If you're reading this, then you're probably trying to find a rare Christian music album, and desired my help in doing so.  While I used to try and help out as often as I could with favors like this, the number of requests I have gotten per month has risen to the point that it makes more sense for me to simply create a page detailing what I would do when asked to search for something rare, and let you who really want the album do the work.  If you saw my Exhaustive Christian Music Discography listing and thought that was a list of everything I own (it's not), then I encourage you to read the index page a little more carefully to see what I am and what I am not.  (I'm not a distributor of Christian music, I don't have many special connections for finding older Christian music, I don't know most of the artists in my collection personally, or have secret email addresses that aren't easily available on the internet, etc., etc.)  I usually try to be a nice guy, and I don't like leaving emails unanswered, but the fact of the matter is I'm a pretty busy guy too.  Like most Americans, I don't have a lot of spare time to devote to doing favors for people I've never met, unless of course it's to do something really important like share the Gospel.  Oftentimes, most of the rare Christian albums I'm asked to help find are pretty easy to find on the internet, usually for high prices, though.  But the problem is that many people just don't know how to search the internet effectively.  That is the purpose of this page.

If you haven't seen it already, there's a page on my site listing several of my favorite sources to search for rare music - Places To Buy Christian CDs.  Actually, my primary source for rare music is now eBay, and I rarely buy from the other sources on that page any more.  I used to set my spending limit for a rare CD at $25, but nowadays, there's only a couple handfuls of CDs I'd be willing to go that high for.  In my earlier collecting years - back when my collection was a lot smaller, when collecting the Christian rock classics was a lot more exciting than it is now, and before I discovered eBay - I would dole out $20 to $25 for a rare CD much more frequently than I do now.  The next-to-last link on the page mentioned above is a site with a quite exhaustive encyclopedia of links to online music stores by a true online-music-shopping junkie.  Luckily, he also is a Believer, and has a separate section for links of online Christian music stores.  The last time I checked his site, though, it looks like it hasn't been updated in a few years, so many of those links might be dead or old.

Whenever I was given an email request to search for a rare album, I would quickly conduct 3 searches which were my guide for a quick idea of just how rare the album was.

1.) Google Search - www.google.com
2.) GEMM Search - www.gemm.com
3.) eBay searches - general music search, all categories search

If I could get results from all 3 searches, then the album probably isn't very rare.  But if I got only one result, or none at all, then my assumption was that the album was probably pretty rare and that the best bet would be to search regularly for it on eBay.  But the bottom line is that there are still a lot of online music stores which haven't registered with Google yet.  So if the album isn't hyper-rare with less than a thousand or two copies sold, then it can probably be found somewhere on the internet.  Even the most elusive of Christian albums will typically appear on eBay at least once or twice a year.  So the search all depends on two factors - (1) the amount of time and (2) the amount of money you're willing to spend to obtain the album.  If you don't want to spend a lot of time looking for the best deal, but are willing to spend $50+ for a rare LP or $100+ for a rare CD, then you'd probably save the most time just searching regularly on eBay, and then bidding your maximum bid when a copy in acceptable condition comes along, or just going to a collectors online store like Radrockers or Rock Solid Music which have a lot of rarities at average to high prices.  But if you're trying to budget your money, or have a finite music budget, then you're highly encouraged by this collector to take some time and discover just how much you can save on out-of-print music by searching and shopping around on the internet.
 

SEARCH EXAMPLE
In describing my 3 typical quick searches, I will use this example of an email I received shortly before posting this page.  This is a good example because in the six months prior to developing this page, I must have gotten at least 3 to 5 requests from different people asking for help finding Mary McKee albums.
 
 

Here's the first part of my response to this email - I'll call it the "Introduction" to the searches I demonstrated.  Please note that this reply to the above email was sent around Christmas of 2003, so it may not reflect the current status of my Mary McKee discography listing.
 
 

1. GOOGLE
Google is the best search engine I have found, but that's not saying much.  I found out how much better Google was than the competition several years ago and have been using it ever since.  It's true that you won't find everything on Google, and I'm not sure how it compares to modern search engines of the past few years which I've never tried.  (If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)  But most of the online Christian stores that I buy from regularly have registered with Google.  So if you can't find any information in Google, then it's probably safe to assume that the album is a bit obscure at the very least.  There are bad ways and good ways to search in Google.  Like any other search engine, you have to be aware how often the words and word combinations are likely to appear in multiple internet documents.  The best tool to utilitze in Google is quotation marks, which will direct your searches to only documents that contain the exact phrase within quotation marks.  Sometimes you'll get close but not exact matches.  But typically, the first page or two of links will always be the most relevant to your search and will have an exact match of the phrase or word combination in quotes.  If you want to look for a specific format, then the "smarter" you are with your searches, the better results you'll get.  Here's an example of some good searches for our example.
 
 

2. GEMM (Global Electronic Music Market)
GEMM is usually my last resort as far as actually buying anything.  Ninety-five percent of all prices in GEMM are an absolute joke compared to the average going price on eBay or what you could find elsewhere on the internet.  But this is one of largest single forums for selling music, so if you're looking for something pretty rare, then chances are good that you'll be able to find it here.  Again, the questions are how much you're willing to pay and how badly you want your rare album NOW.  If you find something you're interested in buying, then the best thing to do first is check the sellers contact information and see if they have a web site listed.  When you purchase through the GEMM system, then GEMM imposes an extra fee (3 to 15%) on each item.  This fee is most likely passed down to you either in the form of higher prices from the seller, or sometimes the seller will set up his GEMM account so that the fee is added to the final total of your order.  Oftentimes, sellers will be using GEMM simply as a way to help people find their online store where you might be able to avoid the GEMM fee by ordering through the online store or direct from the seller.  If the seller, however, doesn't have an online store or website, and is selling their items only through the GEMM system, then you need to be sure to always order with a credit card.  (For me, this is a general common sense rule for ordering anything off of the internet.)  GEMM has a feedback system just like eBay, so checking a sellers feedback can give you an idea what to expect.  There are many sellers who are either frauds or they advertise a lot of OOP items they think they can find through their various connections.  For the really rare OOP items, though, probably less than 1/10 of 1% of all items ordered through GEMM sellers are eventually "found".  So don't be expecting a lot.  Most of my experiences attempting to order items through GEMM have been negative.  I once ordered a couple supposedly new rare CDs for good prices from a GEMM seller.  Then I thought the order was cancelled because I hadn't received anything for a few months.  Finally, about 5 months after the original order, I got one of the items in the mail but it was a cutout.  So I had to return it (at my cost, obviously) and then dispute the charge to my credit card after it wasn't refunded a few weeks after I sent the item back.  Another time when I ordered a not-so-rare item through GEMM, my credit card was charged shortly thereafter, but I never received anything.  Since the total charge was less than $15, I didn't bother disputing and just considered it a "stupid tax" for trying to get a bargain through GEMM again.  Be particularly wary about ordering from international (outside the U.S.) sellers as the items you receive will be more expensive to return.  I have also found most of the larger international sellers to be quite unreliable.  Again, their feedback will probably be a good indicator of what to expect.

Basically to sum things up, I use GEMM primarily as a rare music search tool.  If you can find 4 to 5 listings of an album, then it's probably not that rare, and you don't need to buy through GEMM.  If you can't find the album through a search engine, but you can find a copy or two in GEMM, then this is an option for you depending on how badly you want the album right now.  If you can't find the album through a search engine or in GEMM, then regularly searching on eBay is the only other reliable option I can suggest, unless you want to spend several hours searching other online stores (see the 'Music Buying Freak' link on my Places To Buy page).  I strongly discourage buying through GEMM for all except the rarest items which very seldom appear on eBay or online stores, unless you know that the seller is a trusted reliable source.  There is one Christian music collector - Greg Clark (seller GRGRCDS) - who to my knowledge has always used GEMM as his only store, and I have had a couple successful transactions through him.  His prices for the rarer items are fairly high, but he's a decent source for rare Christian LPs in GEMM, and has my recommendation as a reliable seller. (I also may eventually start listing some sale items I've accumulated in the past couple years on GEMM this year.  If I do, I'll mention it on this page.)
 
 

3. eBay
First, read my little blurb about eBay on my Places To Buy page.

A FEW ADDITIONAL POINTERS - The same "smart search" tips for Google apply for eBay.  Use quotes and intelligent search phrases so that you can limit your results to a workable list to scan through.  You can also limit your search to the Christian music categories, though this won't always get the results you want since there are a ton of Christian music items sold in the secular music categories by sellers who don't know better (or who think they can get a better bid in the secular music categories).  My recommendation is to either limit your search to the general overall music category or the general "all categories" search.  I say this because there have been times that I have searched only in the music category and didn't get some results that I did get using the exact same search input in an "all categories" search.  You can also search by title only or in the entire auction add text.  Obviously searching in the auction add text will be more likely to yield more results, and you may also find several auctions for lots/groups of LPs or CDs in which your prized title may be buried in the list somewhere.  You can save your searches as bookmarks.  eBay rarely, if ever, changes things so that the bookmark won't work later on.  I have all of my regular eBay searches saved as bookmarks and I've never had one go bad on me in the 5+ years I've been doing this.  It's also effective to save 2 or 3 different eBay searches for the same item or artist, and check them all regularly.  You probably don't need to check more than once a week, and certainly not more than twice a week.  The shortest eBay auction length is 3 days, but it's not more expensive to list for 7 days, so the only reason a smart seller would want to list for less than 7 days is if he was hard up for money ASAP.  This probably won't happen for most auctions of real rare Christian music items.  Also, for most Christian music searches, it would be easier and safer just to search for the artist's name rather than trying to get only results with the album name.  If there's a word or two "mispelled" in the auction title or in the auction add, then you may not get that one listed in your search results if you are only searching for the album title.

WARNING - Searching on eBay for rare stuff can be very addictive and ultimately very time consuming too.  This is THE PLACE to get the best deals on rare and OOP music items, period!  But it's also a great place to get good deals on books and just about any other common items except real estate and cars.  There are several other online auction forums - Yahoo Auctions, etc. - but none of them are even 1/50 the size of eBay.  Just try them after you have been using eBay a few months and see the difference!  I would highly recommend upgrading to at least a DSL or comparable speed internet connection if you find yourself getting hooked on searching eBay for more than just rare Christian music.  Trust me - you WILL need a better internet connection than dial-up.  My weekly music eBay searches will usually take me 2 1/2 to 4 hours to complete on the fiber optic connection at my place of employment.  But it would take me at least twice as long to do the same using the cruddy dial-up connection at my apt.  I've only tried that a few times, and when I did, I usually ended up limiting my searches to only the real rare items.
 
 

The Bottom Line
If you're only looking for one or two rare items, and you're willing to shell out some big bucks to get them so that you can save the time you might have to spend finding them at good prices, then you probably don't need to do more than search regularly on eBay.  When an excellent to mint copy of your item emerges, place your maximum bid and be done with it.  If the album's not real sought-after, then you'll probably get it the first or second time if you enter a max. bid of $50+ for LPs or $100+ for CDs.  Depending on how much money you make, and if you are paid overtime, it would probably make a little more sense to spend a few extra hours each week working so that you can spend less time searching and more time earning to buy the higher-priced easier-to-find items.  But if you're like me, and you get a thrill out of knowing you got a good deal on your rarities, and could then save the rest of your hard earned money for other financial goals (financial independence, retirement, increased annual charity donations, more cheap rarities, etc.), then you'll need to spend some time learning how to use the internet effectively to find what you're looking for.  The purpose of this page has been to help you start on that exciting journey, and now the rest is up to you.  But please be aware that the same WARNING about the addictiveness of eBay also applies to the internet in general.  If you have a problem controlling the amount of time you spend on the internet in one sitting, then please try to get your priorities straight, and put the important things in life (i.e. God and family) FIRST on your daily list of to-do's before starting up your internet activities.  And yes - this goes DOUBLE for me!!!