For those of you out there pondering the prospect of buy a soul pack from Ian Levine. Let me share with you my personal experience. There seems to be people out there that are very happy with the contents of these packs; however, i am not one of them.

Ian pitches his packs as £10 to £50 records of across the board 60's Soul. Northern soul, R&B. 70's, Disco etc. He also promises a few expensive one's in there for good measure. 

I for one, did not receive a pack with records worth between £10 & £50. perhaps a small percentage were around the £10, but most are worth around £3 to £4 each. There was certainly no hidden surprises to terms of expensive records. Though he did try to convince me that 'Bobby Peterson- mama get your hammer' is worth £200.

I bought 1000 records from Ian. 300 of which were totally scratched & dirty, totally inaudible. ( he doe's state that some cleaning is required) Hardly any 60's left after this inspection. Not much R&B(mostly scratched to death) The majority of what i have left to play with is mostly early,mid to late 70's & a fair bit of 80's.

I could go on & on here, but my verdict is this. Don't expect loads of great soul. There are some nice things in here, but nothing i would have bought if i had seen them first(though that's just personal) I believe he has hyped them in order to shift the left overs. Ian buys a shipment, takes out the really rare stuff, as one would expect. He then takes out all the other half interesting stuff which go into his £3 each packs that are more tailored. What is left is this lot. I imagine some packs will be better than others, depending at what stage you take purchase of the pack. 

I'm not trying to Ian bash, i really don't know the guy, but what i do know,Ian is not on the level. Ian will try to defend himself in saying he bent over backwards to make me happy. After he flew off the handle a few times, he offered me a pack of 14 really rare records worth around 30.000. Who on earth offers a man 30.000 of records to compensate £1000. yes, that's right, nobody. I went along with this for the sake of curiosity, wanting to see what he sends. My feeling was he will be sending boots. Low & behold Boots it was, served fresh off the press by the looks as well, & could tell these where all made at the same plant. He tried to tell me in the "how dare you manner" that i was mistaken. A friend & himself had compared these with the real thing & were happy to confirm there authenticity.

What can you say this. he adds insult to injury by trying to deceive me.  Make of this as you will. defend him or join the many people who seem to dislike him, but regardless, he tried to con me, for reasons only Ian knows. there you have it....Happy shopping.

22 minutes ago, Pete S said:

Without wising to state the blindingly obvious - Ian, why on earth didn't you check the bloody records before you posted them to weed out any scratched or broken ones, you shouldn't be sending out broken records in the first place.

Ian actually says "in case" any were cracked so he didn't know one way or the other. I doubt that many soul packs, especially those containing 1000, are rigorously condition checked, regardless of the dealer selling them. Most of these records will have sat in warehouses for years and never have been out of their sleeves let alone played. 

Edited January 28, 20169 yr by Kegsy

Just now, Kegsy said:

Ian actually says "in case" any were cracked so he didn't know one way or the other. I doubt that many soul packs, especially those containing 1000, are rigorously condition checked, regardless of the dealer selling them. Most of these records will have sat in warehouses for years and never have been out of there sleeves let alone played. 

I always check mine and don't put in anything under VG - I only do them in 50's and 100's though when I do them

7 minutes ago, Pete S said:

I always check mine and don't put in anything under VG - I only do them in 50's and 100's though when I do them

But do your records come from bulk purchases of what are effectively unsold, unplayed records that have never seen the light of day?.  I used to buy in bulk from old man Bostock when he got fed up of the market stall, virtually every record that came out of that warehouse was mint. I think its a fair assumption that such records ought to be in decent condition, without having to check every last one of them. 

14 minutes ago, Kegsy said:

Ian actually says "in case" any were cracked so he didn't know one way or the other. I doubt that many soul packs, especially those containing 1000, are rigorously condition checked, regardless of the dealer selling them. Most of these records will have sat in warehouses for years and never have been out of their sleeves let alone played.

Sat on shelves for years is no excuse for unplayable goods. The whole point of record buying is to play them,not to have to weed throught them.

Soul Pack = any old sh*te.?

8 minutes ago, Kegsy said:

But do your records come from bulk purchases of what are effectively unsold, unplayed records that have never seen the light of day?.  I used to buy in bulk from old man Bostock when he got fed up of the market stall, virtually every record that came out of that warehouse was mint. I think its a fair assumption that such records ought to be in decent condition, without having to check every last one of them. 

No, mine or just things I don't want or can't use usually from old collections

8 minutes ago, KevH said:

Sat on shelves for years is no excuse for unplayable goods. The whole point of record buying is to play them,not to have to weed throught them.

Soul Pack = any old sh*te.?

I didn't say it was and I'm not defending the sending of substandard items. My point is that if these records have just been stuck in a warehouse and never touched, its a fair assumption that they will be in decent nick. How would they get damaged/scratched if they have never been out of their sleeves. The last time I looked records were not perishable.

 

4 minutes ago, Pete S said:

No, mine or just things I don't want or can't use usually from old collections

Exactly so they have been played/used etc. so you are right to check every one.

Edited January 28, 20169 yr by Kegsy

1 hour ago, Pete S said:

He can't physically pack them, he can only use one arm, so someone does it for him

shame it explains alot then

2 hours ago, Kegsy said:

I didn't say it was and I'm not defending the sending of substandard items. My point is that if these records have just been stuck in a warehouse and never touched, its a fair assumption that they will be in decent nick. How would they get damaged/scratched if they have never been out of their sleeves. The last time I looked records were not perishable.

 

Exactly so they have been played/used etc. so you are right to check every one.

Right see what you mean.Misread part of your post.(never been out of sleeves).It seems obvious that these weren't old store stock,never been played.

Even so,these records sent in the soul pack should have been sifted through,no matter 30 or 300.

Edited January 28, 20169 yr by KevH

Like talcum powder through the hourglass…

20 minutes ago, KevH said:

Right see what you mean.Misread part of your post.(never been out of sleeves).It seems obvious that these weren't old store stock,never been played.

Even so,these records sent in the soul pack should have been sifted through,no matter 30 or 300.

I don't think its obvious at all where these records came from, old store stock or not. One things for sure I don't think Ian has been traipsing round old thrift stores by the dozen picking up whatever was in the boxes. It's obvious he must have 10s of 1000s which would indicate an old distributor's warehouse or the like, and if that's the case most of the records would be mint/unplayed.

12 minutes ago, Kegsy said:

I don't think its obvious at all where these records came from, old store stock or not. One things for sure I don't think Ian has been traipsing round old thrift stores by the dozen picking up whatever was in the boxes. It's obvious he must have 10s of 1000s which would indicate an old distributor's warehouse or the like, and if that's the case most of the records would be mint/unplayed.

Chicago and Detroit is awash with lower grade 45s...as are lots of other US Cities......you get sick of seeing battered 45s.

36 minutes ago, Kegsy said:

I don't think its obvious at all where these records came from, old store stock or not. One things for sure I don't think Ian has been traipsing round old thrift stores by the dozen picking up whatever was in the boxes. It's obvious he must have 10s of 1000s which would indicate an old distributor's warehouse or the like, and if that's the case most of the records would be mint/unplayed.

Or trashed stock as mace said.

6 minutes ago, KevH said:

Or trashed stock as mace said.

The question is where does this "trashed stock" reside ?.

1 minute ago, Kegsy said:

The question is where does this "trashed stock" reside ?.

In most record shops and record fairs in the last 3 years! It gets tougher to find clean records every trip.

As Mace intimated, everywhere.

Warehouses, dealers, juke box distributors....

Just now, Mace said:

In most record shops and record fairs in the last 3 years! It gets tougher to find clean records every trip.

As I said I don't think they are from shops or fairs there is just too large a volume, which would suggest a warehouse.

26 minutes ago, Mace said:

In most record shops and record fairs in the last 3 years! It gets tougher to find clean records every trip.

I see crates and crates of them at dealers / record fairs, no sleeves on most of them, scratched to fck. One dealer I know boxes them up and ships them to Europe and Japan, after his regulars have picked through them.

as per the earlier post,this thread is now closed

The reason being...

After splitting the bootlegging posts into a new topic  this topic is to all purposes a discussion about a sales dispute between two people . As seems both have had their say feel the time is right to close the discussion on here

 

If wish to discuss the bootlegging aspects raised further then you can find moved posts in this thread