Really, all it is is the collector's mentality. There are many things
which are collected, and with that there is demand, and the demand is
most often for the original artifact.
Take Beanie Babies, for example. There are "original" Beanie Babies
that are "worth" thousands of dollars, yet these same Beanie Babies are
often "reissued," the only difference being the color of the tag
attached to said Beanie Baby. The reissued ones are "worth" seven bucks
or thereabouts.
I think that hard-to-find music spawns a collector's mentality in many
of its followers because the artifacts in question are often very
limited by their nature (small label + unusual music = not very many
pressings). There are many reasons why we often want the originals as
opposed to recordings. Maybe you don't trust the person making the
recording to record it exactly the way you would. Maybe you want the
artwork to go with it. Maybe you want to have the feeling of being one
of the few people on this planet who owns such an artifact that so many
people want to hear. Maybe you want to think you are cool. I don't
know.
I've been collecting music for over a decade now, and I've only paid
ridiculous money for two or three things in my collection that I can
think of. And I'm always happy to have recordings of things (and make
recordings of things for other people), but if I can get a decent deal
on an original, I'll buy it and use the recording media for something
else.
If I knew someone that owned Lego Feet, I might ask them to record it in
exchange for a recording of something they don't have. But I don't know
anyone who owns it, so I may very well never hear it. And I don't
really like the idea of paying someone for a recording, because then
that person is making money off the music rather than the artifact,
which doesn't seem fair for some twisted reason I can't quite put into
words (probably something to do with the fact that they didn't make it).
Why do I collect music? Mostly because I want to be able to listen to
lots of different stuff, and the best way to do that is to own the
music. The other half of it, for me, is that the original artifact is a
representation of what the artist really wanted to produce, ie, it's
closer to the source. Why that's important to me, I don't know, but it
is. It makes as much sense as any reason to collect anything else.
Which is to say that in some way, the whole idea of collecting is
nonsensical to begin with. But primarily, I just want to hear the
music.
-- Adam J Weitzman, NewsEdge Corp. ---
http://www.newsedge.com --
"It appears that, after years of stalling, this nation really and
truly will have meaningful campaign-finance reform, just as soon
as we establish a viable trout farm on Jupiter." - Dave Barry