On August 4, 2008 an Italian seller uploaded a listing, selling a Madonna record, on ebay. He claimed to have bought the record at the Utrecht Record Fair, by an American seller. The record looked amazing and had a fantastic cover but the seller didn’t initially understand what the record was. The only thing he discovered was the fact it played Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”. Consequently, he speculated the record was some kind of a test pressing. When he turned his attention to the artwork, the story started to become interesting…
The cover was beautiful, and hand made. This fact reinforced the test pressing theory. The seller checked the back side of the cover and here it was! “J.M. Basquiat” was written on it!
It turns out the artist who drew the marvelous cover was Jean Michel Basquiat, a relatively famous American artist. One of his paintings became the new standard for US artists at auction as it sold for a whopping $110,500,000. He passed away in 1988.
The record of our story ended up selling for 8100 dollars, which is actually low for a record (and a cover) of this value. It is a specimen of unique artistic value and an example of the awesomeness of the 1980’s. Little did the Italian seller knew, that he had a piece of artistic history on his hands.
This story is the dream of any serious record collector. Going to a fair and buying a piece of music history for pennies. It is almost impossible for someone to find a record like this, but the key word here is ALMOST. It can happen to you too! So the next time you are at a record fair, keep your eyes open. The record of your dreams might be there…
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