Over the past decade it has been discovered that buying a record is not an expense but an investment. At least that’s what vinyl collectors say, who have seen their capital multiply over and over again. In this field, the question is which is the most expensive record in history, for which the highest price was paid in any transaction or auction.

Strangely, it is not a rare copy of the Beatles purchased by some Japanese collector, as the legend has it. This is a slightly more gruesome relic: a vinyl of Double Fantasy by John Lennon, signed by its author for the same Mark David Chapmana few hours before assassinating him on December 8, 1980.

An autograph and four shots

Double Fantasy it was the fifth album released by John and Yoko. It was launched a month before his death, when he entered his home, the famous Dakota building in New York.

Chapman was waiting at the door with a copy of the statement, I got the autograph at 5.50pm and waited until the return of the musician at 10.50pm. There he shouted his name (“Mr. Lennon!”) and shot him four times in the back,

Though the killer was jailed for life and was unable to have his parole request accepted by any court, his album signed that day has seen its value rise time and time again.

Features John Lennon’s signature on the lid, right on the neck of the photo of Yoko Ono, along with an inscription that reads “1980”. It has other marks on the front and back, but they were made by the police when they took the disc away as evidence of the crime. Chapman had propped the album in one of the flower vases by the door.

When police arrived at the crime scene, Chapman was still there, reading the book. the hidden hunter by JD Salinger. He told them he killed Lennon because he was famous.

Years later, the record was sold twice and everything points to a third sale. In 1999, it sold for $150,000.. Then he raised his price: in 2020 it was sold again for between 600 and 800 thousand dollars. And in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, it was auctioned off and was estimated to be sold for 2 million dollars.

And nothing more was known.

The auction data appeared on the Goldin Auctions official website and there were several media reports about it, but it was never reported who the buyer was or what the final price was. Everything suggests that it was an anonymous buyer who asked for total secrecy.

The piece was sold with a certificate of authenticity and was mounted on two shatterproof glasses to ensure its care.

Second place: The Beatles

Another emblematic vinyl cannot be missing from the list of the most expensive records: the Beatles’ White Album. Furthermore, it is not known who the buyer was, but who sold it: in 2015 Ringo Starr put a one-of-a-kind unit up for sale with the serial number “0000001”.

He got $790,000 for his 1968 album, which featured songs like Revolution, Back to the USSR, While my guitar sweetly weeps, Blackbird Y Helter refuge.

Third: an Elvis Presley single

It is one of the few jewels whose owner is known: Jack White himself, former leader of the White Stripes group.

In 2015, he shelled out $300,000 for an Elvis Presley single, my happiness. More precisely the test edition of the album. He then released limited copies of the single through his own label Third Man Records.

The Unusual Case of the Wu-Tang Clan

It should be noted that even a record of only one edition of a disc is in hand, i.e. that only one copy was made. And it sold for two million dollars.

In 2015, the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan released a unique and exclusive vinyl copy of their album Once Upon A Time in Shaolin, exclusively for collectors and fans, because the purchase came with a very special contract which it prevented subsequent resale for 100 years after purchase.

It was bought by Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a controversial figure who raised the price of an AIDS drug by more than 5,000% in the 1990s. Fans were outraged to learn that he was the buyer, but were reassured to find that he ended up convicted of fraud and sentenced to 20 years in prison. This very expensive specimen has since been seized by the US Federal Police.

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