Try to understand the music scene from 1955-1990, Records were produced in huge quantities for distribution throughout the world. A gold or platinum record sold in the millions, secondary hits sold in the 100's of thousands. Also many extras were produced as part of the payolla. That was "unrecorded" money made to pay off the advertising & DJ's on the take. Imagine if everone pulled out the 'ol basement records and put them on ebay all at once. The market would surely be dead. Records were not thrown away by the owners like comic books and baseball cards were. They were boxed and stored.

  Many forms of rarity include promotional or "advance copy" sometimes marked as DJ, or Demo on the record label. Are these rare?  How many stars are in the sky? The Empire State Building is for sale.  Here's my take on the "?RARE?" promo's.  A group has a tune that sounds good. The group records a record. A record company executive like's the tune. The executive orders advance copies to send to clients. The general order is appx 40,000... these are drop shipped throughout the executive's cliental. The record flops. Minimum department store orders come in. Result: dead demo, ie; a record that exist in promotional form only. Often the maker would package the leftovers and sell them on the cheap to a few select stores.

 Not that the music was bad or the group didn't try hard enough, prime reasons are the executive couldn't come to terms with a manager on revenue & kick backs. Happened all the time in the late 50's that's why you'll see the same tune on two or more labels. Payola wasn't right with one company so switch to another! Promo's that have value would be the ones that became hits.

Genuine rarity's are under-produced records on the original label that gained popularity some time after the records production. This happened all the time. A star is born when they produce a hit, all of a sudden the groups previous records are in demand. Result, Re-issue! Now you know why so many of the same tunes are on so many different labels. The first recordings are the rarest.  Another reason is actual underproduction without reissue. A prime example would be EP's or extended play 7" records. It's not totally understood why these were produced in limited quantity but, I'll bet it has something to do with money. 4 songs for the price of one? No money there, why make them? Quick buck for a second issue, that's why. ...........It's all about money, "then & now"

Buying Promotional's? Don't buy the "It's rare" rant & rave by the seller. If it's something you'd like to hear then buy it. Get youself a guide book and learn to use it. You will find many true promotional records are listed.

My example of "rare"would be any pre-1970 well know artist's record that is in true MINT condition. Free of ink or stickers, with it's original sleeve & on the original label. Finding these is very hard to do. A record in the rare "mint" condition are generally worth double the nr-mt value.