The Record Store Years 22) The Golden Age of Collectible Records Pt. 2: Cut-Outs

A memoir of 25 years (1975-2000) spent working in the world of records & music in Seattle, with occasional side trips into writings on Led Zeppelin and other adventures from my musical life.

To cut their losses and realize at least some return on the unsold remaining copies of LPs deemed unsellable, the labels designated them as ‘cut-outs.’ They would physically mark the album jackets by cutting off a corner or punching a hole through them – very similar to the way they marked some promos – and then they would sell the product to wholesale distributors at a deep discount with the understanding that the sale was final, i.e. no returns would be taken for credit from the labels, as would be possible with still in-print titles.

In the early ‘70s pretty much every record store had a separate ‘cut-out bin’ where this discounted product was offered to the consumer at various prices as low as .49 or .99 cents and generally no higher than $2.99. For example, a band like The Lovin’ Spoonful, who had huge hits like “Daydream” and “Do You Believe In Magic” in the mid-60s, were in decline by the latter part of the decade. Their 1967 Kama Sutra album Everything’s Playing was a worthy effort but it had no hit single and it didn’t sell well, so consequently it ended up being deleted from the label’s catalog and relegated to the cut-out bins within a year or two of its release. The band released one more album in 1968 before breaking up, and it almost instantly became a cut-out, while the group’s leader John Sebastian moved on to solo stardom on a new label (Reprise), and immortalization in the film Woodstock.

Even my coveted Introducing the Beatles album on Vee-Jay ended up in the cut-out bins around that time (though many of these were pirated copies, more on that later), since the material on it had all been released on Capitol by then and Vee-Jay as a small independent label (one of the first African-American-owned labels, incidentally) had been snowed under by the juggernaut of the majors and gone out of business due to internal problems.

Above: A few of the early 1970s cut-out ‘cheapos’ that became high-value collectibles in the late ‘70s and have continued to appreciate in value today.

In their rush to maximize profits the labels deleted hundreds of titles every year, creating a stream of revenue for the companies that distributed cut-outs and a goldmine of opportunities for those of us who collected records. As a young collector in my pre-Cellophane Square days I often took advantage of the cut-out bins, picking up the aforementioned Lovin’ Spoonful album, which I loved, as well as early LPs by The Who, The Kinks, and many other great bands and artists.

Above: The path from new release to cut-out for one of the Kinks best (but less successful) albums, originally released in October 1966:

• The first (large) sticker hypes a ‘major label bonanza’ sale with a price likely in the $2.99 - $3.99 range from the late ‘60s.

• This is covered by a ‘fantastic savings’ sticker for the 87¢ cut-out price circa early 1970s (note hole punched through the cover upper left).

• And finally, a modern tag for the 2024 collectible price of $100.00, not unreasonable for an original mono issue of this LP in VG or better condition.

  (Image courtesy of Hi Voltage Records, Tacoma WA https://hivoltagerecords.com )

What the labels unwittingly created by deleting many of these titles was collector’s items, though it took them at least a decade to figure this out and start cashing in (again) by re-releasing them. Since rock ‘n’ roll (or more accurately, rock) did in fact come to be recognized as a worthy art form, and many artists who released albums in the ‘60s ended up having long and profitable careers in the subsequent decades, the demand for some of these deleted titles increased as their supply diminished, and they eventually vanished from the racks of conventional record stores.

Albums by many of the artists who are today seen as the most influential and respected pioneers of rock music could be found in cut-out bins for a buck or two in the early ‘70s. The Yardbirds, The Velvet Underground, The Doors, Big Star, The Flying Burrito Brothers and The Byrds, Fairport Convention, The Who and The Kinks, The Zombies, and many, many more were all there.

In addition, there were many albums by complete unknowns who later became famous in different bands or configurations – for example the pre-Cheap Trick band Fuse, and Debbie Harry’s pre-Blondie group The Wind In The Willows – that could be picked up for a few pennies in that era, if one had the prescience to grab ‘em before they sold out. Once they were gone from the cutout bins, they were gone, and that’s when they became collectibles and their value started to go up again, and far eclipsed what they were sold for when first released and marketed by record companies hoping for their next big hit.

NEXT: The Golden Age of Collectible Records Pt. 3: Beatles, Yardbirds, Zeppelin