As a music fanatic, one of the most interesting jobs I’ve done in past years was working for an online business who specialised in trading in rare and collectable music related items, such as CDs, vinyl records and an incredible collection of memorabilia. The company has existed for near enough thirty years and started life as a mail order company operating from the lounge in one of the director’s properties. Over the years the business did well and found a huge market of music fans who wanted something more than just the ordinary CD when their favourite band brought out a new album, and during the period that I worked for them the company occupied a large warehouse and a nearby storage building.

It seems that the early collector’s market was initially kick-started by albums from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Some early issues of their albums had limited runs in production, and it was quite normal for the label image to change regularly, meaning if you had got the album soon after it was released, there was an excellent chance that you would have something worth a bit of money. For example, albums such as the original first issue of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with the cut-out insert, or the first issue of Sticky Fingers with the genuine zip included in the cover are highly sought after – if you can find anyone who is happy to sell. Most people would never get rid of their amazing collections, and most of the older records that the company got hold of came from people who had inherited them from a relation and had little interest in music themselves, although we were also aware of some people who ended up selling their collections to finance cosmetic surgery, Laser eye surgery and a college course.

A new market grew up with fans who had started to like a band after a couple of albums had been released who then decided to go back and find all of the early releases so that they had an entire collection of the artist’s recordings. A perfect example of this is the debut single release by Manic Street Preachers, which was limited to a couple of hundred copies, but which at the height of their fame several years later was changing hands for up to £750 – for a seven inch vinyl single with two tunes on it, in a dull picture cover. I sure didn’t pay that much for my copy, but think what you could buy with that amount of money – a good holiday overseas, a classy designer outfit, Laser eye treatment or possibly a cheap second hand car!

So, with fans looking for great condition second-hand products, there was a massive market to be harnessed and that is exactly what the directors did, purchasing unwanted CDs and sharing the availability of specific items to those who had holes in their collections.

In time, the music marketing people started to understand that proper collectors would stop at nothing to keep their collection complete and some record labels embarked on what were in reality quite cynical marketing concepts, although I doubt they would have admitted this in public. As an example, a new David Bowie ‘Best Of’ compilation released across the planet in 2002 had a different tracklisting for every country in which it was issued, and many fans tried to collect every single version available. We can only guess what David Bowie may have spent his share of the profits on, but I’m sure he’s aware that no amount of money invested in Laser eye treatment will ever make both of his eyes the same colour!

The other gimmick which record labels employed a while back was giving away additional items with CDs, ranging from keyrings, bonus recordings of live or previously unreleased songs, T-shirts, posters – in fact anything that the devoted fan would want to get hold of. There has since been a clampdown on this sort of marketing, since it was illegally bumping up the sales of those performers whose releases were being abused in this fashion, so fortuitously we never plumbed the depths of being promised free flights, vouchers for Laser eye surgery or teeth whitening or any other silly rewards just for investing in a CD. But it didn’t stop fans from investing in the things at the time.

The people I worked for also had some interesting connections within the music industry in a number of countries and consequently, we also sold numerous promotional items which had been given to pluggers and DJs ahead of a release date and which they then generally passed on to other people. Some of the buyers also managed to get items like tour itineraries and exclusive crew jackets from people who had been involved in the tour, but didn’t want to hang on to the stuff once the tour was finished. Some of the itineraries make fascinating reading!

I regretted having to leave the job, as it was very satisfying digging through a mountain of music items, researching them if necessary and then enhancing their descriptions on the website for people to browse. But all good things must come to an end.