I'm glad to say I got off the 'must have' the big ticket merry-go-round ages ago, I simply buy and collect records which float my boat be they cheap as chips little bits and bobs or sometimes the more exspensive, buying records to simply DJ with or impress others in my book is a nonsense and a pointless exercise as often there is always someone there to over shadow your efforts, collecting records is a very personal thing and it would be good if sometimes we could actually express ourselves totally when DJ'ing by playing a non restricted type spot rather than the often play safe method as ever playing a solid hour of in your face big money records can become a little boring.
I'm having more fun now than ever before swapping, buying, selling etc. selling to buy seems to be what most of us have to do in order to keep the collecting bug going which I find easier to do now than a few years ago, if you can overcome the emotional attatchment to certain records then this helps big time, I'm often of the opinion if someone else can get pleasure and enjoyment from a record I own then there is no problem in selling it, however there will always be certain records no matter how hard you try you can never let them go.
Regards - Mark Bicknell.
PS, waiting for the postman to arrive with several small packages.....collecting don't you just love it?