This isn't a book to read, it's a tool to consult — and for anyone collecting British vinyl it is simply indispensable. The Rare Record Price Guide, published every two years by Record Collector magazine, is the reference price guide for the UK market: over a hundred thousand entries, twelve hundred pages, an A-to-Z of everything worth collecting, from 1950s rock'n'roll to trap, with catalogue numbers, b-sides and current valuations for every LP, single, EP and 12-inch.
Its value lies not only in the price quoted — always an estimate, to be taken as orientation rather than gospel — but in the sheer mass of identification data: catalogues, formats, variants. It is the tool that tells you whether the record in the two-euro crate is really what you think, or a worthless reissue. For the serious collector it is the first reference to keep on the shelf, alongside Discogs.
It appears in an updated edition every two years: always worth seeking the latest, since the market shifts and a guide several years old loses accuracy. A working tool, not a read — but one a collector never parts with.
