Are you looking everywhere to find a rare CD?
Try some of the tips and techniques I used at my record store.

Tips For Finding Hard-To-Find CDs
It doesn't matter if the CD you want is still available for order through mainstream
retail outlets. A wide variety of internet sources offer titles that are no longer in print.
Be prepared to pay a little extra for an out-of-print CD. It's a supply & demand world.
If the supply is limited because the CD is no longer being manufactured, the price will
be determined by the demand for that CD. That doesn't mean you cannot find a bargain
if the disc you want is out of print, but if there is a demand for it and if the supply
available is limited, you can bet that the seller wants to make a profit.

The first challenge is finding what you want, so get as much information about the
title as you can find. Know the correct title and artist. Find out what year it was released
and by which label. Find the UPC or item number if possible.

Go with a mainstream internet search first. Try Amazon and EBAY. Chances are good that
the vast majority of titles will be listed with one or both of these sites and both are reliable
when it comes to delivering what you ordered.

If you didn't have any luck at Amazon or EBAY, try GEMM.com, which has a user interface
that is a little more awkward to navigate than EBAY or Amazon, but it can be worthwhile
to take the time to learn how to use it. GEMM has filtered searches, so you can eliminate
vinyl and cassettes from your search if you wish. GEMM is a worldwide music marketplace,
so many of the sellers will be from Europe and Russia. It seems to me that GEMM relies
more on an honor system within it's membership of sellers, whereas Amazon and EBAY
have stricter policies with regard to seller practices. Personally, I've ordered several
things from sellers on GEMM and all have been great transactions. That's been my
experience and does not guarantee you will have the same luck. Prices tend to be higher
than you might expect at GEMM, however keep in mind CD's usually retail much higher
outside the U.S. As with anything retail, buyer beware. I have noticed hard to find titles
offered on CD, but upon closer inspection of the details, the product you are buying is
actually the LP vinyl record and the seller is throwing in a CD-R of the LP as a bonus. If
that's what you want, step right up, but you will probably hear crackling, a hiss or static
on your CD-R since it was transferred from the LP. In a pinch, I have purchased a couple
of these for my personal collection and I ended up regretting it every time. Sooner or
later, somebody will re-issue that title as a commercial CD and it will sound a whole lot
better than the CD-R transferred from an LP. Another handy tool available at GEMM is
a want list. At EBAY, want lists expire too quickly to be of value to the buyer. At GEMM,
the want list hangs around until you close it out. With patience, this can pay off, as it has
for me.

If you have been unlucky with Amazon, EBAY and GEMM, try MusicStack.com. I think
this one also tends to be largely European and subject to many of the same comments
regarding GEMM sellers. Likewise, my past searches at MusicStack have turned up more
CD-R/LP than any other site, so again buyer beware. I still find it to be a valid site for
finding legitimate CD's though. For obvious reasons, it's not my first choice search, but
it comes in handy from time to time when the others have let me down.

OK so now you've tried all of these sites and you're still coming up empty handed.
It may sound ridiculously stupid, but make sure the CD you want actually exists.
For example, a title that was originally released on vinyl may not yet be available
as a CD. I ran into this when looking for CD issues of some old 78's that a customer
wanted me to find. The titles had original been released as 78's and had never
been re-issued as 331/3 LP. Consequently, they hadn't been re-issued as CD
either. There are a lot of companies out there specializing in re-issue titles. If the
title you want isn't on CD today, don't be discouraged as it might still turn up as
a re-issue someday.

A good resource for finding a database of commercial releases is allmusic.com. It's free
to sign up and this entitles you to all of the site features, plus you can sign up to receive
weekly e-mails detailing all of the new releases each week. This also includes the re-issue
titles. I open it, scan it for things I might want and delete it.

Don't forget the power of your favorite search engines such as Google, Yahoo and others.
You can type a search for the artist or title and see where it leads you. Sometimes you'll
get lucky. If you search for web pages with no luck, try doing an image search. If you locate
the album cover, click on that and see where it leads. You may be able to find some way
to purchase what you want or at least you might learn more information than you had
previously. I'm a firm believer that the more information you can collect, the closer you
are to actually finding what it is that you want.

When you locate artist / album information, if it happens to be from a fan site, blog or
message board, don't hesitate to send that person an e-mail to ask if they know where
you can find it. Who better to gain insight from than another fan? A lot of artists are on-line
themselves. When you go to an artist's official web page, you might be surprised to note
that the contact link on the home page is actually the mail box of the artist - send an e-mail
and ask where you can get the disc you want.

Artist web pages also often feature a merchandise page or a link to one that may offer the
CD you want. I found many CDs this way. Especially now, with the entire recording
industry in the crapper, artists have taken more control of this kind of thing themselves.
Again, the idea of searching the artist web page for the CD sounds simplistic, but often
overlooked. Here's an example: Y&T remasters were selling on Amazon and
EBAY for $25 per disc. The band's website offered them for around $15.

With all of these suggestions, it pays to be patient, yet strong willed. You may find a rare
disc that's higher than you are willing to pay. That's good news. Why? Because it legitimizes
your search and confirms that the item you want does exist and if it exists, there are bound to
be more than one out there. This happened to be the case when I learned that actress, Hyapatia
Lee, had recorded a rock CD, released independently. The only one I could find was $75 on
Amazon. Clearly that was too much money and if you ever heard the CD, you would instantly
agree that was too much, but it told me that what I was looking for indeed existed and continued,
methodical searching eventually led to finding it for $12.