Rare, Rarest and Most Expensive VU items

[davidh_aus]

Yeah!!
"You Have Never Seen a Contest liek This! The VU-Verve Records Design your own psychedelic Subway Token Contest"
1st Prize 5 MGM Tape Machines (ok well)
2nd Prize Next 200 Winners get VU LPs (Great)
3nd Price Next 300 Winners get VU 45s (Much better the 3rd price unless they give you a promo mono Banana!)

That's the one! I would be amazed if the VU even sold 300 copies of every one of their singles combined (during their lifetime, obviously).

[bleach]

My reckoning on that competition has always been that the records were pressed (maybe promos?), didn't sell/distribute them and then the record company thought they would shift 'em via a competition.
It is always a handy way of getting some cheap promotion as you get PR space in a newspaper/magazine for free. What do you reckon?

What i've always thought very strange is that you had to colour in a subway token (Loaded leanings here!) which is a type of competition aimed at kids..

[simonm]

Speaking of singles, is the French pic sleeve of Head Held High /Train Round The Bond (heh!) worth much?

Olivier calls it a "scarce item!" can't see it on popsike...

[alfredovu]

Speaking of singles, is the French pic sleeve of Head Held High /Train Round The Bond (heh!) worth much?

Olivier calls it a "scarce item!" can't see it on popsike...

I would say that VU singles are not easy to find any way. I searched for this at Ebay till ouitbided for it twice and then won it finally from ea freach sellers 4-5 years ago.
Do not remember having seen it after that, but not sure.

I tried this on the weekened
.
It is the only EU single I miss. I did not bid enough and went for Eur 48.50
IMO the frech ps is rarer than this german

[arjan]

Speaking of singles, is the French pic sleeve of Head Held High /Train Round The Bond (heh!) worth much?

You collectors never cease to surprise me, is the form more important than the content?

Speaking of content, what mix/edit is used for HHH? The standard album version or that shortened, "hotter" PSAS version?

[simonm]

You collectors never cease to surprise me, is the form more important than the content?

Speaking of content, what mix/edit is used for HHH? The standard album version or that shortened, "hotter" PSAS version?

- but singles are my favourite format! I DJ sometimes and play 45s only, usually including this one!

I think it's the regular Loaded mix, but mastered a bit brighter for the radio IIRC.

[Roofvogel26]

I don't have any of the very expensive items but I guess my most expensive one is the 1993 Die Halle recording on vinyl which is limited to 250 copies. I paid 75 euros for it...

[arjan]

I DJ sometimes and play 45s only, usually including this one!

Ah but that's quite different and something I understand! Actually, I quite like the idea of taking an original VU single and spinning it to an audience, which is what they are there for, to be heard! (Perhaps better not use the live 1993 single "Venus in Furs" ) But I think the notion of actually playing an original VU single would be horrifying to collectors, as I understand most of them collect items to just sit on a shelf and be pretty.

I have a WL/WH single (promo, natch) that I play on my stereo every so often, to get that feeling of putting on an original 60s VU product and hearing it as it was then (allowing for the crackle and pop). It's worth next-to-nothing as a collector's item anyway because of the surface noise and the crack in the first 4 or so millmetres of the disk's outside rim, which forces me to use quite some weight on the needle to prevent it from jumping.

I have to confess I collect items too, first editions of a writer I quite like, but these I read too, they're not just gathering dust.

[alfredovu]

as I understand most of them collect items to just sit on a shelf and be pretty.

I´m proud to be one of those, Yeah... why not?
Seems to me arjan you are mixing things a bit here ... yes I (we) collect -compulsively probably- but, in the other hand I know VU music in depth. Listen to them alomost daily. It is a different pleasure.
And if got dusty is just a question of clean them up a bit from time to time.

[arjan]

Seems to me arjan you are mixing things a bit here ... yes I (we) collect -compulsively probably- but, in the other hand I know VU music in depth. Listen to them alomost daily. It is a different pleasure.

Of course, I know that collectors collect for a reason, the main reason being love for the artist/music they're collecting and as such I was not knocking you lot It's just that having a shelf full of bananas would drive me... well... bananas!