Vinyl resurgence has also brought a resurgence in prices of rare records. Many albums are on the list, like The Beatles’ “Butcher Album”, or the still unbeaten only copy of Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, bought by now jailed Martin Shkreli back in 2015.
Now, CBSN Minnesota reports that one of the two known existing copies of the withdrawn release of the 1963 Bob Dylan album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan has been located in Grand Prairie, Texas, a place somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth.
The proud owner is one David Eckstrom, and the album is considered one of the rarest around.
According to the owner, “there’s only two known copies and I’m the proud owner of the first one. “They insured it for $100,000. I’ve been offered as high as $80,000 for it, but I value it more than that.” He originally purchased the album in the early ’90s for about $12,000.
Eckstrom’s current valuation is quite a bit higher than the one listed on the specialist site Rare Records, which equates its price at $35,000.
As the site notes, the album consisted mostly of self-written material, including the now-classics “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” It adds, the rarity lies in the fact that “at Dylan’s request, four songs were withdrawn from the album shortly before release and replaced with new ones.”
The intended original album contained the songs: “Rocks and Gravel”, “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”, “Gamblin’ Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand”, and “Talkin’ John Birch Blues.” These songs were replaced with: “Girl From the North Country”, “Masters of War”, “Bob Dylan’s Dream”, and “Talkin’ World War III Blues.”
Even though the original version of the album was ready for release, new stampers were manufactured with the new songs, and the album shipped to stores on the scheduled day of release with the second set of songs. It appears, however, that at some point during the early days of manufacturing the album, a few copies were accidentally pressed using the stampers for the original intended version of the album.
