After 5: Collector's Series: Vinyl Pursuits

Of course, collectors also include dealers and those who buy rare finds to make money on the next sale. Most record collectors, however, have never sold any of their prize possessions.

Mark Harrington, president and CEO of Old Missouri National Bank, started collecting when he was 11 years old, using his “pop bottle money” to buy records and baseball cards.

“I love the sound of dropping that stylus down in the grooves,” Harrington says. “That got me when I was a kid, and it still does.”

He has never sold or traded one of his 2,000 records – not even when he accidentally purchased a duplicate.

Brett Childers, owner and president of Springfield Inventory Service Inc., has a collection of a little more than 4,000 12-inch albums, 4,000 45s and about 100 78s. He also knows he’ll inherit his parents’ collection of more than 7,000 records eventually. Even so, he’s not one to sell his records either.

“I collect them because I not only like to have them, I like to play them, too,” Childers explains.

Childers listens to records every day. He often puts a stack of three on the turntable while running on his treadmill. He likes all styles of music, but leans toward rock ‘n’ roll. Harrington also likes pop and soul music.

Wes Nichols, owner of Stick It In Your Ear in Springfield, says the demographic for record collectors is across the board – from 13-year-old females to 55-year-old males.

“A lot of people that we think would come in for a pop CD end up going to the back and buying a stack of old (Jimi) Hendrix records,” Nichols notes.

Nichols says 20 percent of his business is from vinyl sales, and he buys 30 to 40 records per day and sells about the same with average retail prices of $4 to $6. One-third of his vinyl sales are from new vinyl while the rest is used. Nichols lets Childers know when a new batch of records hits the store and also when record shows are scheduled.

Childers and Harrington also search garage sales and flea markets for records and will search online when looking for specific albums. Childers says he looks for things he didn’t buy when he was a kid and for unusual items like misprints on labels.

So where do they keep all these albums? Both Harrington and Childers have closets or shelves specifically built to store their collections, but both have outgrown these custom spaces and have stacks and crates full of overflow.

Just as Harrington and Childers learned a love of music as children, they’re passing on their passion to their children. However, they both agree their kids prefer compact discs and MP3s.

“I’m not an MP3 guy. For me the interest goes beyond just the song,” Harrington says. “The thing with albums is that you can hold the cover and read the liner notes.”

Nichols says 2008 might be a big year for vinyl, because manufacturers are producing and selling turntables again and more new vinyl is hitting the market.

Favorite Find

“I love the song, “Our Day Will Come,” and I came across the original album by Ruby and the Romantics at a flea market in fabulous shape. I just like that song and probably have half a dozen versions of it and finding the original in such great condition … I think it’s the first one I put up on the wall when I got my frames,” says Mark Harrington, president and CEO, Old Missouri National Bank.

Record King

Wayne Glenn, a well-known Springfield radio host of “Remember When” and “Nostalgia Time” on KTXR-FM, has a record collection of 15,000 to 20,000, which he houses in an auxiliary building on his farm in Nixa. He says everything he plays on his radio shows is from his personal collection.