Signed Records are Ivory
Someone is selling an Iron Maiden Piece of Mind album, (Here’s the link) signed by Adrian Smith, Steve Harris, Nicko McBrain and Dave Murray recently while on “Back Somewhere in Time Tour”, for a buy-it-now price of $250.00. I just don’t know why someone would give away their album, signed by the artists. I just don’t think I’d give mine away. It looks like, since he included the pictures of the actual signing events, he found the artists wandering the streets of New York or something. Piece of Mind was the first album featuring Nicko McBrain.
This must be one of those signings that someone did for the sole purpose of money. It makes me think of ivory. You know, ivory is illegal because it’s so cool, and because something has to die to get it. Well, it’s sort of the same thing, I mean if he were truly a fan, he wouldn’t be selling this, therefore he probably went and got the signatures for the sole purpose of making more money from a single album. That should make it worthless in the same vain as ivory. If I bought the album, not getting the signatures myself, or even knowing who did, not even a chain of “a friend of a friend”, I’m as evil as he is for selling it. It’s a lie as much as ivory is a lie.
I don’t know what I’d say if I saw an album, on someones wall adorned with signatures and asked “whoa, that’s totally awesome, how did you get all these signatures, and were they cool about it?” and the reply was – “I totally bought that on ebay”. At that point I’d realize that he basically funded the guerrilla-signature action of a non-fan bothering these cool artists. I imagine that the guys in Iron Maiden are pretty tired of getting accosted by fans wanting their favorite albums signed, then dudes like this run out and try to make money off their private time. I’m sure that the guys in Iron Maiden would say “hey we’re appreciative of our fans, and glad they still seek out our signatures, but record dealers making money off of our fans is not cool”.
We should, as music fans collectively, NOT buy signed albums that we didn’t solicit ourselves – or as a GIFT for a friend or family or someone we KNOW. Otherwise this should be banned as contraband material like ivory. We’re killing our favorite artists, burning their time that they should set aside for us, the fans, allowing these memorabilia dealers to make money from the true fans, and continue to bother people.
Nice post. I’ll definitely be back. All the best, Adam