Any 7 Records or Tapes — 1¢

For 71 years, Columbia House's "penny record" pitch hid one of the most fined negative-option billing schemes in retail history. It just shut down for good — right as vinyl posts its best year since 1983.

"Any 7 records or tapes — 1¢." That was the actual pitch, printed in bold across magazine spreads for decades: take home a stack of albums for a penny, agree to buy seven more "at regular Club prices" over the next three years, and Columbia House would ship whatever it decided you should hear next unless you mailed back a card saying no — every month, for years. Miss the deadline once and the "selection of the month" showed up at full price whether you wanted it or not. That's not a rewards program, it's negative-option billing, and in 2009 the FTC fined Columbia House and its rivals a combined $1 million for exactly that.

It worked anyway, spectacularly, for 71 years: reach kids in towns with no record store, hook them on a bad deal wrapped in a good one, count on inertia to cover the difference. Columbia House announced this week it's finally done, for real this time — no new orders accepted after September 15. The music side of the business had actually died back in 2008; what's closing now is the DVD-club shell that outlived it by nearly two decades.

The timing is the funny part. Vinyl just posted over $1 billion in U.S. sales in 2025, its best year since 1983, nineteen years of growth running. The closest thing to an honest version of the Columbia House model is already up and running: Jack White's Third Man Records Vault, a real quarterly subscription, real curation, no fine print to hide. Same basic idea. Nobody has to trick you into it this time.

Found via Ultimate Classic Rock.