Tomita on Ebay

Where do all these 'still sealed, unplayed, mint condition' Tomita CDs on Ebay come from?
There can't be *that* many unsold copies of them in existence, or are they perhaps all just
a few copies doing the rounds? And why so expensive?

It seems a bit of a rum do to me... ;-)

Ben
www.isaotomita.org
www.korganalogue.net

 

> Where do all these 'still sealed, unplayed, mint condition' Tomita
CDs on Ebay come from?
> There can't be *that* many unsold copies of them in existence, or are
they perhaps all just
> a few copies doing the rounds? And why so expensive?
>
> It seems a bit of a rum do to me... ;-)

It is. They're just buying in-print CDs from Japan and selling them on,
and going by the daft numbers of people buying them, most people aren't
aware that they're available over there.

--

Brendan

--

 

Ben Ward wrote:
>
> Where do all these 'still sealed, unplayed, mint condition' Tomita CDs on Ebay come from?
> There can't be *that* many unsold copies of them in existence, or are they perhaps all just
> a few copies doing the rounds? And why so expensive?
>
> It seems a bit of a rum do to me... ;-)
>
> Ben
> www.isaotomita.org
> www.korganalogue.net


As I mentioned before, at least if it comes to "Bermuda Triangle", some
U.S. Importer snagged a pile of them, so I see them at shops with a lot
of prog rock for $29.95 retail. As also mentioned they have a 2000
reissue of Matsutake's 1970s TDream meets old Japan album "Edo"

Tomita's CDs go for about $21 for the 70s, 80s classical ones (the 2500
yen ones) and say $25.25 or so for the 3000 yen full price ones if I get
some quick conversion rates as of today. Anything over that is money
some one in the middle is making.

In new york I'd say a typical retail import markup is $8-9 over Japanese
retail while someone like Amazon U.S. may go for an outrageous $20.


If one does a quick round through the online retailers that always
announce new CDs, like HMV, Amazon, CDjapan.co.jp one can pretty much
figure out which ones are in print.

Most of the big guys let you drop a cat # in to search. I guess the
results are kind of hazy since sometimes no longer available items
remain in the database.

Conversely you could just try one of the little guys, comfort and the
mondo place are the only ones as they should be able to take some
special instructions or be able to get back to you

On the other hand I would agree with Ben that its mysterious and perhaps
worth the premium if they have sealed out of print ones.

Japan is getting quite hard to follow as I don't think much is
warehoused compared to a few years ago.

nick

 

>
> On the other hand I would agree with Ben that its mysterious and
perhaps
> worth the premium if they have sealed out of print ones.
>
> Japan is getting quite hard to follow as I don't think much is
> warehoused compared to a few years ago.
>
> nick

And any enterprising individual wishing to rip off the general public
would presumably have access to some sort of cellophane sealing
machine, I'm sure!

Ben

 

Ben Ward wrote:
>
> >
> > On the other hand I would agree with Ben that its mysterious and
> perhaps
> > worth the premium if they have sealed out of print ones.
> >
> > Japan is getting quite hard to follow as I don't think much is
> > warehoused compared to a few years ago.
> >
> > nick
>
> And any enterprising individual wishing to rip off the general public
> would presumably have access to some sort of cellophane sealing
> machine, I'm sure!
>
> Ben


But that would entail them having a source of used copies, very hard to do.

It's not impossible to get used copies but they aren't heavy on the
ground. For instance its several times easier to find say YMO or
Sakamoto albums though obviously a few are genuinely scarce.

For what its worth all self operated machines I've seen use the kind of
soft clear plastic that stretches a bit and is heat sealable. Japanese
CDs are always wrapped in that lightweight stuff that tears easily,
almost always with the pull string. Somethinng that would be a pain to
forge as far as I can figure out. The sealing is done on the side with
the non-stretching plastic kind of like the way people wrap parcels,
with the little diagonal folds near the corners.

The Japanese do not use either method the maericans use as proof an
unused or counterfit CD isn't being sold - i.e. you won't find the
little foil strip that sometimes has a hologram and you won't find that
long printed tape thing covering the upper edge that is always a pain to
open and always leaves a sticky mess.

As for stuff in print, I noticed by chance that HMV.co.jp and
Amazon.co.jp seem to have Bach Fantasy. Now I don't know if they deliver
but I've heard from people that this album is usually the one fans
missed and then couldn't get when they ordered not too long ago.

Just out of curiosity, do the overpriced CDs always sell??

nick