Over the last fifteen to twenty years there has been a huge resurgence in people coming back to vinyl records, the older generations wanting all those records they had back in their youth, the younger generations appreciating the joy of putting the needle on a record and reading the sleeve, and the collectors wanting that rare original pressing to complete their collection. Therefore, it has come to pass that music has become a large part of the auction industry, with collectors, dealers and fans constantly searching for records, especially for certain artists and groups whose original recordings have become highly desirable.

With this new-found interest, records that you couldn't give away 20 years ago, can now be worth hundreds, and in very rare cases thousands of pounds. So, what makes a record valuable? Generally, prices are driven by rarity, desirability, and of course the condition of the record. A heavily scratched record that has become unplayable will have little value, though very faint hairline marks on the vinyl are not too detrimental. Age and rarity alone doesn't mean value, they must be desirable, A good example being the old shellac 78 rpm's your grandparents had that are over 70 years old now, the majority of them you will find are classical, big band, crooners and jazz genres that today are just undesirable by most, though there are exceptions to this rule so please don't completely discard them. Desirable artists from the fifties, such as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, are an example of a few, and older recordings from the old blues players such as, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson and Willie Brown can be very valuable.

The largest market by far is for LP's, with whatever your budget or taste there is something for everyone. But what about those really valuable records you may have? Well, one of the most popular collectors’ markets is for first pressings, which is the very first time a new record is pressed and released by an artist or group. These are identified in many different ways, one of the most common being those numbers you see on the run off at the end of a record near the round label, also using some of the very informative websites around now, with one of the best being Discogs.Com. The difference in value between a first pressing and later can be huge, for example Led Zeppelin's first LP from 1969 in really good condition could be worth over £2,000 with second and later pressings going down from £200, even though they all basically sound the same when playing them at home. 

With all that in mind, let's take a look at some of the most desirable artists and groups at present. Of course, there are the evergreen ones whose desirability never seem to diminish over time, such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix, I suppose the connection between these being their groundbreaking status within music, with early first pressings being highly valued.

A genre of music rapidly increasing in value is Punk and New Wave, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Cure, Siouxsie And The Banshees, U.K. Subs, Sham 69, Television, Angelic Upstarts, Ramones, Joy Division, and The Damned, these being a few names who were at the forefront of the movement. The highest value records often comes from some of the lesser known artists of this genre, some may say 'underground', such as, The Misfits, The Fall, Discharge, Resistance 77, Condemned 84, New York Dolls, Crass, and The Adicts to name a few. All these names and many more can be found in our forthcoming vinyl auction, in a collection of 7'' singles. LP's, CD's and t-shirts we are proud to present.

Valuable records by desirable artists can come from all genres and decades of music, but there is an era at where vinyl by artists across the spectrum are becoming rapidly more valuable, that's from around 1992 through to the 2000's. Basically the music buying public were buying CD's not vinyl, therefore record companies were only pressing very limited numbers of LP's, making them very desirable in today's market, for example, The Beautiful South – Carry On Up The Charts (1994) on vinyl is being sold for figures in excess of £100, and albums by Oasis for over £200.

Today record sales are very healthy with companies producing their artists work on many different coloured and attractive vinyls, manufacturing limited pressings of certain colours making them very collectable. As ever there are the more desirable artists making these limited edition releases more valuable, Taylor Swift, Paul McCartney, Daft Punk, Muse and Avicii to name a few, have releases regularly changing hands for hundreds of pounds.

Here at Sheffield Auction Gallery we hold vinyl and music memorabilia sales 3 or 4 times a year. So if you are interested in starting or adding to a collection of your own please do come down and talk to our specialist valuer Steve Asher who is also available at the gallery every Wednesday.