Thought this would be a cool thread since a ton of us bought music this way. The dirty secret was buy the minimum, cancel and start over! Once you bought they had a catalog with a ton of stuff, some of their best stuff is in these ads. Bands like the Stones never did this, some bands said they never got money from these sales and some outlets disputed weather these counted towards chart sales. So much intrigue over the years. From Columbia House 1986
Did this with albums. Wrote Columbia House I was moving, with my new address. never heard from them at either address after that? Win Win for this guy
Even Superscope was doing it but they used a Sony TC-72 to entice you into their Spoken Word Collection from 1972. Superscope had their own tape duplication plants around the USA, maybe more world-wide.
An amusing article explaining why I was never tempted https://everyrecordtellsastory.com/...he-month-club-britannia-music-columbia-house/ In contrast I bought albums and cassettes in every one of the shops mentioned.
I forgot about some of the specifics and the rules were different between BMG and Columbia House. I used BMG, I think they were the easiest, and I'd cancel as soon as I got the full deal, then start it back up again when a new offer came out.
After posting that article I read all the comments made on it. The people who appreciated the services the most and who didn't abuse it were those living in the middle of nowhere in places like the Australian Outback.
Not as cheap as Columbia House but in 1990 you could get 4 cassettes and a free Cassette Player (Crown) I'm having to snip the screen here so have done the terms and conditions in higher resolution. CDs were still almost twice the price of cassettes and had they offered a free CD player with those they would have been overwhelmed.
A very late Columbia House from 1990 with just cassettes, they were all CD's at this point but they must have still been selling a ton of cassettes. I was still buying them into the 90's.
I've been slowly putting in audio media to Discogs and noticed a trend of higher prices for "club pressings." Wow, I never thought they would be worth more, I used to not buy them at thrifts because I thought they weren't as desireable. There's a spirited discussion over on Steve Hoffman about the subject. https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/when-did-record-club-pressings-become-more-desirable.718579/
