Go Put A Record On

The other day we were having a clear out and a discussion about whether to throw out all our old vinyl records started. They are just sitting in an ottoman taking up space and have done for about the last 15 years or so. I think that’s when my old style turntable was finally thrown out. In fact, it definitely was because we bought our house that year and almost all my worldly possessions that served me so well in my bachelor years, were deemed unfit for purpose by she who must be obeyed.

I have always been reluctant to throw out the vinyl collection, for some weird sentimental reason, however, in all honesty there is no point in keeping it.

I had a quick look on e-bay and was surprised to see that some of these records are still selling for about £6 to £10 and quickly calculated I could be on to a good thing here. If they were in Mint condition, you could even get up to £50 for some albums.

I spent the afternoon searching online and came up with a list of “special edition”  records that probably sold in their hundreds of thousands and convinced myself this could be a great money-spinner. U2’s original Boy LP, The Wide awake in America EP with lyrics sleeve, The Joshua Tree first run with pull out poster, Simple Minds Live In The City of Light, with picture book, INXS first run Listen Like Thieves etc etc.

I remembered about my Primal Scream 12” white label promo copy and convinced myself it would be worth even more.

In fact, by the time I realised that my wife also had all of the original Prince albums and a few other bits and pieces I almost started listing them for sale. However, I started looking into this a bit deeper and it really all has to do with the grading of the cover sleeve and the record itself. Minor visible scratches are still okay as long as they play well and are classed as Very Good for example. No problem there, I thought I always looked after my records, didn’t I ?

Well, when I went to take them out of the storage trunk I was horrified. My “well looked after” collection had the remnants of beer stains, coffee cups, torn sleeves and you would have thought a cat had danced across the surface of them with its claws out. Then the penny hit home, and I remembered all that drunken nights back to ours after the pubs closed and trying to select individual tracks while the needle slipped all over the place. I can hear the screeching and scratching now.

Maybe, my wife’s stuff would be in better condition ?

Well, some of the records weren’t actually that bad comparatively speaking, but for some stupid reason she had decided to write her name all over the blooming covers. I’m sure she did love Prince and probably even Andrew Ridgley too, but did she have to draw cupid style hearts with their initials on the front cover of them all ? and furthermore, how could anyone have ever fancied that hairy lipped, purple clad dwarf.

There were some nice discoveries though, I found Hue and Cry, Seduced and Abandoned which is a cracking album from 1987 that I played to death. Think I’ll go and buy that and a few others on MP3.

Sentimentality aside, it’s basically all junk and not worth anything. But then I looked at some of these records and felt like I was fourteen again. It’s funny but a lot of old memories have cropped up with me in the last couple of days and not always good ones either. Maybe that’s why these records were put to bed in the first place, but can I really part company with such a big part of my life or will they still be sitting in a trunk for another 15 years.