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Danny Baker selling his entire record collection – 14,000

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News like this really unsettles me.

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  4. No idea why he is selling, but you can’t take it with you. At some point one can make the decision that the money is more use to you in your final years than having all this stuff lying around that maybe you hardly play any more.

  7. It feels to me that it is a little like artists selling the rights to their catalogue – the point gets reached when releasing the cash now makes sense than leaving it all to someone else. His collection is probably at peak value right now too. I imagine there is something that has prompted this.

  9. I sold mine this year, the friend who bought it for his shop (where I’ve bought many items from) said that a lot of people were doing the very same.
    We plan to move and it seemed pointless to transport it to a new house.

  10. All our lovingly acquired collections are ultimately dust, and regarded less lovingly by our loved ones. I have a house full of books, music, and DVDs, and know it will be lightly picked at when I die, and the rest sent to the chazzer. For now, I want it, but even now I realise it is transient.

  11. Collections, 9,999 times out of 10,000, only mean anything to the collector, right? If you’ve ever been involved with trying to get rid of someone’s estate after they die, you’ll know that you experience a bit of heartbreak on their behalf on realising their lovingly-gathered hoard has no importance to third parties, and usually no resale value (despite hearing them say “oooh these will fetch a bit when I’m gone” any number of times). Mostly, collections just end up being a pain in the arse for executors. I expect DB, not getting any younger, and after his health struggles and sacking by the Beeb*, is probably just looking to realise an asset while it’s still realisable, since most of the records will otherwise likely end up as clutter given away to charity shops after he’s gone. (I’m sure there’s a handful of individually saleable ones in there, but most probably aren’t.) If he’s not bothered, he might as well try for the cash. Don’t blame him at all.

    (*is he still sacked? I wouldn’t know.)

    • A friend of mine has what is actually an astonishing collection of hockey cards, of players who have played for the Nottingham Panthers at some stage in their career. I had a similar dalliance, but (fairly) quickly realised that the hole only ever gets bigger.
      Every season, about 10 new players, all of whom have maybe 20-30 cards (if you’re lucky, some have dozens) some of which are designed to be rare, and thus expensive. (In extremis, only one ever made, sometimes as low as 5 or 10 of that “type”. I could drone on for ages about parallels, short prints and memorabilia cards…).
      It must’ve cost him literally thousands of pounds. But will never be finished, as he’s a completist.
      It will be “worth” a fraction of that if sold.

      • I remember a quote attributed to Virginia Woolf (though I can’t find when I search now), ‘Nine times our of ten, even in households commonly regarded as bookish, what one finds is not a library but a book dump.’

      • Very true. A collector friend passed away early this year, and he had a huge CD collection with a 5-figures Discogs »worth«. It turned out his daughter had to pay someone to get the whole lot to the city recycling center as they were practically worthless.
        The guy also had a small vinyl collection – only a dozen or so artists, but there were all the official albums (British first pressings), in perfect condition, neatly filed one by one as they were released, from The Kinks, The Equals, The Who, Fairport, Animals, etc. We got in contact with an art dealer by chance, and he arranged a deal with someone in Dubai who bought the lot for nearly 9000 Euros. And payed for the shipping himself. Result.

        • I can’t think of a more useless thing than a collection of rare vinyl in a country that is knee deep in sand and has temperatures in excess of 30 degreees for eight months of the year, sometimes topping 40 degrees. Perhaps he was one of those ghastly ruling class types who care nothing about anything except the value of their personal possessions; cars, women, horses, that sort of thing.

          • I think they have access to some kind of air conditioning apparatus there, »knee deep in sand«.

            But you’re right – he was one of those, and he probably has some Breughel paintings in his music room that miraculously vanished from some European museum…

      • If I recall correctly Hep had invited an auction house round to value his “collection” , only for them to tell him it wasn’t a collection as such because it was too diverse and didn’t cover any artists comprehensively / in depth. I have one copy of every album released by a few artists but a real collector has all the alternate sleeves, all the re-issues, all the overseas releases, the Australian release with one alternate track etc – multiple copies of the same album.

        We will all be sitting on some stuff that’s worth a few quid – allegedly all my Zappa vinyl is worth some decent cash, as would be my copy of “Never Mind The Bollocks” according to the serial number on the disc, but I’ll have to find a way to the the Record & Tape Exchange sticker off without doing more damage. But as I found when I pruned my collection down, Music Magpie wouldn’t even offer 1p for huge numbers of CDs. I think Discogs is OK for pricing a collection for insurance, because it gives you a sense of what it would cost to buy replacements but their prices rely heavily on the last time they saw something sold, and it could be a long time before there’s another buyer interested.

  12. Discogs tells me my collection is worth $55,233.28 maximum. If some fine fellow knocked on my door and offered me that, I would allow him to take them with him after a long contemplation of about 2 seconds

  13. A mate’s Mum died. Dad had been head anaesthetist at a hospital. So well off.
    They sold the contents. They got more for his old boogie board than their french polished period sideboard.
    A week later he ordered a load of wood for the fire and determined it would have been cheaper to burn the sideboard.

          • A surf board is for tanned, lithe sons of beaches who can stand up on a floating object that is being propelled across the waves. A boogie board is for uncoordinated lumps like me, as you lie down on it and it supports your upper body while you paddle furiously and try not to get dumped.

            Being of manly proportions, I have a boogie board built like an aircraft carrier so that I don’t hang suspended horizontally a foot under the water like a jellyfish. Some of my favourite family memories are of careening into my kids while they played peacefully in the breakers, oblivious to the threat.

            In all truth, catching a wave is a great feeling on a boogie board or when body surfing, so I can easily see the addictive nature of surfing that gets people heading down the coast at 4am.

            For completeness sake, note also that there is a seperate sport called kneeboarding which lies between surfing and boogie boarding.

            • Pods has it about right. Also referred to as a body board. As my power to weight ratio diminishes I have contemplated strapping 2 on top of each other.
              BTW. There are plenty of fit athletic types who prefer boogie boards.

              • Yes, that looks exactly like how I do it. May in fact be me.

                Junior, the best bit of advice I can give you is to go online to a sizable specialist retailer and buy an extra large board. You won’t see them in standard surf shops. As I’ve mentioned, I’m 6’4” and solid. I used to get frustrated catching waves with the family as they would happily ride in on the sort of ripple generated by a frisky otter, whereas I would need a terrifying swell just to get me moving. Lying still on a board, it would be six inches under water.

                The board I got 10 or so years ago is not only larger and thicker, but is made out of a more solid, industrial foam. I actually lie on top of the water, which is a novelty for me, and can catch anything.

  15. Currently relying on streaming while transitioning to new abode. I listen to a fraction of the music than if I were to walk over to the wall of physical product and listener fatigue kicks in quite early.
    Admittedly not top end streamer a la Pencil.

    • I got into streaming for much the same reasons I’ve developed a bad headphone habit namely my living conditions. It just wouldn’t be sensible to build a large collection of physical product because I live in a small first floor one bedroom council flat. The headphone thing started because although my downstairs neighbour has never complained when I fire up my speaker chain I don’t want to cause her a problem so l only play music through my floorstanders for a few hours in the afternoon. It started with one pair of headphones and now I have five pairs of headphones. Complete madness. Headphones offered a solution so I went down that rabbit hole. I must admit that since the early days of the plague I have spent a not inconsiderable amount of money getting everything as I prefer and I still want to improve my headphone amplification as soon as I can afford it. Then I’ll be finished…honest. Streaming if you are prepared to buy the hardware can be extremely good quality. Is the SQ as good as analogue played via very expensive kit? No. Is the SQ as good as digital played via top notch CD kit? No. It is very close though and improving all the while and it’s so very convenient. I have access to pretty much any music my heart could desire and I can control it all from my couch. The tyranny of choice though can be a bit of a kicker on occasion.

        • I’ve considered Schiit Audio kit. Electromod seem to be the only dealer in the UK that distributes their products and they seem to have frequent problems accessing stock. I was considering either an Asgard 3 and a Bitfrost 2 as a stack or going all in and buying a Ragnarok 2 with the DAC on board. I need to get some money together before either option is doable and with sales having unsurprisingly disappeared it will be a while. They are out of stock anyway at the moment and have been for some time. I think I shall eventually end up going to the endgame Topping stack their D90 le Dac and A90 Discreet amp. I like the clean linear sound of Topping kit. It’s what I’m currently using only at entry level. It sounds fine but I’m using some pretty good headphones nowadays and I’m not getting the most out of them with my current stack. It’s the last piece of the jigsaw for me as far as my headphone chain goes. The last pair of headphones I bought are endgame cans for me. They are everything I desire in terms of listening and comfort so they deserve better kit to drive them.

              • I thought Fame’s Debbie Allen (the teacher who does the speech in the opening credits) lived in Woking because there was a Debbie Allen dance academy there. I want to claim I was 7 or something but I was much, much older (in my 20s) when I realised it was a worldwide franchise and she didn’t personally run it.

            • Topping is the audio manufacturer. They are unsurprisingly Chinese. They make a variety of audio components two of which are the D90 le which is a DAC and the D90 Discreet which is a headphone amp and pre amp. They can be physically placed one on top of the other that’s a stack. I could forgo the DAC and connect the headphone amp and my speaker amp to a Little Bear switch and run them both from my resistor DAC with balanced XLR cables using the Little Bear to switch between them depending upon whether I’m using headphones or speakers but my preference is to use separate DACs for each audio chain.
              Bet you’re much clearer now. 😉

          • I hear that Schiit stuff is rubbish. I think you need to try some of the bottom end kit from Khaaak or Kerap, maybe a pair of 4RSE or Dummp woofers to really deliver a shipping alert wallop?

          • Mr Pencil, the only reason that I was prepared to recommend the Valhalla is that I own one – it’s what I use for headphones and I’ve been very impressed by it. It’s built to a very high standard for the money (built like a brick, er, Schiithouse). However, I wasn’t looking for a DAC or a preamp, just something to drive the ‘phones…

            • I don’t need the pre amp gubbins but it’s part of the device. I could use what you recommend using a Little Bear switch as mentioned above but I think a hybrid valve and SS amp might be a little too warm when run from my DAC. My preference is not to colour the sound overly much. It bewildering tbh. I’ve put hours upon hours into researching the bloody things and of course just end up not knowing whether to buy this box or that box. I’ve ended up thinking of sticking with Topping because I know their in-house sound and it will physically fit into the space I have available. After the Fiio debacle I’m not keen on trying a DAC/amp all in one again. I did consider a Burson Conductor 3 X for a while but decided against it for that reason. It’ll be a while before I take the plunge due to cash flow issues so I have plenty of time to get even more confused.

  16. There’s an article in the Guardian today which says the average age people stop really caring about popular music is 33. I’d say that’s pretty accurate if my own chums are anything to go by. A few still play stuff from their teenage/University days but have almost no interest in anything released after 1990. We no longer have conversations like “Have you seen they’ve re-released Electrif Lycanthrope?” and mention, say, Jamie T’s latest all you get is a blank look.
    Given that the same chums avidly converse re books, TV shows, films, art exhibitions etc, why is this so? Have all of us on here simply never grown up? Or have I answered my own question?

      • At seventy, I finally admit defeat with new music. But I still enjoy the millions – oh, okay, thousands – of “records” I loved before my interest in (and connection with) new music tailed off in the ‘eighties. The best of it still does what it’s paid for – makes me forget, immerses me in the moment, that kind of thing. F’rinstance – Al Stewart’s “Lord Grenville” came up on shuffle yesterday and I was pole-axed by the sheer beauty of the thing.

    • It’s a generalisation of course. I am just approaching double that age and have never been more interested in music old and new.
      I have many friends who are not interested but they really need to see a doctor

      • I’m exactly twice that age and my interest in new music hasn’t diminished in the slightest. Still chasing those goosebumps and still occasionally catching them. Admittedly my interest is mostly confined to jazz, dub techno and ambient along with the places those noises intersect so not all new music. I have zero interest in what would have been deemed chart music in days of yore but it’s not meant for me. I’m not sure it ever was tbh. I still enjoy some Americana and folk but not as much as I used to do. A little now and again is all I find I require when the mood takes me. I listen to very little old. It must be years since I last played The Beatles for instance.
        Listening to new music serves to remind me that I haven’t died and not noticed and I enjoy the blank look that passes across people’s faces when they ask me what music I enjoy and they immediately haven’t got a clue what or who I’m talking about. This is usually followed by “What do you think of Adele?” ” I love her, she’s a proper singer.”

  17. I do often flirt with the idea of selling my records. Nothing like the vast collection Danny Baker holds, but I do sometimes look at mine and get instant back pain at the thought of ever moving them. I’m seriously thinking of down-sizing home, so it would be incredibly convenient if somebody just turned up with a van and bought the lot! Never sure how to approach pricing – a little bit less than the med price on Discogs always seems fair to me, but I imagine it will be less than that.
    DJ and writer Dave Haslam wrote a book on selling his collection called A Life In Thirty-Five Boxes – and somebody did just turn up in a van and take the the lot.

    • Any music mag like uncut. classic rock etc will have ads that will come to your house ,quote and take away. A fraction of what you theoretically would get selling on discogs individually but most records have heaps of sellers anyway, so no certainty of selling.

      • I sold my “collection” of 7” singles to The Sound Machine in Reading. I never played them but thought that when I retired I definitely would. I didn’t. I was expecting maybe £150 to £200 for them. I got £65.
        But I have sold quite a few LPs on Discogs for very good money. Albums on vinyl from the 90s often go for decent money as most were sold on CD. My best being £650 for This Desert Life by Counting Crows. It’s perhaps worth having a look before just accepting the first offer…
        I’m the same age as DB. I have maybe one tenth of his collection and would imagine he has realised that he’ll never play most of them again and suspect he has little or no pension to keep him going. When he was ill he had to borrow money off Chris Evans and that was when he still had a job. I happen to know his eBay name and just checked… he has been selling high value music items over the past year or so but there’s nothing listed at present.

  18. Offspring the Younger nailed it the other day when I came home from a record fair with a bulging sack: “Yours is the last generation to buy physical media, isn’t it?”

    • out of interest, how old is Offspring The Younger? In my day job I see plenty of mid-teens buying vinyl and even, yes, CDs, many more than I did even a few years ago. Perhaps OtY has been superseded by the generation coming up behind them. It happens to us all….

    • Interestingly, two 30 somethings have independently told me recently that they have reacquired the notion that actually owning things is quite nice. My son has a few records, and was being urged to get rid by his other half, but told me he has realised he is actually quite attached to them. Another lad has been working at our house and became interested in my old pair of B&W speakers – he told me that he really regrets getting shot of his DVD library, and is now thinking of getting a CD player and some favourite music in physical format. He has now bought the speakers and is itching to get going!

  19. Mick Jagger said that this recent period (mainly 2nd half of 20th century) will be known as a brief one within tens of thousands of years of music when recorded offerings could suddenly make lots of money.

  20. I seem to have completely stopped acquiring physical product. Everything recently acquired is in digital form.
    I don’t go actively looking for New music any more. Too much effort. I reckon if it’s good enough and has the wind behind it, so to speak, it’ll probably find me.
    A lot of of my recent discoveries seem to be stuff I was too young to notice, let alone appreciate, when it was current. Some of it was just as unfashionable then as it is now.

  21. Fait accompli.

    I go into a shop (there is no shop, but if there was a shop…) – I go into a shop, shop sells physical product… hmm, but no, there is no shop and even if there was a shop, that shop would not sell physical product – so, hmm, I don’t go into a shop, I no longer buy physical product because there is no shop I don’t go into, and if there was, that shop, the shop I’ve just gone into, but haven’t gone into because there is no shop to go into, would not sell physical product.

    It’s raining at Lords.

  22. DB just posted on Twitter that he now has been told he’ll have to pay 20% capital gains tax from the sale, so it is now on hold. Surely that’s not the case?

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