Okehdownsouth

Has anyone been to this venue? Is it any good? Anyone got a play list?

Oh no I don't ! I own a metal stockholding company and I do supply some of the UK hifi manufacturers with aluminium plate and extrusions and I have visited their factories and have seen how hard they work to make great gear.

Sorry I was rambling and for some reason when I hit submit reply it disappeared! if you really want to know I will re-write it

This was my record and I sent it JM to auction because to be honest I think it is crap, the vocals don't match the backing track and to me it sounds like the worst of Simon Soussan. It has been in my collection for donkeys years and was only ever played once which was enough for me. I saw that a few copies had gone for around £500 which I thought was nuts so I asked John to auction it for me. After commission I got just over £700 which was a staggering amount but has now been put to good use increasing my collection of "proper" northern soul records. The fact that it was a "manufactured" not original issue record puts it in the same league as Ian Levine's Four Vandals. Sorry if that upsets some of you but this site is for people to voice their opinions.

Wanted cop of Len Jewell- Bettin' on Love MUST be EX or Mint Please let me know price and condition, payment by Paypal

If you want to buy British (which IMHO you should) then you can't beat Rega but Pro-Ject ( Czech) are also very good and any good hifi dealer will set it up for you and show you how to keep it all aligned, or if you buy second hand just look on Youtube there are loads of geeks who have made clips showing how to set up a turntable and tone arm. Just takes a little bit of time but it is worth the trouble. By the time I paid Michell for the new parts and tone arm mine had cost me £600, I stuck with the old cartridge because it still had some life and sounded better anyway with the new arm and then a year later I spent another £380 on Dynavector which is awesome! so you don't need to do it all at the same time.

I have a Michell Syncro that I bought on Ebay for £250.00 5 years ago, it was in mint condition but 25-30 years old so I took it to Michell Engineering who replaced the bearing and springs and a few other bits and fitted a Techo Arm with a Dynavector 10x5 cartridge which is awesome. The whole lot cost me less than the value of any one of 50 or more of my most valuable records so why would I want to trash them? I fully appreciate that a lot of the records that we buy were not great to start with and bad pressing are far too common but if you have got valuable records why trash them because you are too mean to buy a decent turntable and get it set up correctly?

Has anyone been to The Night Owl in Birmingham? Any good? Anyone got some playlists?

On my soap box about this and before anyone claims that I own I hifi shop. I don't I have been collecting soul records for over 45 years and in the last 10 years it seems that there are a lot of sellers out there, particularly on eBay who claim not to own a turntable or if they do it's obviously a pile of crap. I have bought loads of records that look great but play crap and having over the past 10-15 years visited most of the UK's top record dealers and some of the DJ's I think I know why. Most of these dealers have their own collections and some are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and more. BUT why do they insist on playing them on the cheapest crapest turntables with worn out stylus's and cartridges fitted to badly set up tone arms that are quite literally destroying their records. The UK has some of the best hifi manufacturers in the world but these people will not spend more than £200 on a complete hifi system and some spend a lot less! I have seen so many shagged out Numark and ION turntables it beggars belief! These things are thrown together in sweatshops in China and are so badly set up and aligned that just one play of your £5000 or more holy grail could render it unplayable on a decent deck. Last week I opened a mailer containing a record that has been on my wants list for years. One look and I got that warm feeling inside that you get when the seller has understated the condition, sadly 20 seconds on my turntable revealed that the left channel was full of a loud and constant hiss whilst the right was perfect. An obvious sign of having been played on a crap set up as the seller claims that it plays great, maybe in one ear?, it is going back and my search for a playable copy continues

Pete The problem with Facebook is that it is an excruciating pain in the arse! I wish I had know about the Del-Larks though, must have missed that because I am on you list

I have sold a few through most of them. From my experience Darren Brown and Tim Brown charge 15% Johm Manship is 20%. Darren pays the quickest as he funds the sales himslef, the other 2 pay after the buyer has paid which can a week. All of these people are really knowledgeable and have a lot of contacts all over the world and most important of all have reputations to protect so will not grade up records or mislead buyers or sellers. John Manship seems to me to consitently get the highest prices and he has got me some great results recently but Tim Brown has had some really big records recently and also gets great results, Darren Brown tends not to auction records and set sales mostly so you know what to expect but might miss out on a big price if more than one person really wants the record. Lets face if you are selling you want the highest possible price and if that means that Darren, John or Tim earn something along the way then is that not better than paying blood ebay! Just look at recent results for Milton Wright, I Belong to You: ebay Jan 2014 £418. John Manship last week £878.00

John Manship seems to be back in his stride with a few really choice items in his current auction including this gem, a MINT UNPLAYED copy of Sam Williams icon. Where doe he find these records?

If you want the best copy available anywhere in the world take a look at Manships auction! https://www.raresoulman.co.uk/auction/10168/love-slipped-through-my-fingers

There is a stone minter in John Manship's auction that went on today, what price will that make? It's got to be even more!

£450-£550 seems to be the going rate these days a lot of us have tales of stuff that we sold 40 years ago for a few quid that is now worth hundreds or thousands but that's just life, I have sold 2 original Patti's on ebay in the past 6 months and got £466 for a VG++ copy and £565 for a VG+ which made no sense but then and used the cash to by a minter for £440. I'm very happy and so it seems are both of the buyers who left me top feedback! There seems to be a lot of new dj's around who will pay huge amounts for records that rarely come up for sale. I commented last week on £1300 for Doni Burdick which to me seems nuts but ,hey maybe I might sell my whole collection now and buy an Aston Martin or Ferrari!

Hi I have a copy on Volt. It is stone mint and was unplayed old store stock when I bought it and I have only played it once. It would need to be a load of cash to make me part with it though. Paul

How can I tell the difference/ I have a copy that I have had for about 5 years and always assumed that it was genuine

Has the world gone nuts, have I missed something or is now the right time to sell up and buy an Aston Martin or Ferrari ?

I have an orginal I belong To You/Like a Rolling Stone on Satiron M- condition Make me an offer

I have a M- copy make me an offer?

I bought an original UK demo a few months ago and paid £400 maybe it was bargain?

Is this a converation about Rita and The Tiaras. Milton James or the inflation that effects the market for rare and in demand soul records? I was 11 when I started scouring junk shops for 60's soul records and never paid mre than 5 bob for anything, including a box load of UK Motown Demos (20p each!). I was 15 when I first went to Wigan and funded my trips by washing dishes in hotels where I was paid 3 quid for a whole day. At 16 started work and earned £18 a week and spent most of it travelling to all nighters so could not afford to even think about buying those mega rare records that were changing hands for £10-£100 a pop. Today there are more people with more money chasing fewer records. so the price goes up and will continue to, so stop moaning, the prices that are being paid are what they simply what people are prepared to pay because that is what they are worth to them.

Do you have one for sale? What condition? Paul

I thought that the thread here was" Forgotten Monsters", not thank God they don't play them anymore!