Does anyone know if Bill Gates a VU fan?

[nt]

A good chunk of bids (at least 20 and counting) that had been placed are now gone, so someone is cracking down on the fake bidders (including the infamous emoscreamo who quite obviously tipped off everyone.) Still over 100k, though.

[Mucury Vapor]

From the description, it seems to be a pretty ruddy copy (I guess as it should be). But the claim that 'with pro tools that getting rid of the surface noise throughout would be fairly easy'. I think is a bit far-reaching. Anyone care to weigh in on that claim?

AFAIK, the plug-ins in ProTools (and other wave-rendering products) tend to leave artifacts-the 'cleaned' recording would sound under water.

[steve]

On the second day I randomly predicted $168,000 - which is getting right close, one day to go!
Though (as always with eBay) if two freaks with giant wallets and egos clash in the final moments of the auction, the sky's the limit...

[Guest]

Winning bid: US $155,401.00
No payments for up to 6 months ? Apply

Something tells me the PayPal Plus MasterCard "Apply" link wouldn't be too appropriate given the money involved. (And to think the bidding started at $26.24...those Ebayers sure do get worked up!)

[Mathew]

Hopefully there's some follow up. The news headlines declaring it sold for $150K are a bit premature I think. This is ebay not Christie's. Seems to me that a legitimate auction house has it's purpose for expensive pieces of art.

[Guest]

Only follow-up I have, is that the top bid was found to be hoax and the seller is negotiating with top "serious" bidders. Is this possibly against Ebay rules?