PORT TOWNSEND — Response to the upcoming inaugural Port Townsend Record Show has been so positive that sponsors already are looking ahead to perhaps holding it twice a year.
“The reaction to this has been overwhelming,” said Jim Overly, who is organizing the event with Quimper Sound owner Mark Hering and local musician Todd Fisher.
“We were expecting to get maybe 20 vendors and now have more than 30, so it’s safe to say that it has exceeded our expectations.”
The show will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the American Legion Hall, 209 Monroe St.
Admission is free, while each vendor is charged $30 or $40 for a display table.
Vendors are either record store owners looking to sell inventory and buy items for their shop or private collectors making a little extra money by selling off what they don’t listen to anymore, Overly said.
Timing of event
Overly said the first weekend in March is a good time for the show “because there is not a lot of competition,” and it also can piggyback onto the monthly gallery walk.
If it succeeds as expected, another show will take place in the fall, he said.
“After this weekend, we are all going to get together to plan next steps,” he said.
The number of vendors will be capped at 40, Overly said.
The hall can accommodate more, but too many vendors could create a logistical problem.
Overly expects the selection to be “mostly rock,” while other styles and sounds will be on display and for sale.
The public gets into the hall at 11 a.m., but some of the best stuff could already be gone by then, as the opening will be preceded by a three-hour period when the vendors can inspect, and presumably purchase, each other’s offerings.
“What surprised me is that 10 people selling are from Port Townsend,” Overly said.
Mostly vinyl
The show will include vendors selling CDs, DVDs and memorabilia, but most tables will trade in vinyl records, Overly said.
Vinyl records were displaced by CDs in the early 1990s, with production at nearly zero in 1993, according to Statistica-The Statistics Portal at www.statista.com.
Sales numbers worked up to 2.5 million units per year in 2009, then shot up to 11.9 million in 2015, according to the site.
The 1960s is perceived as a popular music renaissance, so it’s not surprising that many collectibles originate from that era.
Valuable albums
Hering said some of the most valuable albums are early efforts from Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash.
Original pressings from one-hit wonders like the Seeds, the Shadows of Knight and the Sonics are valuable because there weren’t very many of them, he said..
Overly said a record’s value is dictated by the market along with the value the buyer perceives.
“People will ask themselves whether it’s worth it for them to own a particular record at a certain price,” he said.
“In some cases, people pick up something that looks really interesting but doesn’t cost very much.”
Browsers might see several copies of one record with differing prices and conditions.
In these cases, Overly said, people unsure about a particular title might buy an older, more battered copy of an album before deciding whether it’s worth it to spring for something more expensive that is in better shape.
It can be difficult to determine the true value of a record because some “will be carrying around their phones and logging in to see how much it is selling for,” Overly said.
Most of the transactions will be cash, he said, “although some of the younger vendors might have those things on their phones that let them take payments.”
This won’t be a drawback, he said, as there are several ATMs within walking distance of the hall.
For more information, go to ptrecordshow.com.
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
