Collecting Vinyl Records

Many years ago in my youth I ran a mobile disco with my brother called pendulum, so named because the music we play reflect the various decades from the 1960's up to the present time then which was the early 1980's.

I first started collecting vinyl records when I was at my secondary school. Every day my mum would give me money for my school dinners and instead of using it for my dinner I would save some of it towards buying a record at the end of the week. I was never really into buying albums very much so I bought mostly 45's, for the younger generation out there that is a small vinyl record about 7 to 10ins across which had a song on each side of it.

Now the very first single(45) that I bought was back in 1974 and it was Down, Down by Status Quo and a remember going into the record shop and picking it off the shelf where they had the top 20 singles and taking it over to the counter and paying the person behind the counter and thinking how great it was that I bought this record and it was all mine. I was so delighted with my purchase that I kept on saving up my school dinner money and buying more records and that is how I began.

By the time I had left school in 1976 my collection of vinyl records must of grown to about 200 to 300 singles. I really loved music and my music taste tended to favour the music from the 1950's and 60's but I would still collect the up to date music of the seventies and eighties.

My first job after leaving school was as a trainee chef and when I got my first ever pay packet of 50 GBP I though I was rich! Now this is where my passion for collecting vinyl records really started to speed up because for the first time in my life I had some money to spend that was all mine.

I became a regular at my local record store and the guy would behind the counter would keep white label records or promo discs, this are songs that have been recorded on to vinyl but had not yet been release by a record company hence the white label, back so that I would be the first to hear them. Some of them I bought and still have, most of them though never really made it in the record charts.

Whenever I went out anywhere I was always on the look out for record shops. One day I came across a record shop called The Jive Dive this to me was a fantastic discovery. The guy who ran this shop went around peoples houses buying up their old vinyl records and then he offered them for sale in his shop. This became almost a weekly trip for me to go into his record shop and buy some great vinyls from the 50's and 60's most of which were on original record labels and the majority are still in my record collection to this day.

Now my favourite artist of all time is the one and only king of rock and roll Elvis Presley. I have a collection of over 100 of his singles(45's) on vinyl some are imports, for those of you who do not know an import is a record that has been released in another country under a different record number or label. Some of the Elvis vinyls I have are on the original RCA, english label, others are on the original RCA, american label. I would love to have gotten hold of some of his records on the Sun record label, american, this was his first ever record label and vinyls on this label are becoming rare.

There are of course many other recording artists that I like listening to. There were of course lots of british recording artists like The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Tom Jones, The Hollies and many, many more in fact if I were to list all of the artists that I have in my vinyl collection then this squidoo lens would be full of just names. I hope to do other squidoo lens specialising on certain areas.

In my collection I also have a small amount of 78's, for those of you who are reading this and thinking what the hell is a 78 these were the pre 45 discs. They were normally made of bakerlite, so were very fragile, and they were much bigger than a 45 vinyl. My wife says that I should sell my collection as it is just gathering dust so if anyone out there is interested then just contact me through squidoo.

My love of music remains the same to this day but I no longer, and have not done for some 20 years, collect vinyl records. For one thing I have a family to look after and all my time and money goes into that. Also with the invention of CD's my record player has been banished to the attic out of sight and my kids saying what's a vinyl dad? I had to move my vinyl records to the attic with the record player so the kids didn't try insert them into the CD player.

Since moving to Spain as much I would like to collect vinyl records circumstances dictate otherwise. Now all my efforts go towards building a website, nothing to do with records, where my wife and I sell out cretive crafts at www.justbyjulie.com

Thank you for reading this lens I hope that you have enjoyed it enough to leave a comment.

Rare Record Price Guide 2010 (Record Collector Magazine)

If you are a vinyl record buff then this book is essential for you. I use it all the time. This is aim at the UK market as all the prices are in UK Pounds.

For more information click on the link above.

Goldmine Record Album Price Guide

Collectors of American Records look no further, here is the ultimate guide to pricing your records.

For more information on this item click on the link above

The Penguin Price Guide for Record and CD Collectors (Penguin Reference Books)

This is THE guide for record and CD collectors. THE PENGUIN PRICE GUIDE FOR RECORD AND CD COLLECTORS lists more than 140,000 valuations and offers advice on adding to your collection.

For more information on this item click on the link above

Goldmine Price Guide to 45 RPM Records

Collectors of American 45 rpm records will find this catalogue invaluable.

For more information on this item click on the link above