Frankie Crocker

Very sad news. Will be sorely missed on Soul Source. He made loads of useful contributions here and always exuded a positive soulful vibe.

Got the nod on the rarity indicator too but Manship considered it a lower quality sound hence the much lower value. Gene Toones always a massive tune when heard out.

Sandy Wynns went for a relatively low value - good tune too. Gene Chandler went for more than usual despite being a fairly common set-sale record. Poets is still a very rare record and in the rarest of the rare class that commands big money.

Selling on eBay therefore makes limited sense if the value of items is to be reported. Surely it makes more sense to sell privately, on small online platforms or negotiate a trade of some sort. Paying eBay commission is also madness when valuable items are involved - the seller loses out significantly.

Hardly surprising given the amount of information out there. He’s probably missed the boat anyway - all the major music centres were cleaned out long ago. The trick these days is to look for records that are unlisted, unknown and have hidden qualities. If this guy finds cheap common sounds, good luck to him.

This is why I asked. It was very rare a few years ago but a hoard has been uncovered. Plenty have been auctioned by carolinasoul so the price recently has dipped. Ward Burton’s daughter had a few, sold them but kept one copy for herself. I just wondered where the quantity came from…

A few price-drops evident here. Post-Christmas poverty perhaps? Ward Burton was a bargain as a load have turned up - does anyone know the story on this one?

‘Low rider sounds’… Manship used this term a year or two ago…I thought it referred to weak B sides that wouldn’t be acceptable at a public venue, but I’m still none the wiser.

I suspect that most records bought never see a DJ’s turntable in public so the Blenders was probably bought for home enjoyment. For sure, there are plenty of rabid buyers who crave the latest sound for their hotbox, desperate for a round of applause…but I reckon this rarity will please the lucky buyer who may well eventually sell it on.

Great record. Worth every penny.

Blenders was bought for a snip!

John has a colossal stock with records arriving virtually every day so it makes sense to move items that have been on the shelves for a while. The sale has been very popular and he has indicated that the huge volume of orders will be processed in chronological order. Ultimately though, and all collectors should appreciate this fine point, a record initially purchased at a low cost in the past can be sold at a higher value at some point in the future. This can still be profitable taking into account inflation. Many records nowadays are overpriced by sellers on the basis of Price Guide figures, eBay sales, Manship auctions, rumoured going rates etc. You only have to look at Soul Source records for sale to see evidence of this, and the inevitable discounts that follow confirm this. Overpriced records generally don’t sell. High prices may be artificially inflated and are best ignored. Records for sale really should be priced at a figure that tempts potential buyers, yet still profits the seller on a modest level. John’s sale offers records at a fair price judging from the large number of orders.

Blackpool Mecca was essentially a Saturday Night not an Allnighter. Regulars will have a better recollection as I only went twice in the evening and once to an afternoon. Ascending the escalator was an experience itself, checking your tie was straight, searched by the bouncers then into the Highland Room. The Mecca finished at 2.00 pm but I stand to be corrected on this. Many at the Mecca then drove to Wigan which was weird as you were seeing the same people again but in a much larger crowd. Don’t allow yourself to be taken in by the Joe 90 stuff - there were always odd-ball tunes given the rare outing as DJ’s pioneered - even towards the end, the high quality tunes outnumbered the poppy-disco things.

Several posts on Facebook in recent weeks so he’s OK.

Thanks. Not seen this variant before. Plain label threw me.

Not seen this before. Not the usual Soul City label. Any thoughts? Thanks for any info…

Wonder what he’d take in trades? How many collectors called Kenny are going to show interest? I doubt if anyone would pay 100K for the record, not even a multi-millionaire, as the item is overpriced.

Dobber sums up the situation nicely. There are some nice records portrayed but they go up and up in price then vanish to reappear again at a later date. The auction is a sealed bid one so only the seller knows what is actually going on. Some of the records are advertised a few days after what John and Tim have also put up for auction. The minimum bids and finishing values are often too high so nobody can really snag a bargain. I would be very interested to learn of any auction winnings on Pat’s site…

Well done Peter for reviving the topic.I saw a copy at the Pasadena Flea Market about 30 years ago. I didn’t sample it or buy it, but the occasion stuck in my head filed under ‘Records I Stupidly Passed Over In A Hurry’. I snagged one on eBay a few years ago, just VG condition and nothing really to commend it sound-wise, but still part of folklore as it was the sort of record piloted by go-ahead DJ’s back in the day.

Spot on Chalky. Nick’s contribution has certainly elucidated matters. The Archer discography early in the thread is hopelessly out of date. As it now looks like Mack Evans mastered the Archer and missing-Archer issues, collectors can be confident they own bona fide originals. The few fortunate owners of an Archer stamped issue can be satisfied their copies came off the machine used, probably as part of a small sample, maybe even to round up the number of white demos done QED. Since this thread was started, some collectors have put their missing-Archer stamp copies up for sale, cashing in as it were…my advice would be to keep these in the absence of any Archer stamped issues coming up for sale. As it was myself who contended that Eddie Parker may well have been pressed in Nashville, I am content to dismiss this notion on the basis of what Nick has said.

Eddie Parker was revived after the Torch era - it was huge at Wigan. The small uneven Archer stamped release was bootlegged for the Wigan masses. By then, word was out that originals had a large even Archer stamp. True, back in the day, most of us unthinkingly ignored matrix markings to just acquire the sound. There’s enough info in this thread now to set the record straight and keep the door open for additions.

Thanks for further clarification Rob. Keith Rylatt in his Groovesville USA book noted that the Ashford record was a ‘local hit’ in Detroit but the signs are that it did not sell in large quantities. Your reference to pressing plants at Christmas makes a lot of sense. Archer being a small outfit could easily cater for Jack Ashford’s white demo request prior to Christmas - this rarity produced largely for Detroit and Michigan outlets was probably pressed up in a quantity of 100 - 200 records. The bulk press of perhaps a few thousand probably happened in January 1969 judging from the earliest dates hand written on sales reps’ samples. Most importantly, Christmas could be the main reason for the legendary’ second issue’ assertion that has been presented to collectors for 50 years. Given the copyright date for ‘Love You Baby’ is 14th October 1968, Archer probably pressed the initial run in November or December, allowing for the preparatory work to be done in Nashville.

Your two contributions above Nick are cogently argued to the point that I’m coming around to the view that Archer pressed all the Eddie Parker records, probably in two phases. You know way more about Archer than I do so it seems pressing variations could well have occurred there. As mentioned above, the Tomangoe’s on Washpan would not need an Archer stamp as it already had Nashville Matrix in the runout. If indeed all copies of Eddie Parker with the tiny WME etching were pressed at the Archer plant, this would require a re-evaluation of prices for stamped and non-stamped varieties. The story may well boil down to a short press run of white demos plus a few issue samples pressed on one machine with an Archer stamp and a slightly later bulk pressing of issues on another machine without an Archer stamp. Jack Ashford had great confidence in Eddie Parker and his own label so it’s not surprising he used distributors in Detroit and Chicago. I suspect Nashville played a part in the distribution of the record which has turned up in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia - I’m not convinced sales reps would necessarily travel so far from Detroit and Chicago.

Thanks for this Rob. Are you saying for sure that Ashford was a customer of Southern Plastics? Are we saying Jack Ashford placed orders with SP or was the Ashford record pressed up? Yes, we’re talking a ‘small fry’ order here, probably in the low thousands at a best guess. At present, I’m surmising SP pressed the bulk order of Eddie Parker based on the fact the factory was over the road from the Nashville Matrix plating facility - pure conjecture for sure but logically geographically. The distribution network in Nashville might have played a part in the widespread scattering of the record in the Mid-West and towards the east coast where samples turned up near Washington DC. We know now the Ashford record was distributed from Chicago and Detroit; we also know the approximate time it was pressed and distributed. Further documentation on distribution companies may well help us ascertain where the record was pressed and how many copies were made.