J.A.W.

Taiyo Yuden is now JVC.

Not only this board, I think. Those Mercury sets sound pretty good and I assume some Hoffman board members are also keen

Good grief! $80 a set! Bollocks to that! I'm a professional cheapskate; average price I pay for CDs is $7-8. Maximum ever (when I was at work) was about $60 (for an LP). Thanks folks, but I'm clearly out of my league in even thinking of this. MG If nobody else bids on these sets (not very likely, but it has happened) you are smack-dab-in-the-middle of your league. Set a maximum amount you're willing to pay, snipe ... and hope you get one/two or more. I don't do eBay anymore, but in the past I've been extremely lucky with some of the auctions there. At least give it a shot! You'll be frustrated if someone else gets these for $20 per box. Volkher is right - remember that these are 3CD-sets, so I assume your price range for these would be $21 - $24.

MG, I edited my post above

All 7 volumes are up on eBay at the moment with 4 days to go. No bids yet (but probably snipers in the wings). I managed to get mine from all around the globe and I have the complete run now (wasn't cheap), but whoever is interested in these might be able to get them cheaper than what they usually go for. No idea. Give it a try. Thanks. How do I find them NOF? MG I searched for "Complete Dinah Washington Mercury" on eBay and found these in a few seconds If you plan to bid on these, my advice would be to wait until the last few seconds of the auctions and then place bids. If you bid early on eBay you're only inviting others to try and outbid you, which will drive the prices up. Better still, if you're bidding on several auctions that, like these ones, end at almost the same time, use a sniping service: you can place your maximum bids with them anytime you want during the auction and they'll do the bidding in the last few seconds for you.

link

Many of the members of that forum were booted off the Hoffman forum. Among others, I'll bet..... I lurked at that forum for a while, but I found it quite uninteresting and I didn't appreciate the many foul-mouthed posts.

See post #57, where Kevin is quoted: weird....,so now the threads deleted?!? i dont think i understand?!?!? What thread? I don't see any deleted threads over there. It must have never happened.

I don't know what "squatting" means in auction terms, but, as I said, placing an early bid invites others to outbid you and drive the price up.

That Piano Select is really getting expensive these days... Ebay Piano Select flurin got quite a good deal for his $90 ! Yeah, I had 100$ in as a maximum bid (and that was the total cost including shipping - it's on its way by now)... and newbie that I am on ebay (I bought about five discs in the past ten years...), I would have been totally lost to keep up with the guy/gal who bade (is that the correct verb form?) against me during the final few minutes... glad it only arrived at 90$ before ending! The best way to bid is to wait until the last few seconds and then place a bid or use a sniping service that does it for you. Bidding early only invites others to try and outbid you and it drives the price up. I see I still have a lot of learning to do there... don't like the word "sniping" in this context, but I guess I'll have to look into that, eventually... the price stood fairly low until the final few minutes, so I don't think I've driven up the price to my own disadvantage. I don't like word either, but that's what it's called. There are various sniping services; some are free and others charge a fee that depends on your winning bid - or nothing if you don't win Here's the one I use: Auction Sniper

That Piano Select is really getting expensive these days... Ebay Piano Select flurin got quite a good deal for his $90 ! Yeah, I had 100$ in as a maximum bid (and that was the total cost including shipping - it's on its way by now)... and newbie that I am on ebay (I bought about five discs in the past ten years...), I would have been totally lost to keep up with the guy/gal who bade (is that the correct verb form?) against me during the final few minutes... glad it only arrived at 90$ before ending! The best way to bid is to wait until the last few seconds and then place a bid or use a sniping service that does it for you. Bidding early only invites others to try and outbid you and it drives the price up.

I just listened to music samples of the first Bear Family box, It's Magic, with her complete 1947-1950 Columbia recordings and besides the good stuff there's an awful lot of dross on it. Is there a good CD collection with her better recordings from the late 1940s? The Bear Family box really is a mixed bag in my opinion.

Many of the members of that forum were booted off the Hoffman forum.

The name is Tete Montoliu, and it's "for all intents and purposes".

Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

No, just the ones with music I'm interested in

See post #57, where Kevin is quoted:

Will do, but I'm afraid it's highly unlikely I'll even get one offer... Actually, as I posted earlier I did get one response back in December of last year, but I never heard from that member again, even though he had promised in a second e-mail he'd get back to me

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Target CDs

I just visited the Ayler Records site and noticed that they're now based in Limours, France. What happened to Jan Ström and when did they move? Jan Ström retired last year. His former French partner Stéphane Berland took over and rebased the company in Limours, southwest of Paris. Thanks Guy.

I just visited the Ayler Records site and noticed that they're now based in Limours, France. What happened to Jan Ström and when did they move?

That's the starting price; it doesn't mean that it will sell for that price, it might go much higher.

I was eying the Helen Merrill/Katz one today but was struck by the number of comments re: the substandard sound. If it's the odd comment or two, it's easy to dismiss it...but there seem to be a fair number here. So, what's the story? ...and who did the re-mastering anyway? http://www.mosaicrecords.com/prodinfo.asp?number=1019 I just read the comments and got the feeling that the negative opinions on the sound were posted by one and the same person. The style and contents of the negative posts are remarkably similar. I haven't heard the CD, so I can't comment. Anyone else?

But not for reasonable prices. The "buy it now" Selects are pretty expensive and the ones that are auctioned off usually go for $80 and up.