I'm not really a Prince fan anymore and have not listened to him in ages ... so I've decided to part with the more rare pieces of my collection and spend the money on other records.

I know that The Rainbow Children on vinyl is pretty hard to find these days, and I just put it up for auction:

http://prince.org/msg/9/336314

But what other releases are among Prince's rarest?
Which ones fetched the highest bids on Ebay?

Thanks for your help.

www.popsike.com

Type in Prince.

djdaffy1227 said:

Thanks!

$565 for TRC isn't too bad .. and I think I may try the One Nite Alone piano CD that I still have lying around somewhere .. unopened. Why would anyone dish out for that one??

While not particularly rare, One Nite Alone piano cd regulary fetches up £100+ on Ebay Uk. Same with Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic(the remix one) that fetches anywhere between £50-80.
The War cd single fetches £100+ too.
A lot of the early cd singles are becomming rare and expensive.
I watch Ebay on a regular basis so i know that these prices are for real.
[Edited 5/14/10 10:29am]

MikeyB71 said:

Thanks, you just made my day because I got all of those releases ... the challenge will be to find them. Since I don't have a CD player at my house, I usually box them up.

MrSoulpower said:

Obviously, if you have unopened copies of whatever you are selling, the better it will be for you.

MikeyB71 said:

Figured. As a vinyl head, I've never understood the rarity appeal of CDs. But I won't complain.

Also, U Make My Sunshine/Supercute/The Work Part 1/She Loves Me 4 me/Last December/One Nite Alone Live e.p and the Days Of Wild cd singles can all fetch between £15-50.....YES £50.
I would wait until the excitement about the Euro gigs this summer is at its peak, then sell your collection. The more interest surrounding Prince, tour/album/whatever the better for sellers.

MikeyB71 said:

This strategy makes sense .. TRC is already up, but I guess that's a timeless classic ..

His Majesty's Pop life was an "offical" promo record released in 85 i think. A pal of mine has had a copy since then...he has it insured for £1500. I suspect it'll fetch about £4000 in a BIG auction. I think madhouse sold one a few years ago for £800+

DJTricky said:

I remember hearing about this one back in the '80s .. but unfortunately, I don't own it. It would be on Ebay immediately. Wasn't this a boot though?

DJTricky said:

I think £4000 is a little off the mark. I bought a mint copy for less than £250 just over 2 years ago

They 12" EP of "Hey Hannigan" fetched $895 at an auction once.

The aborted Swell Tree Lens project was finally leaked in perfect CD quality, and one buyer spent $1250 on it.

boscho said:

Is that the one with the cover picture of a Purple Rain era Prince holding a rose?

ernestsewell said:

there were only 14 known copies of hey hannigan in existance, i have 2 sealed copies and 1 copied that has been opened and played. the other copies remain in the hands of a select few ampers

swell tree lens wasn't as good as the various remixes of hey hannigan, but i do have an open copy that came from a certain amper

all that takes me right back to the days before p2p and windows 98, when prince was unblemished by religion

MrSoulpower said:

no, the cover is



i think it was limited to 500 copies

other rarities are the paisley park 4 track misspressed uk 12", the if i love u 2nite misspressed promo by mica paris with the prince demo on the b side, the pope/pink cashmere promo only uk remix 12", face down unlrealeased promo 12" and cd single, the hits 1 cd promo, the royal jewels 1 cd promo hits compilation and vhs, the lovesexy era promo compilation hits tape, the parade era tape of hits plus the vhs, goldnigga both 15 track original and 14 track replacement cds, the sexy dancer uk only extended 12", the let's work extended 12", those are a few of the sought after rare releases. the emancipation 1 cd promo was pretty limited and the days o wild montreal original slim case unedited cd that was given away at paisley was limited to only 2000 copies, and then you have the promo only tapes given away at paisley, stacks of much rarer stuff than previously mentioned

unique said:

Now, WHAT'S "Hey Hannigan" and "Swell Tree Lens" ? ... I'm absolutely clue-less on these, are these Prince-related projects at all?

psyche2 said:

http://prince.org/msg/7/315254

Oh boy!...

unique said:

I believe it is the corrected 3 track 12" that is rarer. I have both, so I may be wrong.

Also these four beauties are pretty rare:

MrSoulpower said:

Wait.....hold up.....$565 for TRC on vinyl?
I have a sealed copy.

"51 hours" has to be the rarest, besides an original Black Album CD. Perhaps the "Slave/New World" cassette... but there were 500 of those, I think "51 hours" was fewer than a dozen.

But, as stated earlier, there's the hundreds of one-off cds he's used for personal use. Howard Stern had the "All Along the Watchtower/Best of You" on CD, and that LA dj had "Turn Me Loose"... so those exist somewhere.

"Hey Hannigan" is impossible to find - I have a Real Audio clip of it, I play it in a few loops to get me to 2 minutes or so, but I've never heard the whole thing or met anyone who has it.

Side question (new thread maybe) - is the "clear cd" Man O' War promo rare? I have a couple. It has a "research hook" on it... does any program manager after 1975 really listen to research hooks?

billymeade said:

slave/new world was the main one i was thinking off tapewise, there are supposed to be about 50 copies of 51 hours. the cd's you mention weren't left with the dj's, prince's people turned up with the discs, let them play it on air and took them back so they couldn't copy them

hey hannigan was only circulated amongst a tight group of people. cosmic day was another of those tracks that reached legendary status, but hey hannigan blows cosmic day out of the water, particularly some of the remixes. it's one of prince's best unreleased tracks

unique said:

I was sure that this was a complete FAKE, to rudedog's disgust. It is legendary but only for making fans think it was real. I think it used to appear on AMP back in 1999/2000 sort of time. Strangely it does appear as a track on Planet Earth tracklist over at : http://randhaem.multiply....ews/item/3 but it's gotta be there as a joke.

I've not heard the track though, so perhaps that dent's my credabilitiy on the validity of the track, but doing a simple google search of +prince "hey hannigan" shows you where i gathered most of my knowledge of the subject.

>

Is the Cd single of "Chelsea Rodgers" worth anything?

DJTricky said:

I though the My Name Was Prince Japan promo wa meant to be the rarest

Here it is for $1,506.28

http://eil.com/shop/morei...gid=204021

DJTricky said:

LMAO, "Hey Hannigan" was done by this total ahole named Lou back in the mid-90's. It's him, grunting "Hey...uhh!...Hey Hannigan!" to the beat of a Casio keyboard. He tried to pass it off as a Prince track, so that chicks would like him. It's pretty funny, though.

Lou lives on in infamy!

billymeade said:

http://prince.org/msg/7/322759