During a stroll through the Chelsea fire sales, a collector got his hands on something one can only dream about. And yet, that was exactly what happened to Warren Hill in 2002. He picked up an acetate record at a flea market in New York for the price of a coffee. He bought one of only two surviving copies of The Velvet Underground’s secret tape session. He eventually sold it for $25,200!He didn’t have a collector’s savvy eye. It was rather plain luck that landed him a piece of music history. When he bought the record alongside damaged LPs from estate sales and fire-damaged lots, he didn’t expect he was going to make a fortune out of it. He had no idea that the 1966 recording, known as the ‘Scepter Studios’ acetate, contained nine early versions of songs that would later appear on The Velvet Underground & Nico, the band’s influential 1967 debut album. Four years after finding it, Hill sold the acetate for $25,200, Rolling Stone reported.
A rare recording on acetate
The acetate was created in April 1966, before The Velvet Underground had signed with a record label. Andy Warhol had already established himself as the band’s manager. He knew The Velvet Underground’s music was unlikely to appeal to major labels, so he planned a secret recording session.Engineer Norman Dolph recorded the band at Scepter Studios after hours. He was reportedly paid with a painting from Warhol for making the recording. Warhol took the acetate directly to the gatekeepers. Columbia said no. Atlantic said no. Elektra politely declined. It took Verve Records to finally agree to distribute the band’s debut, which hit shelves in 1967 under the iconic banana sticker design.The Scepter recording remained buried, known only to those who had handled it in person. Warhol wanted to make the recording before the band signed to a label so record companies could not interfere with its music. After recording, Dolph sent the acetate to Columbia Records, Atlantic and Elektra. All of them said no. Verve Records eventually agreed to distribute the band’s debut album. So, for years, the Scepter recording remained buried, and nobody knew about it other than the team. Only two original copies of the acetate are known to survive. The other is owned by Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker.These acetates mean a lot in the music industry, though longevity is not their strongest suit. The material is unstable, so most collectors know that twenty to thirty spins can destroy the record. But, to everyone’s surprise, this particular disc somehow survived fire damage, decades of storage and the general degradation that time inflicts.
Finding it in a flea market
In 2002, record collector Warren Hill came across it at a street sale in New York City. The acetate record only cost him 75 cents. Four years later, he listed it on eBay and watched the bidding price climb past $150,000. But then the buyer backed out. He put the acetate up for auction again, this time with stricter requirements for potential buyers. The sale eventually settled at $25,200 with legitimate verification.The anonymous collector who bought it then chose a path most wouldn’t. He locked the acetate away and never played it. Not once. He knew how fragile the record was. He wasn’t ready to take any risks. “It wasn’t worth it to me to even handle the record, let alone drag a needle across it. This is not a conventional record that can be played thousands and thousands of times. It’s an acetate; it’s the equivalent of a CD you’d burn 10 years ago,” he told Rolling Stone. He treated it as a financial stake in music history. And he was indeed right to.In 2012, when the 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition of The Velvet Underground & Nico arrived, it included a remastered version of these sessions on the fourth disc, pulled from Maureen Tucker’s identical copy, the only other acetate known to exist. Record stores sold 5,000 limited copies during Record Store Day. Suddenly, millions could hear what Warhol had hidden. And the other copy was auctioned again, this time for even more.