Is boot buying a thing of the past?

[20YearsAgo]

On another thread, FileUnderT asked,

Is buying bootleg albums now a thing of the past?

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:

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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?

[Loplop]

I think more people would buy them (myself included) if places didn't close up shop all the time.
I bought some from Discogs when you could get them there, but that's not allowed anymore.
Discjapan closed up shop just when I wanted to get back into them.
As someone one who loves bootlegs, I don't even know where to turn to get them right now.

[cliftdean74]

I still buy them but selectively. A lot of the boots now is material from forums like this so it’s getting a bit pointless. I have all the HMC discs which was easy starting from when they were first released. If I had to play catch up I probably wouldn’t have bothered. A lot of sources to buy them from closed up.

[Golem]

I buy them, but its more of a collectors item thing, I already have all the content

The the internet has been great in giving us all the content we could ever want, and providing a way for us to archive everything so nothing gets lost, however the death of buying bootlegs does also mean the death of bootleg labels having money to buy new material for us, which is a shame

[Mr Bump]

Well I see no shortage of new boots when I go to record fairs, but I'm talking vinyl, not CD. Typically they are limited aditions and from time to time I'll buy one. Recently got one called Psychedelic Beatles, and a TMOQ LP, Raw Master remix of Abbey Road in an unusual sleeve,

[Lord Reith]

Last boots I bought was in 2000: Turn Me On Dead Man and Another Sessions Plus. Nice booklets and nice slipcases and mixes that were totally new to me.

I do remember I was on my way home and was looking at TMODM and realised that it had two copies of Disc 2. No disc 1. I went back to the shop and he found its twin: a TMODM with two copies of Disc 1.

Prior to that I had stopped buying boots after the Great Dane bbc ep when Live At the BBC and Anthology came out. I thought then "That's it, this'll kill off all the boots". Ha ha.

In 2005 I started to buy them from another fan. I think it was five bucks for a cd and eight for a dvd. I bought huge armfulls of them and that in fact was the first time I had ever seen Beatleg dvds. He had an incredibly long list with all the latest titles and I must have done that for about five years. I could get ten cdrs from that guy for the price of one "real" Beatleg cd. If I wanted the cover (which was not often, given that they are usually awful) I could get my printer friend to do it.

I like the return of vinyl Beatlegs. Haven't ever bought one though.

[zaval80]

Low numbers - this just means that the era of mass production is in the past.

[MrP]

music buying is a thing of the past, so it stands to reason boot buying is also

[MP3J]

i only buy vinyl boots, unless they're really cheap cd's. i just love records

[Maccawings]

Nope, I still buy quite a few