So, is it?
How many people here still buy new boots? I gather that there's only a relatively few members here who actually share new boots, but are others still buying them? My own boot buying impulse comes and goes. In the 2010s, I'd buy most of the HMCs and a few others each year. When HMC ceased releasing new titles though, I mostly lost interest in new boots. I still bought 2 or 3 a year, but usually felt like a sucker for doing so. Since the Stowe tape came out over the summer though, I've been on a boot buying binge. Not sure how long this will last, mind you.
Does anyone have a handle on how many copies a boot producer might sell of a given title? I'm genuinely curious about this. Months ago, I bought a few no-label individually-numbered "limited edition" boots and was shocked at how low the numbers were. Take a look:
I bought the Stowe disc very soon after it came out. So the low number (134) didn't surprise me.
However, I bought the two "Pope" releases maybe 18 MONTHS after they came out. And the numbers (206 and 215) are still very low. This shocked me. The two-disc Pope set represented HUGE upgrades in the BBC material. And the three-disc set hadn't (to my knowledge) been shared at a public forum before I ended up uploading it here.
Back in the height of Yellow Dog & Vigotone releases, I gather that a good boot would sell many thousands of new copies. Now though, can the numbers really be just in the low hundreds?