IN a recent edition of Record Collector magazine, a lifelong vinyl enthusiast spoke of the library he had painstakingly built up over half a century.

It had begun in 1966, when Paul Talbut’s uncle bought him a small turntable and a copy of The Monkees’ hit single, I’m A Believer. He quickly became obsessed with The Beatles, an obsession that continues to flourish to this day.

Paul’s collection, preserved on wall-to-wall bookshelves in his study in Sydney, Australia (a long way from South Shields, on South Tyneside, where he was born) extends to 5,000 singles, 200 LPs and more than 1000 CDs. Factor in what he calls “the valuable stuff” and the entire collection is probably worth more than £40,000.

Ever keen to track down rarities, he “religiously” tracks some 20 or 30 UK sellers on eBay almost every day.

And then he made a point that every vinyl collector, irrespective of age, can identify with. Asked about the visual side of collecting, Talbut responded: “There is a thrill to holding and owning an album that is difficult to explain to a Spotify user.

“I’m sentimental about certain albums bought as a teenager – I want the physical connection to the vinyl and the artwork”.

There is a lot of that going on as you read this today, in the games hall of Bellahouston Leisure Centre, as VIP Record Fairs returns to Glasgow.

Over the course of a few hours, between 800 and 900 enthusiasts, from teenagers to grey-haired oldies, after each paying £3 for entry, will scour dealers’ tables.

It’s always a hypnotic process to watch. Plastic storage boxes of records, many hundreds of them, are being thumbed through as collectors search for specific artists and albums, or perhaps for that impromptu golden find such as a Bob Dylan rarity, or a Japanese import on coloured vinyl of a Rolling Stones classic from the 60s; or some obscure garage act; or a group of the Krautrock genre from Germany; or maybe a long-forgotten quartet that emerged from America’s prolific west-coast scene that had their moment in the sun before returning to their day jobs.

Here and there – and I speak from personal experience – you come across something you first bought as a teenager. “Sentimental” doesn’t even begin to describe it. You suddenly find yourself holding an album that you bought maybe 40 years ago. The sleeve design, the typeface, the order in which the songs appear – it all comes back in a jolt of memories, some happy, some less so.

It’s good to see teens exploring vinyl at these fairs. All is not quite lost to Spotify and other streaming services, you think, if younger fans are actively seeking out vinyl. As a bonus, they can often buy records a lot cheaper here than in local record shops – around £25 for a standard reissue album against a fiver or a tenner at the fairs.

As Rob Lythall, the 60-something owner of the organisers, VIP Record Fairs, puts it: “The biggest joy is to see new, younger, music fans visiting our events to both buy and sell.”

Much has been written about vinyl’s remarkable resurgence. It was reported last month that 2021’s vinyl sales were at £135.6 million, up 23.2 per cent year-on-year compared to £150.1m in CD sales (down 3.9% year-on-year). On this current growth trajectory, says the music website NME.com, vinyl will be ahead by the end of this year.

In the first six months of 2021, in America, 17 million vinyl records were sold, generating $467m in retail revenue – nearly double the amount from the same period in 2020.

Dealers come from far and wide to the VIP fair at Bellahouston. Tony Gaughan doesn’t have far to travel, though: at No 204 London Road, his shop, Blitzkrieg, is close to the Barras and the fabled Barrowland music venue.

He has an interesting background, too. Long part of the Glasgow music scene, he has played in bands and is now A&R director of the independent record label Neon Tetra Music.

Blitzkrieg, which relocated to London Road from a unit in the Savoy Centre, reflects his love of punk music, such as The Ramones and The Clash.

As well as punk vinyl (new, old and restored) and memorabilia, Blitzkrieg also sells vintage musical instruments, books, concert set lists and fine art works, and hires out backline – amplifiers and drum kits – to young local bands.

“I’ve attracted tattoo artists and photographers, and I’m helping to promote their services as well”, says Tony. “It’s all going really well and just the other week we were described as the best record shop in Scotland. I’ve got a huge second-hand punk collection that has come in, including original Sex Pistols, Devo and Vibrators posters, which have been restored and are framed on the walls.

“I’m really looking forward to the record fair”, he added. “I’ll be selling lots of brand-new vinyl by acts such as Gang of Four, The Clash, Television, and A Certain Ratio, as well as records by various Scottish acts... The Bluebells, Hipsway.

“All the second-hand vinyl I’ll be selling at the fair has been cleaned and restored. The punk collection I mentioned has some incredible stuff in it too, like a lot of really rare singles in pristine condition. There’s even an EP from the early 1980s by a band from East Kilbride called the Sinister Turkeys.” He laughs. “It’s not the best song I’ve ever heard but it sounds as if they had done a few rehearsals and got the money together to go into the recording studio.

“On one website there were just two copies of it for £150 each. One with a green cover was £250.” And that, it seems, speaks to the steep prices that vinyl, even by obscure Scottish acts, can fetch in today’s market.

Tony glances around his shop. “There’s probably too much stuff in here, me being a collector myself”, he observes.

“I’ve had to sign up to maybe 15 or 16 different dealers to get stock. You don’t know what you’re buying, though. Every day is like Christmas – you come in here and open another box of vinyl and seeing stuff by the likes of UK Subs and Durutti Column and you think, ‘I don’t remember ordering that.’”

It won’t come as a surprise to learn that Rob Lythall of VIP Record Fairs really knows his music, too.

A fan of Northern Soul music, he started buying and selling records in the 1970s. He had a job for a few years, too, as a manager at a building society.

“I went to a record fair in Birmingham because I had some spare stock", he said. "There were crowds of people outside in the queue and no signs or anything and, as you do, I just thought, ‘bloody hell, I could do this’. So that’s what I did”.

VIP Record Fairs staged its first fair back in 1980, in the YMCA in Leicester, Rob’s home town. “I lugged 30-odd tables up three flights of stairs”, he recalls. “Over time we managed to grow that into 500 tables at Wembley – the biggest show we have done”.

Around 50 VIP fairs are held every year across the country, in a select list of towns and cities that includes Manchester, Nottingham, Norwich and London.

Glasgow is the only Scottish location; there, the venues have ranged from the SECC to the Mitchell Library. Bellahouston has now been the host for a few years and will hold witness not only today’s event but also the next two, on June 11 and October 15.

VIP says that, over the years, hundreds of music fans have given up their job to sell full-time with at its fairs. There’s also this thought-provoking claim: since 1980, “more product has been bought, sold and displayed than any other medium in the world”.

“Exactly”, affirms Rob. “When you look at it, we’ve had tens of thousands of record fairs. If you add up all these sales figures – maybe Amazon has beaten us – but, from our point of view, that’s an awful lot of product sold by dealers who hire space from us.

“Most of the big record fairs in Europe started when they came in to see what we were doing in England. The guys in, for example, Utrecht [the Mega Record & CD Fair, which has some 500 dealers, twice a year] came to see what we were doing”.

What is the pleasure for him in organising so many fairs? “Obviously, after 40 years, some of the fun goes out of it”, he says with a laugh, “but at the end of the day it’s great seeing music fans going into a fair, finding what they want and going away, happy as Larry.

“It’s great to provide a service for people who’re looking to collect music”, he adds. “It’s hard doing that if you have a physical shop – and I’ve done that.

“You can’t rotate the stock very well but the record-fair model is such that the stock is rotated really well by the time the fair returns to Glasgow, or Manchester, or wherever”.

Who knows what gems will be uncovered today? There’s only one way to find out...

** VIP Record Fair, Glasgow Club, Bellahouston Leisure Centre, Bellahouston Drive, Glasgow. Doors open to public from 10am. VIP Record Fairs can provide help to anyone selling music collections. Ask for John on 07850 445624.