Sleeve notes

Anyone even vaguely interested in record collecting will know the importance of condition. The Goldmine methodology regards a Very Good condition record as being worth just 25% of one that's Near Mint, and Good condition drops that to 10-15%.

Sleeves are a factor in this. "Someone might have written on it or stamped a price tag on it" it states for Very Good, whereas "a Good to VG– cover has ring wear to the point of distraction, has seam splits obvious on sight and may have even heavier writing".

Writing may on occasion, though, make up for its value-decreasing impact in other ways. It can reveal a bit of that record's history. I note I posted about the writing on the inner sleeve of my copy of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd back in 2016 but it was brought back into sharp focus following the passing of Peter Tork earlier this week. 

Whoever originally owned my copy of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd must be particularly sad today. #petertork pic.twitter.com/A5TkedZAxj

— Darryl Wilks (@dgwilks) February 21, 2019

Curiously three other Monkees LPs I own carry the name and address of a past owner (Cheryl Croker of Bridgwater), along with, I suspect, the date they bought them and, in two cases, they also went to the bother of noting who took the lead vocal on each track. 

I have a Kinks album once owned by Annita Bennett and two (by the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds) from the collection of Sylvie Carpos of St Leonards. Whereas on the one hand I could begrudge Sylvie for not looking after her records particularly well (the Stones LP would fetch around £75 if VG; I'd be lucky to make my pound back on Sylvie's copy), I can appreciate the fact that she clearly enjoyed them. 


One I passed up on (not sure why) featured a critique of some of Aretha Franklin's back catalogue:

Aretha's end of term report. Must try harder. pic.twitter.com/6nOq5cD0i4

— Darryl Wilks (@dgwilks) January 23, 2016

Surprisingly I haven't found any notes or letters; the nearest I've had are the below in a music book. I'll just have to keep on looking.

Like I said... here are a couple of notes I just found inside a book from a charity shop. #haveapintonme pic.twitter.com/g92GL2io4a

— Darryl Wilks (@dgwilks) January 21, 2017

The Monkees: snog, marry or avoid?

Kids. They think they know it all. They think they're the first to do certain things, things us old folk would never have dreamed of doing. Well no. We've been there. Done that. And judging by this inner sleeve, a variation of snog, marry & avoid has been around since the 60s.

The verdict: Snog Mickey Dolenz, marry Peter Tork, avoid both Mike Nesmith & Davy Jones.