Frankie Crocker

Shame this topic has arisen as the auctions from this dealer are amongst the best around. The aim of a shill bidder is to push the price up without winning it, either to assist the seller or the owner of records on consignment. Second chance offers are not worth taking up as the price is determined by the winning bid as opposed to the maximum of the third highest bidder. You therefore overpay if you take up a second chance offer. Bidders only need to check Popsike to realise there are multiple copies of some titles being offered auction after auction so it is vital to monitor sales patterns before diving in.

I would put it at more like three hours to Chicago and longer to Detroit. Terre Haute was well placed to serve other markets such as Indianapolis and Cincincinnati as well as Chicago and Detroit and must have been chosen as a pressing location on the basis of transport costs. The records from there all seem to be styrene as opposed to vinyl - maybe the potentially big sellers ended up being pressed here as it was a later plant more geared to mass production using cheaper styrene. Earlier vinyl pressing plants could not keep up with the growth of major labels' output so styrene using plants popped up to cater for regional dustribution. Darrell Banks was a massive seller and barely a week goes by without one being offered for sale somewhere

Sounds more like a Soul Sam spin to me. Not quite good enough for Butch's box IMO.

Check the specs in the Crossley booklet and contact the company. Alternatively, look online for the drive-band on an electronics shop listing to see if there are any matching the specs. Could you actually fit a spare belt without dismantling the machine - if not, it might be best to invest in a new player? Several companies sell styli online and this is the usual approach given the shortage of hi-fi shops on the High Street. You might find an address in Record Collector magazine perhaps. Sometimes DJ suppliers carry a range of styli or could order what you want.

Looks like the bloke is about to relieve himself on his collection... Not sure if walking over boxes of records is advisable but mega-rich people generally do what they want. Doubt there are many good Northern records in the stack and would not fancy digging through them even if the chance was there. A warehouse in Tampa had stock boxed like this about 10 years ago - there was next to nothing there worth having, just common pop records. Not sure why anyone would want to commit all songs to a digital library - job best left to Apple or Spotify...

A top, top outfit with so many brilliant tunes to be proud of. Not sure this song does justice to their talent or offers a passport to fame and fortune. They could easily break into the tribute band circuit and could hold their own in Vegas. Their 60's and 70's output would also be showcased to good effect on tours to European, American and Far East/Australian soul venues. The music business always was, and still is a fickle beast - the Masqueraders would be better off steering clear of novelty shows, but who knows, this exposure may lead to something and deservedly so.

My copy arrived today. Looks very impressive. Am looking forward to reading it. Only been to Nashville once and hardly found any records, so this book will make up for it.

Got to contact seller to make 'special arrangement'. Maybe divert to US contact for safe delivery and forwarding. Tricky business really but alternatives exist. Get to know the main sellers and their MO - they are generally flexible and open to suggestion.

Hard to shift large quantities of 'unknown' records so this is one strategy. The original hoard may have already been split between dealers. Anyone out there who knows what this Fred Mark tune sounds like?

Lord, What's Happening To Your Prices... Vaguely remember this going for £200 when exposed at Wigan so maybe this price is something of a bargain. Like the colour scheme - makes the white DJ copy look very plain. Most importantly, still sounds good today long after it was a groundbreaking tune four decades ago.

The Priceguide works in your favour if you don't have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all records as you can identify 45's in stores without a record player. Many stores such as Jerry's and the Flip Side only have early editions so are behind the times. These days, Popsike and Discogs inform the dealer of going rates, more so than Manship's books. Ultimately, John's guides have encouraged more dealers to dig deeper and collectors to cash in by selling obscure records they stumbled across. So, on balance, I'm pro Manship Priceguides and take one to the States two or three times a year - you can always keep it in the trunk and fetch it into the store when a dealer quotes a silly computer based figure!

Barren ground I'm afraid. Been there the last five Octobers. Jerry has no 45's now. The Attic has a lot of records but virtually no Northern Soul as it's been picked over so many times. George's Songshop in Johnstown, an hour away is worth a visit, but pricy and low on stock. Geo's in Youngstown has a tiny number of 45's, mainly unsleeved. The Flip Side in Hermitage is worth a visit but very expensive - I left behind small pile of duplicates to sell on but someone who has not got them might fork out... Cleveland has a decent selection of record stores but all well and truly picked over. That said, all stores stumble across stuff every now and again so you should try them - just don't expect to find much.

Crack outfit. Produced some superb tunes. Great photo. Thanks for posting.

Nicely phrased. I keep meaning to buy the book...

True. But 'blue eyed' usually means soulful despite being overtly white. When obviously 'blue eyed', more often than not it is regarded as slightly inferior than if it was an out and out black sounding vocal. Most of the time, classic soul tracks sound so black, irrespective of the artist, that the listener does not even consider they may be hearing someone who is not black.

Presumably this is a CD for yourself rather than commercial release? To me, 'blue eyed soul' is where you clearly have a white singing voice with a soulful backing track for example the Outsiders, Tom Jones, loads of Beach Music sounds etc. Some of the tracks referred to in the thread are so 'black sounding', they can hardly be classed as 'blue eyed', and in fact, are so embedded as classic soul sounds, no one would regard them as 'blue eyed'.

In January, 272 copies sold as one auction lot for $1,581.00. It appeared they were bought by a well known Detroit record dealer. In May, the first copy from the hoard sold at auction for $210. This month, another copy sold for about $250 and a further copy was put up for auction with a minimum bid of $125 or a Buy It Now price of $190. These copies were put up for sale under a different seller ID. Some buyers have already paid too much for this record by getting into an Auction duel and maybe a few more taking up Second Chance offers. More buyers are going to get their fingers burnt, especially if they don't read this. Would it have been better for the seller(s) to price the record at say $30, generate a handsome profit and make a lot of collectors happy? Or is the the best way to move 272 copies of the same record, to sell the first few at a huge mark-up then keep dropping the price until they all go? What do members think?

Check out Popsike or some of the sales listings on here for a realistic valuation. Knock off 10-20% if in a hurry to sell. Ask yourself what you paid for them, then decide what you can let them go for. Condition is a prime factor. If all else fails, turn to Manship's Price guide.

One on eBay finishing 4.30 p.m. Monday...

Sometimes they do...by accident. When I got back into record buying in the early 90's, I would buy from a weekly list put out by a northern dealer. After John Manship published his bootleg guide, I found I had bought plenty of bootlegs in the belief they were originals eg Sam and Kitty, Spyders, Malibus, Eddie Regan to name but a few. Don't forget, there's plenty of good tunes only available on carvers and bootlegs

Yep, that's vinyl collectors of all hues, US originals/test pressings/reissues/boots etc. Sure, there are plenty of newcomers and returnees to the soul scene, but I suspect only a small proportion buy records.

Not 100,000. Maybe 12-15,000 but no way of being precise. Obviously anyone who DJ's. The few thousand hard-core 60's and 70's survivors who've been involved for decades. The few thousand in Europe and the hundreds in Japan, Oz and of course the USA. A few dozen in Canada. A few more thousand recent converts, mainly in the UK. Talking Northern 45 collectors in the main, although there are of course other genres to gather. A typical three figure eBay item might have 25 bids but just 10 bidders, largely due to continued long-term interest rather than overwhelming demand from armies of rabid collectors. John should use the sales figures of his Price Guides to judge the number of really serious collectors out there, then deduct a figure for the number bought by record store owners, many of whom have no interest in collecting records. Whatever the figure, the collecting scene thrives yet still remains slightly underground and a mystery to the masses.

Job well done Rodders. A man can only take so much Modern Soul... Enjoy a well earned break.

This is good news. Better than when you put some dollars in an envelope and asked for the change to be sent with your record.

Copy up for auction on John Manship's site. Usual sales hype, so expect this to go for BIG money... Any predictions? Place your bets...