Is collecting vinyl as lucrative as trading crypto?

Some people ask me why I spend so much money on my vinyl collection? Certain people have the view that it's essentially a waste of money, especially now when it's so much cheaper and easier to just "stream" your music. Let me show you some of the values and benefits you can achieve from collecting vinyl as an investment. (Besides it just being for the love music and knowing you're helping to support your favorite artists and to keep the music industry alive.)

Even though I have no intention of selling any records in my collection there are many reasons why collecting vinyl is a great investment which can increase in value 2X, 3X, 10X or even more than your initial investment. And you're probably thinking "yeah, you might be right, but who wants to wait 20 or more years to see something increase in value?" The truth is a lot of the time the value of your vinyls can dramatically increase over a short period of time. Less than a year or even less than 3 months.

Limited Editions: Since vinyl has become more popular over the last 7 or 8 years record companies will often release limited edition variations when a band puts out a new LP. These can include colored vinyls, clear vinyl, splatter vinyls or picture discs. Initially you might only have to pay an extra $10 or $15 for a limited edition when buying new. The limited editions are in much shorter supply ranging from around 150 copies to 1000. Perhaps more if it's from a very high selling band. Once these copies are sold-out you will see prices on Discogs, eBay and Amazon skyrocket! Sometimes they will even sellout before the albums release date. And I'm sure there are many "sharkish" people that will buy 20+ copies just to make an easy profit once the supply has sold-out.

It's cheaper than being a smoker! I'm from Australia, we have some of the highest cigarette prices in the world! A 20 pack here can range $25 to $35+. Let's assume the average smoker smokes four 20 packs a week. For the point of my example lets say that is $27 X 4 = $108 A WEEK! over a year that's $5940!! Imagine how much a 'pack-a-day' smoker spends! Investing in cancer is a lot of money!

Instead of wasting that money on smoking, lets assume someone spent $108 a week on vinyls. For $108 I'd roughly estimate you could buy 3.5 limited edition vinyls a week. More if you live overseas but shipping is quite expensive here in Australia. By the end of the year you could already have 192 vinyls of your favorite music in your collection. Not only that if you were smart and shopped around for the ones you think would sell-out fast and have a big demand, you could already have made 2X or 3X on your initial investment. Those vinyls you collected could now be worth $11,880 or possibly $17,820 by the end of the year!

A pretty good reason to trade a bad addiction for a good one!

If you're not planning on selling your vinyl why look at it as an investment? 2 reasons. The first is it's great to have something that boosts your overall net worth, in case you ever want a house or business loan. I list all my vinyls on Discogs which will give you an average estimate of your collection based on buying prices on their trading market. My current value is: Min: $6,844.80 Med: $9,759.66 Max: $14,155.99 - (I know that's a big low-high range but I haven't graded my records which is why the estimate is so wide. Most of them are "mint" condition so I should be at the higher end of the spectrum)
The second reason is, if I'm ever super unlucky and loose my job or become bankrupt it gives me a back-up. I could essentially sell my records to get me back on my feet. Fingers crossed that day never happens.

I have plenty more reasons for the benefits of collecting vinyls as an investment. But I don't want this post to be too long. If you like this post enough perhaps I can do a follow up with more reasons to collect...

Now to answer my title "Is collecting vinyl as lucrative as trading crypto?" Well that's very hard question to answer and honestly that was a somewhat of a click-bait title. I suppose it would depend on which crypto? Many crypto-currencies have the potential for a lot more than 4X or 5X gains so I would say it's not as lucrative. However, I do feel vinyl is a safer investment, crypto is still in its early days and is considered very "speculative" by the mainstream while vinyl investing has been going on for decades with no signs of ever stopping!

I've been collecting for over 3 years now, it's really gotten me back into loving music. There is something special about hearing that "crackle' and the nice smooth analogue tones of vinyl.

You can check out my full collection at "www.discogs.com/user/levi679/collection" or follow me on Instagram - "sticks_for_stones".

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@sticksforstones