Record Collector

[RichardB]

Unless you’ve literally just arrived in Sheffield then - this being a music magazine and you, presumably, being a music lover - you’ve almost certainly been into Record Collector. It’s where you go when you want to find something, y’know, a bit different and a bit cheaper. It is everything a record shop should be. Come April next year the ‘Collector will have been around for 25 years - corresponding - very roughly - with Sheffield becoming the sort of city that is identified with its musical output.

http://www.sandmanmagazine.co.uk/oldsite/s...or/recordc.html

[madannie77]

Unless you’ve literally just arrived in Sheffield then - this being a music magazine and you, presumably, being a music lover - you’ve almost certainly been into Record Collector. It’s where you go when you want to find something, y’know, a bit different and a bit cheaper. It is everything a record shop should be. Come April next year the ‘Collector will have been around for 25 years - corresponding - very roughly - with Sheffield becoming the sort of city that is identified with its musical output.

http://www.sandmanmagazine.co.uk/oldsite/s...or/recordc.html

As mentioned in another thread some time ago, I spent far too much time (and money) in the early to mid eighties in Record Collector and purchased lots of import LPs. Handy that it was on the same bus route as my house. I still go in there almost every time I am in Sheffield although I don't spend as much as I used to - too many other financial commitments. Still get some intersting and obscure stuff, though. I note that the article mentions the original Virgin records shop right at the bottom of The Moor - that was a pretty good shop as well.

[RockinInTheFreeWorld]

Only 2 posts here for the mighty Record Collector! - as John Peel would doubtless have called it (and who visited when his son Tom was at Sheffield Uni). Anyone who's ever had any kind of serious interest in popular music and youth culture in general, will have been here, or maybe worked here (as I was lucky enough to do for 4 years) , or, at least, heard or read about it.

First met Barry (the owner) when he was manager of Virgin Records - (which opened in Sheffield in 1973, at the bottom of the Moor) - in March 1974 when we all wore flared loon pants, baseball boots or tennis shoes and at least something in crushed velvet (Barry's was a pale green jacket as I remember). Sprawled on the shop's huge bean bags checking out the latest Joni Mitchell or Joe Walsh album and you felt like 'The Jesus of Cool' (apologies to Nick Lowe). The Collector opened in April 1978 in Broomhill which in itself was an absolute stroke of commercial genius on Barry's part as it was, and still is, in the absolute heart of student land and slap bang in the center of what has always been a thriving hub of cool shops and decent pubs.

Still there, still as relevant today as it's always been - chock full of stuff you are just not going to find anywhere else - and that's no hollow taunt as this place is the business. Like me, you've probably checked out everyone else in Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, and London and were gutted when a lot of fine stores went to the wall. Do yourself a favor and check them out while you've the chance when lock-down finally finishes, and pay them a visit.

There's everything - from CDs: deletions, promos, imports, signed material; vinyl - literally, tons of vinyl in every shape, colour and limitation; dvds and blu-rays, books, magazines (including those hard to find UK and US issues from the sixties & seventies) etc etc.