This morning on BBC on their Heir Hunters programme one of the subjects they were trying to find heirs for was John Powney. I wasn't watching the programme but as soon as they said the name it immediately had my attention. If you don't watch this show it's about the companies that make their living tracking down heirs when the person who has died hasn't left a will or any obvious family. They work through records of births/deaths/marriages and local census etc and once they find potential heirs they sign them up with a "sign up with us and we'll take our percentage and get you the money" Often times the inheritors are not aware of these distant relatives so couldn't find the way to make a claim without these companies (I became interested in it when it was first aired because years ago my Dad had one of these out of the blue inheritances . I remember them telling him he'd get a third of a fourth of a fifth of the estate total, as he was one of 3 kids, from 4 parent siblings, from 5 grandparent siblings, which amounted to about a hundred pounds)
It was indeed our John Powney they were researching, and the subject of his expensive record collection is discussed. I won't ruin it for you but a few very well known soul scene people are featured. 
It's on iplayer if you want to watch it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b1518b/heir-hunters-series-12-7-powneylewis

fascinating!!!

                Alan C

Thanks - I just watched it - very interesting - but as echoed in the programme - very sad end 

Thanks for posting that John really interesting 

Really interesting, thanks for posting.

It actually made me glad that I have now sold nearly all of my high value records, because nobody in my family would want them or know what to do with them when I'm gone.  I need to motivate myself to have another good clear out soon.

I can't see what was sad about the end of John's life, or have I missed something?  It seems he had a lovely house, friends, and he must have enjoyed the proceeds of a lifetime of collecting when he cashed in.  I've sold several record collections in my life and the last big sell-up I did raised the deposit for the last house I bought, so no regrets from me.

And no doubt us the licence fee payers, top up these companies coffers by paying them to appear on the programme.

Unless they don't get paid of course, and do it for the publicity...

Ed

  On 25/04/2018 at 03:32, woolie mark said:

Really interesting, thanks for posting.

It actually made me glad that I have now sold nearly all of my high value records, because nobody in my family would want them or know what to do with them when I'm gone.  I need to motivate myself to have another good clear out soon.

I can't see what was sad about the end of John's life, or have I missed something?  It seems he had a lovely house, friends, and he must have enjoyed the proceeds of a lifetime of collecting when he cashed in.  I've sold several record collections in my life and the last big sell-up I did raised the deposit for the last house I bought, so no regrets from me.

Yes I agree , seems to me he got his timing right in selling the big guns he had , enjoyed the proceeds ,no doubt the money will have made him secure , good on him , what a smashing fella he was . R.I.P  John 

Think I am being slightly cynical, think that's the word. 4000 records valued at £3000. Methinks that is a dealers pricing and not market value. I know it's gonna be hard to offload that amount of records in one go, so who got them?  Never knew him but seems such a shame he didn't leave a will and give them to a charity or a mate. Note to self 

  On 25/04/2018 at 07:53, Maxwell said:

Think I am being slightly cynical, think that's the word. 4000 records valued at £3000. Methinks that is a dealers pricing and not market value. I know it's gonna be hard to offload that amount of records in one go, so who got them?  Never knew him but seems such a shame he didn't leave a will and give them to a charity or a mate. Note to self 

I think this is a pretty fair comment.

 

i heard the valuation on what was left and it seemed low or a dealer had got them cheap.

 

thats the problem when people who dont know the values are given the task of finding the values and selling.

The records were auctioned,  there was a thread on here about it

Bought many records from him over the last 25 years. Met him three times. Spent hours on the phone discussing the soul scene, record prices etc. Always down to earth, he had become rather disillusioned, particularly with the rip off prices nowadays. I didn't find out that he had died till after his funeral. We were planning to visit him, but that never happened. He wouldn't have been happy with the Wigan references, he'd rather fallen out with that stuff and preferred R&B. Sad loss.

  On 25/04/2018 at 09:06, davidwapples said:

The records were auctioned,  there was a thread on here about it

 Didn't know that, was it eBay? 

It was at an auction house in the north east , sold in a few lots and the auction house listed what was there

no one ever visited him? the loneliness of getting old, bloody hell

 

 

 

The sale of the remaining 4000 or so records from his collection was discussed at length on here - Featonbys Auctioneers on Tyneside sold them..something like £7 k was made on the day.... I have a copy of the spreadsheet the auctioneers provided...none of the lots really took my fancy....

Just seen the programme on iPlayer. Very interesting in lots of ways. I didn’t know John - was he the guy with a beard or the bloke on the right? Tim Brown popped up and showed us his Big Daddy’... So, John had virtually no records left as he had moved them on - now I’m really intrigued as I would like to know more about John, what records he had before he sold up, why he actually sold his collection etc.

I didn’t know Mr Powney but I heard about the auction and went to the viewing on the auction day. The collection was divided into lots with various quantities of records in each lot. There were numerous boxes but I only flicked through the lots that were of interest. If I remember right, it was Mr Powney’s family that arranging the auction. There was a itemised list. I watched the auction on-line and some lots went for good prices. 

Respect to Mr Powney for his passion and dedication in collecting the music he loved.