About me
and my vinyl background…

I have been involved with vinyl records my entire working life (which dates back to 1990 now). Out of necessity thanks to my being an avid collector of records and CDs, I began buying and selling because without that, I was never going to have any chance of hearing and often finding the amount of music my evolving interests and tastes were leading me towards. Inevitably I soon needed to find a way of turning this passion into my primary occupation but I found my desire to keep some of the tastiest records in the collections I bought for my own collection was limiting my ability to make much money out of record dealing. For that reason I branched the enterprise out and became a Record Fair organiser, DJ and dipped my toe into freelance music journalism (anything that could keep me involved with music).

By the end of the 1990s I had regular Record Fairs in Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire; a large circuit that only began to wind down around 2005 when it felt like the whole vinyl trading community were moving to the internet. I went with it too, having started a family by then to spend those years working from home was something I would not change although it was evident by the 2010’s that the world of Record Fairs and face-to-face trading had not died out and I was delighted to play a small part in the renaissance of that whole scene.

Today I am still very much involved with music, especially the vinyl records marketplace and my main motivation remains the voyage of collecting and discovery I began 35 years ago.

Why come to me to sell your vinyl collection?

I have decades of experience, from buying whole libraries of music from private sellers to giving a lump sum price to sellers looking to downsize or merely part with small sections of their collection to raise some cash. I am fair and realistic in my valuations and have been employed by reputable auction houses to put values on large collections. Two things I will not do are 1) cherry pick the sellers few rare items and leave a majority bulk they have no hope of ever selling and 2) pressure a seller to accept my offer if they are unsure.

What I will do is give a transparent explanation for my price and highlight anything I believe to be rare or of special interest. On those occasions I separate the unusual and more valuable items from the rest of the wholesale deal and give the seller the option to pursue their own sale online or split the proceeds if I can find a buyer to pay the best possible price. And in those collections where there are less records of interest and the bulk of the titles are low value or unsaleable I will still make an offer to take everything away. I understand that people want to clear it all out, often to free up space and it is no use if a dealer comes in and takes 20 records away out of a 300+ strong collection. However, in those instances the offer will reflect the content and not the volume. I am sorry to say that James Last, Max Bygraves, Ken Dodd and Readers Digest (among many other charity shop classics I could mention) albums are worth nothing and it makes no difference if there is one copy of them or a hundred copies, it still comes out at nothing.

I have left many past sellers satisfied with their experience allowing me to buy their collections and fulfilling that role is a process that I have never lost my fascination and excitement with. It has brought me into contact with legends of the music world (John Peel once said if he decided to sell any of his collection he would come to me first, I knew it would never happen but it was nice that he said it) both as sellers and collectors. If you think it could be your turn next please do get in touch…