I (27M) have been looking for the Nightwish live album "Showtime, Storytime" on vinyl for literal years. The album is the first release with their current (and IMO best) vocalist, Floor Jansen, and it is mixed brilliantly; the album sounds phenomenal. Given how fantastic vinyl sounds compared to other audio formats, I’ve wanted to add my favourite album to my collection for quite some time now.
Unfortunately, the album was released in 2013 and Nuclear Blast (label) only pressed 500 copies of the album on vinyl. As a result, and for the reasons above, it has become an incredibly rare and highly sought-after item, both to play and as a collector’s item. On the rare occasions a new copy pops up for sale online somewhere, it goes for at least $400-$500 (AUD). At time of writing, Discogs have eight copies for sale and the cheapest is just under $750 AUD.
This brings me to my conundrum. After years of fruitless searching in vinyl groups, Nightwish groups, and second-hand vinyl retailers, I finally got extremely lucky. I did another periodic search online expecting to find nothing and to my surprise, a listing came up on eBay for a sealed, new copy. To my IMMENSE surprise, it was only listed for $150 AUD.
I honestly assumed I had made a mistake and was looking at the wrong listing, but nope, it was clear.
"**Nightwish – Showtime, Storytime – 2 Disc Vinyl \*SEALED\***"[](https://www.ebay.com.au/sch/shamrok_collectables/m.html?item=389211560336&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l161210)
The photos matched, the shrinkwrap was still intact, and Nuclear Blast’s sticker was on the front. The seller had a 100% rating and had "collectibles" in their name, so I was pretty confident I’d found a live one!
I was freaking out in sheer delight and, being aware of how popular it was, immediately bought it using Afterpay (PSA: Use Afterpay responsibly!) Once it arrived, I was ecstatic to find it was indeed the real deal, and the only damage noticeable was a split in the shrinkwrap.
Here’s where my dilemma comes in – when I told my friend Adrian (28M) the story, he half-jokingly said "oh, so you ripped them off." I originally laughed it off but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. There’s no question the seller under-listed the album; only selling for $150 when they could have asked for at least triple that amount. On one hand, the onus is on them to do their due diligence and make sure they know how much their item can sell for, but on the other, I feel like I inadvertently ripped off somebody who didn’t know what they had.
I suppose I could have sent them a message telling them about the value of the album, but they might have even already known the value and just wanted to make a quick sale.
I’ve been wrestling with the question for a couple of days so now I leave my judgement up to the anuses of Reddit – AITA?
Nobody needs friends like Adrian.
Who cares?
NTA. They offered something for a price and you bought it.
Move on. Your friend Adrian sounds insufferable.
NTA – you paid the price they were asking for.
NTA.
Seller listed it at a price. You purchased it at the price they set.
It’s a cut and dried transaction.
People get far too hung up on perceived value and their fear of wringing the very highest return possible from any given sale.
NTA. Speaking as someone who sells a lot of things well below market value because I want them gone quickly more than I want full value, please don’t give this another thought.
NTA. They got $150 from somewhere, they’re content with it.
NTA. Seller asked a price, got the price, everyone wins.
Maybe they priced it well to sell it quickly?
NTA given they listed it at $150 they clearly knew it was worth actual money, they could have done some research on how much if they cared.
Price asked was price paid so NTA. Possibly a muppet for asking however. Your friend is either funny or not, your friend you choose. (Edit because l used two different judgments and set off the bot)
NTA
They sold it for how much they wanted to sell it for.
I just sold a ton of vintage Barbie’s on marketplace recently because I didn’t want to sort them or clean them I wanted them GONE. I don’t care what they were worth.
NTA. You paid the asking price. Ignore what Adrian said. It was a fair transaction.
They asked for $X, and you paid $X.
No bidding, negotiation, or other selling techniques were in play.
You did nothing wrong.
NTA.
NTA. You simply bought something at asking price. It’s not your fault that the seller wasn’t aware of how valuable it actually is. They probably hadn’t thought to research the prices of similar copies, or hadn’t checked in a while.
Let the seller beware in this case. I bought a signed Fleetwood Mac album about three weeks before they broke up for good and the seller later messaged me saying he wished he hadn’t sold it. Too bad! NTA.