I used to occasionally buy records off eBay from this older fella who would buy collections from estate sales then grade and review the records to sell individually.

I’d ride my bike half an hour to his home, spend 30 seconds dealing with the purchase and then spend the next 30 minutes chatting music. He used to own a record store in Tassie and when he moved to Victoria he sold 20,000 vinyls from the shop’s stock and his own 3,000 record personal collection. His knowledge was immense and it was always a pleasure to listen to these stories.

He once asked what my favourite record was. I said it was The White Album as it was played continuously on a cassette in my childhood family car, it brings back so many singalong memories. He then told me all about the original print that had the print number stamped on the cover, the paper colour of the inner sleeve, the apple logo and the extra poster and photos that came inside the sleeve.

Many months later I rode out to pick up another childhood favourite Tubular Bells. I paid for the records, had a bit of a chat on the front porch and then he suddenly remembered and asked “Did you ever track down a copy of your favourite album?”

He ducked inside and came back out with this. Showed me the number,the apple logo, the inner sleeve colour, the photos and the poster. Reminded me how that’s how you knew it was an original print. I was thinking “Crikey, I don’t have enough cash for this!!”

He then said “Everyone should have a copy of their favourite album, you can have this for $20”

It’s been ten years and I’m still gobsmacked by his generosity

Starting my first day of high school, mum and dad said they would buy a record for me. My brother suggested Live and Dangerous. So mum went into HMV in central London to buy an album with a picture of a guy in leather trousers, legs akimbo, thrusting his groin towards the audience. She also bought my brother a copy of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell, the cover being a muscley bronzed bloke bursting out of the depths of hell on a rather phallic looking motorbike. Good old mum.

I remember saving up all my pocket money as a 5 year old so I could buy the record. It was the beginning of my love for rock and vinyls.

For a brief period of time, I was collecting records without owning a record player. This specific record was one of the first CD albums I had bought with my first earned money back in the day. So I thought it’d make sense to make it my first vinyl I own. Not too long later I had learned that Keith Flint had passed away and that set me out to buy a record player to give this baby some serious airtime to pay some resepect.

This was one of the many records my nanna gave to me when I got my first turntable. It might not be as cool as the Fleetwood Mac or Bob Dylan records she also gave me that she got when she was young, but it’s definitely the oldest, and I love it just the same.

Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack – 1977, I was 12…and that was the start of my ever expanding vinyl collection.
Probably the only “Disco” album I own but it still gets a rotation now & again!

I was in a second hand shop sifting through the records for sale and after nearly giving up I stumbled across this bad boy and picked it up for $5, I love the original crackly sound when played and fell in love with it I saw Paul Simon live a few years back

The first vinyl record I ever purchased, 1998 at alternative music festival Push Over 98 held at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. The Living End were riding a huge wave after the success off the Prisoner of Society/Second Solution EP, this was the followup single after Prisoner of Society and I had fallen in love for life. Their energy in music and on stage connected with my adolescence and there was no way I wasn’t bringing home a copy of this very limited press (500 copies). It some how survived the mosh pits in which I carried it all day and it still sits proudly in my collection with all the other The Living End vinyl releases.

At a used record store in Yarraville in 2012. At the same time I got doors alive she cried

There was a devastating flood in my area a couple years back and amidst the chaos a copy of this record washed up to me and I was able to hold onto it and stay afloat, thus surviving. All belongings (including vinyls) were lost in the flood that day, thus making this my oldest record, and my most cherised. Arethtra and George saved my life that faithful day!