Autumn Issue · November 2026
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Best books on record collecting

Not much gets written about record collecting, and most of it is in English. We picked nine, each for a different reason.

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Why people collect

Read

Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World's Rarest 78rpm Records

Amanda Petrusich
Scribner, 2014, 272 pages.

The world of 78rpm shellac collectors: 1920s blues and country, often one surviving copy, auctions worth tens of thousands of dollars, records searched for in Southern rivers, and the line that runs back to Harry Smith and R. Crumb. Petrusich is a music journalist, not a collector, and the outsider's eye makes the book readable even if you have never bought a used record. Its core claim: these collectors saved traditions that institutions had forgotten. Our verdict: essential, among the best books written on the subject.

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Read

Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting

Eilon Paz
Ten Speed Press, 2015, 428 pages.

Photographer Eilon Paz spent six years visiting more than 130 collectors in 40 cities across 12 countries, photographing them among their shelves. Foreword by RZA, interviews with Questlove and Gilles Peterson. The collectors are ordinary ones: someone hunting Turkish psych, someone after Sesame Street records, someone after 1960s French girl groups. A way in for beginners, a mirror for seasoned collectors. Our verdict: essential.

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Presentation

Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting

Brett Milano
St. Martin's Griffin, 2003, 240 pages.

Brett Milano travelled across the United States to meet the most committed collectors: the kind who will cross half the country for a rare B-side or for every edition of one artist's record. It includes interviews with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Robert Crumb.

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Presentation

Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium

John Corbett
Duke University Press, 2017, 264 pages.

John Corbett, a music critic, producer and curator, writes about his long passion for vinyl and for the figure of the collector. The book looks at more than 200 rare or out-of-print LPs, some of the texts coming from his DownBeat column on records never released on CD.

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Value and identification

Read

The Rare Record Price Guide 2028

Record Collector (ed. Daryl Easlea)
Diamond Publishing, 1,244 pages. 2028 edition.

The reference for British collectable vinyl: over a hundred thousand entries from the 1950s to trap, with catalogue numbers, B-sides and values for LPs, singles, EPs and 12-inches. Prices are estimates; the lasting value is the identification data (catalogue numbers, formats, variants) that helps tell an original from a reissue. You consult it, you don't read it. Always buy the latest edition: an old one loses accuracy. Our verdict: indispensable for UK collecting, alongside Discogs.

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Where to hunt

By the author

The Grail Hunt: Europe

Sergio Sueri
Independently published (Groovilla Books), 2026, paperback and ebook.

Twenty European cities, one chapter each: where the local sound came from, which shops matter today, how to get around. Each chapter ends with the grails, highly sought records from that city, with their story, market price and how to recognise the original pressing (catalogue numbers, run-out matrices, SIAE or Depósito Legal stamps, sleeve details). Full grail entries are online and QR codes in the book link to them.

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By the author

The Grail Hunt: UK & Ireland

Sergio Sueri
Independently published (Groovilla Books), 2026, 574 pages, paperback and ebook.

Same approach as the European volume, for the UK and Ireland.

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Presentation

Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops?

Graham Jones
Proper Music Publishing, 2009, 336 pages.

For 25 to 30 years Graham Jones was a sales rep for a small UK music distributor. By 2009 the number of independent record shops in Britain had fallen from around 2,200 to 269, and he set out to visit fifty of them around the country to find out why.

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Understanding the phenomenon

Presentation

Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age

Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward
Routledge, paperback 2020 (first edition Bloomsbury, 2015), 232 pages.

Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward study the vinyl record as a social and cultural phenomenon in the digital age. It is an academic text: we list it for readers who want to understand why vinyl came back, not for those looking for a practical guide.

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FAQ

Which book should I start with if I'm new to collecting?

Dust & Grooves. It doesn't teach you how to buy a record: it shows you people who have done it for a lifetime and why, which is usually what makes beginners keep going. If the obsessive side is what hooks you, go for Petrusich.

Is there a serious price guide for British records?

Yes: The Rare Record Price Guide from Record Collector. The prices are estimates, not a tariff; what holds up over time is the catalogue numbers and variants, which tell you whether you are holding an original. Buy the latest edition and use it alongside Discogs.

Which book teaches me to spot an original pressing?

None does it alone. The price guide gives you British catalogue numbers and variants; The Grail Hunt shows, record by record and city by city, what to check in the run-out, the stamps and the sleeve. For the general method, see our guide to reading vinyl matrix numbers.

Sergio Sueri
Written by
Sergio Sueri
Reviews & Editorial
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