PLACES TO BUY CHRISTIAN CDs
(with focus on rare/out-of-print CDs)    


[most of the places that I used to buy from online are not in business anymore, or have ceased in their price competitiveness with The eBay and Amazon Z-shops, so that's all I'm going to list for now.]

 

The ultimate place to get the best deals on the internet.  But in order to do so, you must have two traits: patience and determination.  This is THE place to get a clue how much people are really willing to pay for most titles.  It's also a good place to see just how "rare" some CDs really are at any given time.  A lot of CD albums appear quite frequently and are really not rare at all, but just high in demand and always go for $15 to $20 when they do show up.  But you will see that many other rarities are over-hyped on the internet or other music collector's forums based on the average bids they go for on eBay.  On the other hand, a lot of people really enjoy throwing away money here, so don't jump to conclusions about a CD based on one auction.  The rarest CDs will consistently go for real high amounts, and believe me, there really aren't that many which do, with the exception of demo or super rare independent items that frequently go for insanely high amounts.  One other reality is that in order to reliably observe the final selling price of a certain title, you'll need to "survey" it to some degree.  Copy the auction number of several auctions of the same title over a period of a few weeks or months and see what they end up going for after the auctions conclude.  With all of the last minute/last second bidding that goes on, you never really know what an item is going to go for until after the auction ends, and you need to have the numbers copied and saved if you're not planning on monitoring each auction during the last few minutes, which would be a pretty big waste of time IMO.  Many times, an item with a low bid will double, triple or more in the last 10 seconds of the auction.  I have observed that many CDs will have a period where they enjoy high demand and high bids for several months or years up to a certain point, and then their average bids just drop off the chart after most of the people searching for it have got a copy.  I had an experience like this very recently where an item I wanted that I had previously not seen go for less than $100 the very few times it was listed over the last several years suddenly went for $50 (to me!) but that was with the minimum bid in the auction set at $50, which can be a major detractor to high bidders and the occasional bidding war.  And you've got to use common sense as well.  Be a little hesitant to make high bids for items sold by a seller with a feedback rating of less than 10, especially if they only hold auctions rarely and sporadically.  If a rarity that normally goes for real high amounts has a real low bid late in the auction, then it is probably a good idea to check the seller's feedback for recent complaints or read the auction very carefully to check for key words that you might have missed ("front insert missing", "CD skips", "promo copy", etc).  If the description doesn't have certain keywords, like "mint" or "scratchless", then assume a CD will have some scratches.  Even nice sounding phrases like "good condition" or "great shape" mean very little.  I had a seller recently tell me their interpretation of the word "pristine" was "used but usable" which is not what I have always interpreted that word to mean when being applied to CDs.  Also, if the seller is holding multiple auctions, unless you see phrases like "save on shipping by winning multiple items" or something like that, then assume you might have to pay the advertised shipping rate for each auction you win, and they will of course ship it all together and try to make a little money off shipping.  'Cause after all, it's all about money to many people.  The automatic eBay checkout system is set up to charge the base shipping rate (up to $3) for every auction won unless the seller prepares an invoice with a reduced shipping total.  So be sure that a multi-item shipping rate is stated in the auction, or that you confirm it with the seller before bidding on their items - I recommend not accepting more than $0.50 to $1 per item after the first - before making the assumption that winning multiple items means you'll save on shipping.  If you've got a lot of patience and a semi-tight pocket book, you can often get some oustanding deals on eBay.  But that's a really big IF for some.
 
   

 

Amazon.com has become the new home for price comparison for me and I imagine many other collectors as well.  For me, that benchmark used to be Walmart to a certain extent...for non-music-related things, that is.  But now, with the convenience of online shopping combined with the understaffing of cashiers at Walmart and many other stores not as popular as they used to be, Amazon.com has stepped up to fill that void, and very ably so.  I guess in the long run, this would be equivalent to the continued computerization of our lives and society, reducing the cost of commerce but also removing the need for people to perform certain tasks for us, which is not always the best thing if the customer support staff of these websites is not up to the job.  But Amazon seems to be doing a great job so far in my experience, and I don't expect that will change any time soon.  The individual seller Z-shops in Amazon are the best place I know of to see if a CD is likely to have any real "worth" on eBay or elsewhere that the market is accurately reflected.  If you see 10 copies of a CD in Amazon Z-shops that are listed for $0.01 (i.e. $4 after shipping), then the CD is probably too common, too unknown, or just not that sought after to give it any value over a few dollars if not sealed.  And with the abundance of record labels and growth of the industry over the last two decades, as well as the rise of digital downloading, even sealed CDs don't have much more value than used CDs anymore since a used CD in excellent condition can typically be ripped with no errors just as well as an unplayed CD.  As with any other place, beware of scammers and be sure that you're really buying what you think you are.  Use the feedback percentages to choose, and if you have an unsatisfactory experience, leave appropriate feedback so that future buyers can be alerted and not buy from sellers who may be listing things in their shops that they do not have or that are listed on other forums and where the order may get cancelled unexpectedly.  There's also many rare Christian titles on Amazon that are being advertised as available "on demand" through CD-R manufacturing.  So if you're looking for an original silver pressed CD copy, most OOP CDs are still OOP, and the only sellers who have them are the ones in the Z-shops that are offering used copies and the occasional new copy for exhorbitant prices.  This doesn't mean that the music on these CD-Rs isn't just as good or in some cases better (remastered, etc.) than a pressed CD, but if you've come to this page, you're probably like me and prefer to only pay more than $5 to $7 for a legitimate physical copy, silver pressed if available, of a music album.  If you're looking for a particuar CD version of an album, you'll need to expend the little "+" sign next to the list of available formats.  Sometimes the Amazon page for an original CD pressing can be difficult to find through a simple Amazon search.  You'll have to spend some time, but I think it's pretty easy to get the hang of once you've been doing it for a while.  BTW - If you like what you see and experience on Amazon and think you'd like to buy regularly from them, then Amazon Prime is essential for the best shopping experience there.  It can seem like a big bite out of your bank account or credit card at first, but once you see how much you can save and how nice it is to be able to get things regularly in 2 days with it, you probably won't be able to live without it.
 

There are still plentous online sources to find used and new Christian music, but I obviously don't want to give away all of my secrets. ;)  See the Email page for the link to an old page that I prepared in the early 2000s to answer a question I was sometimes asked - "Can you help me find ________?"  I'm a lot busier now than I used to be back then, but I tried to be as helpful as I could in those younger days whenever someone was bold enough to ask for my help.  I've been haunted by one particular instance where I helped someone find a Cindy Cruse "The Edge" CD on GEMM for $55.  What I wouldn't give to have that moment back now and snatch that up while giving a response of "Sorry, couldn't find it" to the emailer who asked about it.  But life goes on, and maybe with the resurgence of my sale and trade pages, I can eventually get a copy of Cindy Cruse's hyper rare first CD as well as some other cool rarities.  And if not, the internet and legal...or not so legal downloads can usually make up for the shortage of rare CD availability these CDs.

If you want to use a search engine to find info on an artist, or to try and locate stores or forums selling Christian music, Google is still one of the best, and the one that I use most of the time for music related searches.  However, I do not recommend Google for searches on current events or anything political.  One of the best substitutes I've found so far is Duck Duck Go, which, I know, also uses Google results but supposedly in a more secure private fashion.  Privacy is obviously a real double-edged sword issue these days.  Don't get me started...

On one other final note, I have begun in my practice of buying CDs over the last several years to try to buy new albums at full price more often than I used to in order to support the artists and the labels as well.  It's real easy to try to pick up a bunch of new releases cheaply on eBay, Amazon, or elsewhere, but every used CD that is sold when an album is still in print is one less new copy that might have been sold.  And if you're a fan of an artist's works, you may feel better trying to do your part to support them while they are still making music if you'd be happy to see them continue.  It's true that concerts are where the real money is at for most career musicians if they have a large fan base, but buying new copies also supports the labels or the store selling the album.  Three labels in particular - Retroactive Records [1] [2] [3] [4] - Roxx Records/Christian Metal Distro [1] [2] [3] [4] - and Girder Music [1] [2] [3] - have made it their mission to try to reissue as many OOP contemporary Christian releases as they can, often in limited runs, which typically reduces the average cost to acquire some sort of CD copy of the album.  Obviously, this can be overdone if something is reissued too frequently or if the reissue is a subpar crappy one.  But these labels have been putting out really quality reissues for a couple decades now, and I think it is a really good thing they're doing for those commendable CCM albums of the 70s and 80s which may have never had an official CD release before now or that may only have had a single limited CD reissue in the late 80s or early 90s.  One additional advantage of buying these reissues is that most of them have been remastered and are usually done by one of two particular individuals who really know what they're doing.   [Disclaimer - I am not being compensated in any way for what I have said about these labels, and am doing so entirely in the interest of spreading the word about their good work.]  I say in several places on my site that I think the music of the Jesus Movement and Christian rock in the 80s and early 90s has a lot more heart lyrically than a lot of what's being released now after the explosion of the Christian music industry and the urge that new artists have to water down lyrics to appeal to the largest market base.  I love to see this older stuff reissued and maybe introduced to a new generation.  So, if you can comfortably afford it, I encourage you to consider trying to limit your eBaying and scouring for the best price to things that are truly out-of-print and not currently easily available in silver pressed CD format from a label or the original artist if they have the copyright and are offering their works for direct purchase.

Happy hunting!
 
 

Last Updated
February 2021