Frankie Crocker

With you on this Rod. Yes, all serious collectors pick up stuff to move on at a profit. But it’s one thing to be in the States picking up at records $3 a pop to flog £25 records in the UK to help cover the $5,000 cost of a fortnight trip. There’s not too much wrong selling records for £100 when they were bought for £25 in 1990 - collectors are entitled to a return on their investment when funds are needed to buy records that are more expensive due to price inflation. It’s a different kettle of fish when someone pays the book price (or trade value) for something then doubles the figure for a set-sale listing. Take Detroit Soul - All Of My Life, currently on the Rare Soul 45’s site priced at £375; this is a £200 record, having doubled in value over the last couple of years. Surely this record won’t sell for this extortionate sum? This sort of pricing makes the seller look greedy, and worst still, embarrassingly stupid as the record won’t sell. When a dealer regards customers as jackasses who might stump up stupid money, they are on a very slippery slope. Overpricing records for re-sale is bad for business if it gets the firm a bad name, draws negative publicity and sales drop off.

WOW. Really well spotted. If they’re for the collection, then fine. If they’re for re-sale, I’m in two minds. Intercepting records that other collectors have waited patiently for, then adding 20% to the price tag does not sit well with me or fellow vinyl hounds. It’s one thing to snag a bargain that’s an unknown sound. It’s a different story if price inflation distorts the market for years to come as US dealers attempt to extort stupid amounts of money for something a millionaire splashed out on. There was a time when major dealers cultivated sources (as you do Seb) and worked hard to ensure a steady trickle of records to make a living - now we seem to have entered a ‘flash-the-cash-and-have-a big-splash’ era that has serious buyers really scratching their heads.

No comment. Steve Jeffries bought them all.

Also interesting that the Francesco Mellina article mentions an intense smell of talcum powder. I very much doubt this as about 300 of those present smoked, so the air was thick with fumes and fag dust. Yes, a good few sprinkled talc, but not enough to overwhelm the smoke. The scent of Brut and West was definitely in the air. I will not lower the tone of the discussion by mentioning other smells.

I think you’re right. I only had an interest in a few so those were the ones I knew about. Chalky also mentioned the Dynamics (Lonely Man). The mystery buyer did not win all the big items, at least not using the same bidder ID, but the family may be using fresh bidder ID’s to conceal eBay activity.

The buyer of Joseph Webster, Hamilton Movement and IJ Harris spent $23,926 on these three records alone. This is roughly £17,208 in eBay money, but as we know, there’s always a bit more added on. When there’s a self-confessed millionaire in the family, money is no object when it comes to splashing out on anything, especially rare records. The message here is very clear, and if anyone thinks they are going to win any record the mystery shopper has targeted, they are wasting their time. Forget it. All these rare records are going in one direction only.

I can assure you it was very loud. If you danced at the front and hung around by the stage, your ears were ringing throughout Sunday. As you walked towards the stage, you could feel the sound waves hitting your chest, that’s how loud it was. Sure it was quieter up on the balcony towards the back. I would imagine plenty of regulars suffered from permanent hearing loss such was the output from the speakers.

Well spotted Ted. I’ve had my eye on this one since I first heard Joel play it out. I think he got his copy from Mark. This must be third copy to have surfaced on the open market in the last three years. With the auction far from over, you’ll need a calculator to assess the damage. So far, single bids of what must be massive proportions wiping out all contenders.

Maybe he forgot to record the instrumental side so now another copy is needed. I’ve heard he has really rare records mounted in picture frames. Any record that books below £100 is moulded into an ashtray or nut-dish. Two servants are employed on minimum wage to clean and polish the records that arrive by container each day. The pupils at the local secondary school who design the website had their coursework marks downgraded for making a dogs-dinner of the home page by mixing up tatty imports, karaoke recordings, 60’s non-chart pop tunes and new collectable British releases of unissued songs.

It will be a legal reissue if he has the copyright. I mentioned this consideration a short while ago. While we humble collectors want the records to play, some entrepreneurs need a top copy in the absence of master-tapes if the plan is to reissue the track.

And also matches the feedback rating of the winning bidder of the Hamilton Movement’s ‘She’s Gone’. Baffled why the buyer went for this copy when there’s a far better one on Manship’s auction. I suspect the mystery buyer will also grab the Manship copy for keeps and put the rough spare in his shop window. I think we were speculating about the same buyer in another thread a few weeks ago but I can’t remember the the record in question.

I don’t know Steve personally, but I‘ve bought from him. He has had 300 Joseph Websters pressed up at £20 a pop. If the US copyright owner had no original copies of the record, then $5K would clinch the deal, yield a profit, satisfy a suspicious Detroiter and give scope for further leasing deals, say to Kent. Judging from Steve’s other offerings, he surely has a business model on a very even footing. As the UK’s latest new vinyl kid on the block, maybe Steve can post on here what the situation is?

Thanks for posting. Got to agree with Chalky’s comment earlier. British Invasion sound with no soul... value of $1,500 plucked out of thin air. Looks tempting and one that warrants further investigation, but anyone buying this blind would be sorely disappointed.

Entirely plausible. Usually the promise of lots of money overcomes hostility. Maybe a patient Detroit dealer will eventually use powers of persuasion and plenty of dollars to salvage the records before they are lost forever.

I’m wondering if a few have been turned up? Surely more were pressed up than have surfaced so far. Quite a few good finds have come out of Detroit recently including one mint copy of Joseph Webster. Until very recently, the version by Angela Davis was hardly known. Then a whole load turned up in Detroit. Given the link connecting the two versions, it would not surprise me if more copies were to be discovered in the not too distant future.

One bid withdrawn so the price has fallen. A few novices. Only one private bidder. One major buyer, plainly a dealer/collector. Couple of serious buyers. A couple of jokers just registering an interest to receive bid notifications. All looks normal. The auctioneer is a top outfit so all should run smoothly.

What a stunning auction. Don’t often see several top rarities like this at once - shame the conditions are variable. As for Joseph Webster, one of the rarest of the rare in a very decent condition - do people have credit card limits that can buy records in this price bracket? I thought it had peaked at 8K when the Detroit copy sold a couple of years ago. I would say it’s a 10K record now, but the millionaires will scrap over this to the death, so who knows what it’ll finish at.

Well Jimmy, it was a game of two halves. The Set Sale records went for Set Sale prices if you know what I mean. Helen Troy, Jack Montgomery, Ringleaders and Johnny Bragg going for sub-eBay values. The boys with deep pockets plunged in on Frankie Beverley as though it was a very rare record. Not surprised the Inspirations went through the roof as this is seldom seen for sale. Thanks for posting as usual.

Hi Ian. Most of the records you have listed have been bootlegged or reissued at some stage. If they are not original releases, demand for them will be low. if you go on Popsike, you will see what the original labels look like and the figures realised at auction. You may even find details of matrix etchings in the sales blurb. Manship’s Price Guide #5 has pretty good coverage of bootleg details and label scans. If you have an original Salvadors or Jerry Fuller, they are valuable, but as they were pressed in large numbers compared to the scarce availability of originals, the probability is you will have bootlegs.

Very sad news. So glad I saw him perform at Cleethorpes and The 100 Club. Great that he lived long enough to experience the affection the scene had for him and his music. An absolute legend with several top sounds to his name. Dean, you will never be forgotten.

Very true. In any case, my Sweet Things demo and issue plus Drifters demo and issue look very pretty sitting in my record box, so they will never be offered for sale.

Wotcha Ted. I agree. I also enjoy reading John’s descriptions as they convey a sense of history and acknowledge the contributions of those behind the artists. If John put the auction descriptions in a book, I would happily buy a copy.

Pushkings copy sold for £20.66. With a bit of patience, most cheap, common records turn up sooner or later at a bargain price.

Relax you say... I am frantically digging through the collection trying to find the Sweet Things and the Drifters. If I’m really quick, I could get £1,000 for the pair. Without looking them up, I vaguely recall they’re listed at £100 apiece. James Fountain must have fetched a disappointing sum when compared to the common records that fetched £1,000 plus. That said, it went for the going rate, give or take a bit.

Thanks for posting as usual. Are you sure these figures are correct? Surely there must be a few errors here? Maybe a comma or decimal point in the wrong place. I’m going to look up the Drifters and Sweet Things in Manship’s Price Guide #7 to see if there are discrepancies...