A Pictorial Journey Through Record Collecting How buying soul records has changed down the years

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A more recent source of records (in London) ... though for some reason they also had shops in Hull ....

1st started going to the various R&TE shops around the early 80's I think ... my last visit to the remaining shop (Soul & Dance Exchange) being last year ... back in the 80's, 45's were 10p & up, 12"ers & LP's 25p & up ... those prices are long gone !!

Edited September 16Sep 16 by Roburt

Great article @Roburt thanks, love all the evocative photos and flyers. My go-to Record and Tape Exchange branch was the easy to get to Berwick Street one, here in the attached photo from 2010 when it was still open, next to Vinyl Junkies, just down the road from Selectadisc too, and at one time further down through Walker's Court onto Rupert Street there used to be a market stall and shop selling records that I can't remember the name of.

I'd buy lots of cheap singles on spec, and then next time I went down to London I'd take the stuff I didn't want with me and get an exchange price at the Berwick St branch where, at least for a while, they guaranteed that they'd buy anything, even just for a penny, so I could at least get rid of those and try some new finds. As you say, singles were just 10p a shot back then, so it was reasonably affordable to take a punt.

I went to the Notting Hill one you've pictured a fair few times over those years too. The last time I was there was back in 2013, and things didn't end well. I had an accident with a record box and ended up in hospital to have a chunky splinter removed from under my fingernail. The guy working in that upstairs room at the time was so unsure of what to do that he just let me take the records I'd picked out and waived the payment - wish I'd chosen more!

Fantastic read, thank you.

Missed a buying location out of the above listing. When I lived in Worksop in the 80's, I used to be allowed to go into the Radio Hallam studio by Richard Searling. Richard would spend the hours around Saturday lunchtime buying new stuff in Manchester & in Sheffield (a shop that had lots of import US soul in a hilly western suburb of the city -- can't recall it's name now). He'd also get new UK releases sent to him @ the radio stn .... BUT he told me about a great 'cheap' basement shop off Oxford Rd in Manchester that always had 1,000's of cut-out oldish LPs from 49p (even cheaper in their annual sale -- 29p). It was originally called Yanks & then became Power Cuts.

Needless to say, I was soon heading over the hills to get stuff from the shop ... I'd also call in on the Expansion shop when in Manc.

Edited September 18Sep 18 by Roburt

Here are a few Donny items

A few more along with Bill Snows old shop R.I.P.

Edited September 20Sep 20 by Smudger

On 18/09/2025 at 17:25, Roburt said:

Missed a buying location out of the above listing. When I lived in Worksop in the 80's, I used to be allowed to go into the Radio Hallam studio by Richard Searling. Richard would spend the hours around Saturday lunchtime buying new stuff in Manchester & in Sheffield (a shop that had lots of import US soul in a hilly western suburb of the city -- can't recall it's name now). He'd also get new UK releases sent to him @ the radio stn .... BUT he told me about a great 'cheap' basement shop off Oxford Rd in Manchester that always had 1,000's of cut-out oldish LPs from 49p (even cheaper in their annual sale -- 29p). It was originally called Yanks & then became Power Cuts.

Needless to say, I was soon heading over the hills to get stuff from the shop ... I'd also call in on the Expansion shop when in Manc.

Yanks and Power Cuts were owned by Global Record Sales and was set up in the first room of the basement of Canada House. I left Global around 76/77 before Yanks was set up but even then there was a huge stock of cheap LPs that they couldn't ever hope to sell to their wholesale customers. They would ship container loads every three to four months from east coast warehouses in the US, primarily American Record Sales in NJ and House of Sounds in Philly. I think it was Ed Balbier's sons, Greg and Brian, that ran Yanks. The records were cheap but they were buying them for very little and the pound/dollar exchange rate was still fairly strong.

More here-

https://britishrecordshoparchive.org/shops/power-cuts--yanks/

Nice read. My interest inBeach Music began in the 1960s.....During the 1980s revival era I discovered The Wax Museum in Charlotte and Chris Beachley's great collection and auctions. And then, there was Ripete Records.