ITHACA, N.Y. — A new report conducted by local baby boomer Paul Rundle states that vinyl, which he used to own “tons of” back in the day, is still “making a comeback” nearly two decades later from their initial reintroduction back to the mainstream.
“I sold all my vinyl records at garage sales back in the ’90s for basically peanuts! No telling how much all those Jim Nabors records mom passed down to me when I was younger are probably worth now,” Rundle explained, adding how “crazy” it is seeing records on shelves again. “Never thought they’d come back in style. I figured we’d just be still riding high on CDs, like the young people like. But wowie, LPs are really the cool hip thing right now. They even got em’ at Target. I feel like it’s still 1986 or something.”
28-year-old record collector Julianne Moreski was adamant about not making the same mistakes her parent’s generation had.
“Oh, I love collecting vinyl, but I love the idea of getting rich off of them in the near future much, much more,” Moreski explained while opening a fresh LP mailer with the latest “Purple Rain” repress inside. “Now that they’re back in style again, and if my calculations are correct, they should become junk within the next decade. And by holding onto the wax through the inevitable slump in popularity, I’ll be rolling in the dough when they become cool for the third time around 2070. I’ll be rich! That is, if we’re not all dead by then.”
Owner of the Spinning Serenity record shop Thomas Flynn is enthusiastic about the current market, however.
“It’s great! What’s not to love about vinyl? It’s awesome seeing people come in and buy music in the best format,” Flynn stated while manically organizing bins. “Sure, hearing balding baby boomers ask ‘wow, you sell vinyls here?!’ for the last 17 years does sorta make you go mad, but we like to have fun with it. In fact, we have a great big Deep Purple blacklight poster for the 1,000th customer to ask that question. Here’s to another decade-plus of the vinyl resurgence.”
At press time, Paul Rundle had nearly lost his mind at seeing Spinning Serenity selling so many cassette tapes.