COLLECTORS VERSUS PLAYERS

When I was eight I collected those little metal cars and trucks known as Dinky toys. So did my best friend. He kept his in their original boxes in a drawer, took them out occasionally, looked at them and put them back. Mine were taken out of their boxes (which were thrown away) and zoomed around the floor; they were involved in dramatic pile-ups and lost their little rubber tyres; convoys of them, bringing guns and ammunition to my battered toy soldiers who were besieged in a corner of the garden, might get stuck in the mud and be ambushed by enemy forces hurling bricks. Guess which of us went on to make megabucks selling his Dinky collection on Ebay. But then guess which of us had more fun.
Jerome K Jerome wisely pointed out, in his humorous novel ‘Three Men On The Bummel’, that you can ride a bicycle or you can maintain it, but you can’t do both. In a similar way, it seems to me, you can either own a collection of records, or you can be a record-collector, but you can’t do both.
Let me explain. You buy a new record. The moment you take off the cellophane wrapping, you’ve damaged its collectability. Play it a few times and you’ve decreased even further its value to the ‘serious collector’.
As I got older, I graduated from Dinky toys to vinyl records. One weekend I decided that my collection of singles would be neater if I threw away their flimsy paper sleeves – and the picture sleeves that came only with EPs in those days – and put all my seven-inch discs in identical sturdy cardboard sleeves with the names written on them. I was pleased with the result, which I now realise must have cost me a fortune.
In 1967 I remember thinking that the inner surface of the gatefold ‘Sergeant Pepper’ album would make a fine poster for my wall. So I scissored it out and taped together what was left of the sleeve to hold the record (which I later left at a party).
When, later still, I acquired a Bel-Ami jukebox, I picked out a hundred of my favourite singles, punched out their centres and loaded them into the machine, to be smacked about by the robotic loading system and gouged by the heavy tone-arm. Bliss.
I’m older now and wiser. Kinace customers will be pleased to know that I have developed a healthy appreciation of unscratched vinyl and original sleeves in clean condition. But I also know that some records are so scarce that even a dodgy copy is worth having. Reggae records in particular hardly ever turn up in mint condition. They usually appear to have been used as ashtrays, frisbees or both, while their covers (if any) may have bits missing – torn out to make roaches, I suspect. It’s sad in a way, but I can’t bring myself to disapprove of those records’ original owners, who were just having fun.
The dealer’s dream, of course, is to be offered a collection by the record-buying equivalent of my friend the Dinky-collector. It’s happened to me a few times, and I’ve been thrilled by the neat lines of records, some still sealed, none appearing ever to have been played. And again, a little bit of me has thought ‘How sad’.
The ultimate difference between record-owning and record-collecting can be demonstrated by a copy of the Beatles’ ‘Twist and Shout’ EP from 1963. I already had half a dozen of these in the Kinace stock, but another one turned up recently in a job lot of records I’d bought. Then I noticed that the sleeve had on it, above the leaping figures of the Beatles, four faded signatures: ‘Ringo, George, Paul, John’.

I sent a scan to the Beatles autograph expert in Chorley (there is indeed such a person) who told me that it was probably not an authentic signed copy. So what the hell, it’s now in the stock and it’s yours for a tenner. Of course if he’d said ‘They’re definitely genuine signatures’ I’d have auctioned the record and might have expected to get around £5,000 for it. The music inside is no different either way.
A copy of the Beatles’ white album bearing the number ‘0000005’ sold a couple of years ago for £19,201. My copy was numbered in the thousands, so I let it go for £166. If you’ve got a mere unnumbered copy, cheer up – the good news is… it sounds exactly the same.
If you’re a ‘serious collector’ as opposed to a record-owner, I’d like to think you’ll find plenty of desirable items in the Kinace stock. But you might also want to take a look at Everything Collectible, the best UK site offering records that are valuable because they’ve been signed, or because they’ve been framed to be hung on the wall. They deal in signed photographs, guitars and suchlike as well.
If, on the other hand, you’re just a humble record-owner, I salute you. Happy listening.

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