Frankie Crocker

Royal Mail have been charging this fee for years, so it’s not just a recent thing. Now the Post Office has been privatised, they have become another bunch of rip-off scammers. The organisation is now run by bonus-boys who move from firm to firm getting golden handcuffs and handshakes. Ask yourselves, why does the price of a stamp go up so frequently? Want to know why there are so few post offices? Sell them off so the balance sheet looks healthy, and hey presto, up goes the bonus...

Earl Jackson - £1,342 Charlie McCoy - £446 Theron and Darrell - £1,428 Earl Jackson has broken the sound barrier...now I’ll never own a copy. Charlie McCoy has his day in the sun. Thought the Gallahads would go for more as it’s seriously rare. No worries mate. You do a brilliant job.

About as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to pricing. The range of prices thrown up over a long period of time can confuse both sellers and buyers. Useful for estimating the scarcity of a particular record or the ratio of demos:issues. Interesting to analyse the bidding history to track major finds, heightened demand etc. Totally misleading to sellers who think they will achieve maximum prices for their records. Of some use in suggesting what to bid to win an auction. Like price-guide books, Popsike is of interest to us collectors but must be used with an open mind.

Herman lived and recorded in Cincinnati. He was still living there recently so I was able to become the proud owner of one of his Stone Blue issues via a third party. This was after Andy had met him. I had the chance to buy one of Herman’s Mercury copies but I passed on it, something I’ve had cause to regret. Herman was selling part of his record collection so I was lucky enough to acquire his blue issue of Connie Austin on King.

Did they shrink wrap LP’s in the 60’s? The first cling film I saw on LP’s was in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Chalkie’s point about the lack of a promotional sticker is worth noting, but self-adhesive stickers were not common in the 60’s, it was all lick-‘n-stick hence so many ruined record labels. Goodway was probably a small outfit that used a small number of one-stop-shops to sell, so maybe the LP’s were stuffed by someone in a back room and the promotion done by word of mouth.

Good questions Dobber. Now there is copy on John Manship’s auction, others may be posing similar questions. For example, was there a free 45 in every LP sold? The free single may have been a marketing ploy to encourage buyers of the LP to give the 45 to a friend to prompt them to buy the album. Mass producing 45’s was an expensive business so I don’t see there being a few hundred sitting around unwanted when there was an album planned for release.

Not sure sorry. I have not seen a bootleg. I have two copies of the record in question but with different B sides. I had a rough copy, then upgraded it a couple of years ago when a stash turned up; I then decided to keep both of them. It looks like there were two pressings of the record, possibly because one was messed up. I can’t lay my hands on the records right now to check the details but I would be surprised if someone had booted it.

True, but a box turned up. Dealers took a few to sell on. Now that hoard has dried up, try finding a nice copy.

Big spin by Butch in the late 90’s. I’ll be settling for the black-print second issue from now on though. Made its mark at the Casino too.

Agreed Steve. Possibly the dullest auction list I’ve seen in a while. I hope Tim Brown did not see it. At least there were a couple of proper highlights in Rufus Wood and Roy Robert.

Bidding war here. Record has featured in Wants Lists on Soul Source. Tug of war between US Tijuano soul and Northern collectors here. I thought about going for the copy last year but it was too pricey for the sales box. I reckon the Sheltons on Lance is staying in the USA.

The days of NM and M- are over. Jason grades conservatively, but the stock is not what it used to be like in the beginning. Even G records are worth having if dead rare and can be cleaned up; better to have a rough copy than no copy at all says he pondering whetherWayne Champion on Invictus was a bargain?

The new VAT imposition looks like a post-Brexit wheeze as eBay can no longer slush their funds offshore to Luxembourg. It looks like HMRC have done a deal with eBay which will suit both parties as the former will gain more tax and the latter can continue to avoid paying a higher level of corporation tax. I suspect that Customs duties will still be charged in the usual way until I hear to the contrary - I for one am not experimenting with this for the time being. As suggested on Soul-Source in a previous thread, buyers and sellers should unilaterally agree a low price eg 75cents, for every dirty, scratched, unwanted and uncared for 60’s soul record that crosses the Atlantic; ‘finders’ fees’ could be deducted from final auction prices resulting in low ticket declarations and zero Customs duty.

Apologies...it should be Sir Richard anyway, and maybe it will be one day if he keeps playing his Ron Holden records.

A nice selection of tracks including The Prophets, Jackie Wilson, Betty Swann and N F Porter. Richard shared his expertise of the Northern scene between tracks, coming across well as he always does. However, on the subject of the Casino, Dickie OBE skirted around the R topic, failing to mention him, and ignoring the invitation he took up to form the best Northern Soul partnership I can recall. Richard, I call upon you to give credit where it is due and move on...

Good call. Adey Pierce has been in the business a very long time and has a decent selection. I should also add Sean Chapman’s website to the list. It’s worth mentioning these websites cost a lot to set up and maintain so I take my hat off to the dealers who have achieved this.

Agreed, it is a strange sight of a site. The records are overpriced but some seem to sell. I think they are priced up to attract interest in the shop window. He has a high profile so I thought he should be flagged up.

Fair point. Records are priced up using Manship Priceguide in many cases. Most records are for sale for two figures. The site is updated regularly. Most tunes have sound-clips. - this is a real advantage for browsers.There’s other types of soul besides Northern. Sure, there’s eBay and Discogs, but if you want a list that's been compiled by someone who knows the record business, this is a decent place to start. The vast majority of record stores and dealers in the States do not have a dedicated website.

www.parkersrc.com is an excellent listing for Don Parkers Records and Comics in the USA as it has a variety of soul with sound clips. The best websites in the UK are run by John Manship, Tim Brown, Pat Brady, Steve Jeffries, Darren Brown and Henry Atkinson but there are plenty of others. Check the Soul-Source seller listings daily and you can’t go wrong - any week you choose, the range of offerings will be way better than eBay.

Like Double Cookin’, Harlem Rumble, Frantic Escape...tracks that are so brilliant, they don’t even need a vocal.

I would not want to put anyone off Northern Soul. There is an enormous wealth of brilliant, excellent, good and fair sounds so for most of the time, you can’t go wrong. There are a few tailor made Levine tracks that come to mind and some pop-chart tunes we now tend to overlook, but the one I would nominate is the Enchantments-I’m In Love With Your Daughter on Faro. This has an odd beat, is hard to dance to and is atypical of the genre. PS I really like the Peanut Duck, especially the quack quack bits, nutty Detroit...

I’ve just been charged VAT based on postage costs and the price of a record. The dealer had difficulty switching to a US address so reluctantly I stumped up wasting $10 on the transaction. I think this is a real scam as postage charges relate to a service and not tangible goods.

Thanks for posting as always. Magic stuff. Another mixed bag but some pleasing results here and there for John. British items seem to growing in stature - I wish they could go in a Friday auction so I would not wear out my eyeballs looking over them.

Really weird. A $200 record goes for ten times as much? I watched and put in one bid. The winner might be feeling pretty sick - maybe they will withdraw it? The underbidder might just have been shivving for a laugh. We know there’s a millionaire bidder out there who makes one bid only, and only on nice mint items - I suspect their usual bid is something like $3,000 or $5,000 which would guarantee winning pretty much everything. It could of course be another ‘dealer intercept’ who plans to press 300 copies at £20 a pop thereby making a tidy profit. I suppose anyone could put in a silly bid and spoil the auction by later withdrawing it. Some of the more prolific eBay buyers have dozens of withdrawn bids against by identity which hints at their MO.

Without overthinking it, your average collector is someone who buys for a number of reasons but generally tends to keep and curate their collection. I would estimate that most collectors do not DJ regularly but plenty have done so on occasions. Many collectors sell or trade records - often to make space in a box or fund purchase of a want; as records occur in varying conditions, many collectors will upgrade the flawed ones when the opportunity arises. Your serious collector will clean the records, re-sleeve them, maybe file or shelve them in some sort of order or system, possibly list or catalogue them, and when time permits, even play a few... Collecting is a diverse field so there may not actually be a ‘typical’ collector. Sometimes, there comes a point when you just pick up what comes your way and end up as a ‘gatherer’ - stuff just piles up and up in odd boxes so it becomes hard to maintain the collection.