Red Arcade

So it feels more and more these days that getting a bargain online is harder and harder to do. Every man and his dog seems to be collecting records these days (which I actually think is a good thing as it keeps the format alive), but it means that there is generally more competition. If anything is prices reasonably on discogs then generally it will sell before I know it's for sale, and if I spot some hot item on eBay then you can guarantee that a bunch of other people will spot it too.

Having said all that, there are still rare opportunities. Like, for example, if a seller mentions in the title of an item that it is on red vinyl, but there are no pictures of the actual record, then perhaps other people wouldn't notice or be confident enough to bid. Like, for example, this copy of the Hüsker Dü 'Zen Arcade' LP:

It's now 8 years since I casually started collecting Hüsker Dü records. I think there's something about early 90s SST colour pressings that just make them fun to collect. I mean, they're relatively plentiful and a lot made it over to the UK, so they pop up for sale relatively often, and sometimes can go for a good price. So every now and again I seem to chance across another one and scoop it up. And all of a sudden I have 3 copies of this double LP.

I wasn't sure how many other versions of this one are out there. The information on discogs seems slightly confused as there is a gold vinyl copy listed, but the pictures of it look red. So I checked old ebay listings via popsike, as well as instagram, and I think there could be 2 more I don't have - a version with one orange record and one red record, and one which is orange-ish with black swirls. Although they might actually be the same. It's hard to tell.But whichever, there are still more I don't have, and as ever, it seems that the ones I don't have seem to be the most visually interesting.