A 1966 acetate of the Velvet Underground's debut album is currently on sale on eBay for an astounding $120,300.00 (£60,000). The album – an early version of The Velvet Underground And Nico, assembled by the band’s mentor Andy Warhol in an attempt to attract interest from record labels – features unique takes of classic songs such as Heroin, I’m Waiting For The Man and Venus In Furs, plus alternate mixes of the remaining tracks. The master tapes of the legendary “Scepter sessions” were thought long lost in a fire, and it would appear that this is the only remaining record of the album.
The record was found by Canadian collector and history student Warren Hill, who discovered the lost gem in a yard sale in Chelsea, New York in September 2002. He paid 75 cents for the record and knew he was on to something unusual when he put the record on and the first track was not the familiar Sunday Morning, but an unusual, “bluesier” take of European Son.
Recorded in April 1966 at New York’s Scepter studios, the sessions were produced by Columbia Records representative Norman Dolph, who confirmed the disc’s authenticity. Dolph told US collectors’ magazine Goldmine that he had the acetate pressed up in Columbia’s in-house plant, but when he approached his bosses with a view to releasing the album, he was told “Do you think we’re out of our fucking minds?”
The acetate was then given to one of the members of the band and it is not known what happened to it after that, although it’s claimed that a murky Japanese bootleg was made. The eventual release of The Velvet Underground And Nico in January 1967 featured radically remixed versions of the Scepter songs, with some tracks being completely re-recorded.
“We’d love to sell it to someone who’d give it a proper release,” Hill told MOJO magazine last year, when he went public with the discovery. “We’ve heard rumours of some pre-banana LP material being in litigation since 1984!”
While the acetate is being touted as the rarest record ever, a spanner has been thrown into the works by some commentators reporting that Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker also has a copy of the album, which is allegedly the source for MP3s of some of the tracks which are currently floating around the internet.
The current record for the most valuable record ever is held by the copy of Double Fantasy signed by John Lennon for Mark Chapman, the man that was to gun down the Beatle hours later. This bit of morbid memorabilia went for a wallet-battering $464,000 (£234,771), while the second most expensive record is said to be the one-off acetate of The Beatles' first recordings from 1958, which is estimated at £100,000. However, as Paul McCartney bought the only copy in the early 1980s for an unspecified sum, it’s unlikely to appear on eBay any time soon.
Would you pay over £100k for an album? Is this all just craziness, or are these murky recordings genuinely worth the cash? Have your say here.
12:31 PM | 05/12/2006
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you must be f**cking out of your minds to pay that much for a record
MUPPETS
Posted by chipster at 9:47 AM | 06/12/2006 | Report Abuse
If your a music lover surely it's enough to have the music on a CD or MP3 .
Posted by Andy Atwal at 7:42 PM | 07/12/2006 | Report Abuse
i have a velvet underground album andy warhol. what is it worth? if anything..
Posted by A GRAY at 10:54 PM | 11/12/2006 | Report Abuse
If I was a millionaire, I probably would. Id love to hear that bluesy version of European Son. Now that would be cool
Posted by Joe at 11:02 PM | 23/12/2006 | Report Abuse
This was probably one of the most important records ever made, and to have a version of it that nobody else in the world has must be worth something around that price..
Posted by andrew at 9:26 PM | 21/05/2008 | Report Abuse
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