for those who never gave up their turntables
THE AVID RECORD COLLECTOR is a catch-all category for articles about record collecting that doesn’t collect those few articles I write about other people who write about rock & roll music and record collecting, many of whom don’t seem to know much about anything but their opinions.
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PUT RECORD COLLECTORS TOGETHER and we talk about all sorts of vinyl-related topics. One conversation led to a discussion about the perfect album for an evening of sexy slow dancing. Sinatra and Mathis were mentioned—of course!—but my choice has been Julie London’s About The Blues album since I discovered the record decades ago. [Continue reading]
THE TERM “PICTURE SLEEVE” has a specific meaning in record collecting. Basically, it’s a paper envelope with a photograph or artwork on at least one side made to hold a seven-inch, 45 rpm record. Japanese picture inserts for 45 rpm singles are not picture sleeves no matter how many collectors and dealers conflate the terms. [Continue reading]
WHAT IS A “PICTURE SLEEVE”? I know—this is a dumb question to the thousands of collectors who know the answer. But based on ads, articles, and comments on the internet, thousands of other collectors and sellers do not know the answer. Or they don’t know the correct answer. [Continue reading]
THE AVID COLLECTOR was the title of my column in Pulse! magazine. Pulse! (with the annoying exclamation mark) was the in-house magazine for Tower Records that was free to every customer in every Tower store in the world! The Avid Collector was about collectible records and ran for almost two years in the early ’90s. [Continue reading]
HERE’S ANOTHER QUESTION ABOUT VINYL on Quora that distracted me from various writing projects! The question is, “What vinyl album cover empty is worth more than a mint vinyl album without the cover?” Or, as I have worded it in this article’s title: Are there albums with covers that are worth more than the records? [Continue reading]
THE AVID RECORD COLLECTOR is a column that I recently started contributing to the Sixties Music Secrets blog. The intention of the column was to address LPs released in the ’60s and subsequently deleted. Then they found their way into cut-out bins of retail record stores around the country and then, years later, found their way onto collector’s want-lists. [Continue reading]
BE THE FIRST ON YOU BLOCK to read my new column, The Avid Record Collector! Sub-titled “From the Cut-Out Bin,” it can be found on the Sixties Music Secrets website! In each column, I will look at records that were mass-produced in the 1960s and subsequently deleted from record company catalogs. [Continue reading]
IF I EVER GET AROUND to writing a book about the how’s, why’s, and wherefore’s of collecting records, I will include a chapter on “On How Not To Handle Your Records.” However the book is laid out, I would hope to use a photo like the one below for this chapter.
I assume everybody reading this blog knows not to handle their records in a manner that places the oil and dirt on their fingertips on the grooves of the record. [Continue reading]
THE WORLD TURNS AND WORDS EVOLVE. Sometimes the evolution of a word is gradual and logical and few notice the change. Sometimes it happens quickly—often through ignorance and misuse—and the change is jarring. Today, a word can go through a tremendous upheaval if one influential person misuses it one time on the internet. [Continue reading]