Galactic Electronic Music Marketplace (GEMM) – Fuhgeddaboudit!

White Elephant Records’ relationship with GEMM has ended, along with another 800 record sellers around the world.  The GEMM site is no longer on the web.  It has just disappeared and there are no longer any references to GEMM in Wikipedia.  The CIA could not have done it better.

On 29 July 2015, WER received a Notice of Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Case from the United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of California.  Creditors are invited to a meeting with the Office of the US Trustee at 9:00 am in Suite 660, Hearing Room A, San Diego.  WER will not be there, but sellers living locally are proposing to attend and we can find out what may or may not transpire in respect of the case.  No-one is holding his or her breath on the outcome.

As far as we know GEMM owes in excess of $500,000 to its creditors with little visible or known assets if any.  At this stage sellers anticipate that losses cannot be redeemed.  GEMM has operated since 1994 and was one of the first on-line music shopping market places, but failed to keep up with other on-line markets, and appeared dated on its demise.  WER bought records from GEMM in 2002 and starting selling in 2014 with many happy outcomes.  Nevertheless it is a sad day, losses aside.  WER is now affiliated with MusicStack which operates in a far more positive and open business manner, and sales have been buoyant.  Customers, before GEMM’s demise, would spread their purchases to GEMM, Discogs and MusicStack as the major players, but in the future the same customers will use Discogs and Musicstack, unless of course a White Knight rescues GEMM, there is a miraculous recovery, turns around its losses, pays us all and then rides off into the sunset.  Dream On.