Goldmine Standard Catalog of American Records

The coverage of Blues is very shallow.

(Posted on 10/30/12)

There were a lot of really prominent records and artists missing from past editions of The Standard Catalog of American Records (remember The Byrds). This edition fixes a lot of those problems. It also looks like there was more attention to prices than in the last few books. The introduction is a lot better than past ones to. There are lots of articles and advice that's really helpful for people who are new collectors or maybe don't collect records but got a collection they want to sell. Goldmine finally acknowledged that there are other grading guides out there besides its own and set up a chart to compare some of the biggies, which is great because a lot of us buy and sell records online and not everybody uses the Goldmine grades. Hopefully this is a sign of better guides to come and more new listings.

(Posted on 10/10/12)

The book seems to over reach with the years of 1950 to 1990. Several artists didn't make the book, for an example, Tom Jans & Russell Smith. I realize they're not big sellers of their time but they each had several great albums that are very collectable. I'm glad country and jazz have been added but it seems to have made space limited for other titles. I noticed that several Dylan promo 12" titles didn't make the list such as "Band of the Hand" with Tom Petty. I think if the time period had gone to 1980 and then follow up with a price guide that goes from 1981 to present it would make room for the titles that didn't make it. As I go through my collection I find more and more titles that were left out I'm not completely disappointed, but not happy either... that's why it got 3 stars instead of less. If you release a searchable disk maybe the missing titles can be added. If you don't have a collection the price guide is fine.

(Posted on 9/29/12)