While most collectors fume at the sight of biro messages inscribed on sleeves, such scribbles can add to the value of a record in other ways
PETE PAPHIDES Pete Paphides is a music journalist, record collector and broadcaster. Catch him on Soho Radio every Tuesday, 12-2pm
Why do people do that?” exclaimed the guy in the record shop, disapprovingly. Someone had written on the back of Sadé’s third album, Stronger Than Pride, thus diminishing its resale value. “JULY – 1988,” read the dedication, “To Kim, See you in Nice, With love, Rich. xxxxx”. Just because I could appreciate the record shop guy’s frustration, it didn’t mean I agreed with it.
A lot of collectors will hold out for a Mint condition copy of a desired album. To them, a biro inscription hovering above Sadé’s right shoulder is an act of vandalism. Possibly the difference between them and me is mere nosiness. What was the deal with Rich and Kim? And why Nice? Did one of them live there? Had they even met in person? Perhaps they were pen-pals and this Sadé album represents a mutual decision to take their relationship beyond the realm of correspondence.
A record with an inscription on it is like a page torn out of a diary. It mattered enough to act as a vessel into which one person’s feelings for another were placed. But then something changed. And because we only have one page of that diary, we’ll never know what it was. That might diminish the monetary value of a record, but it increases it in other ways.
I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, because it was a topic I raised on Twitter recently, and received a delightful deluge of photos from people with similarly tantalising inscriptions on their records. There’s something beautifully unfiltered about the copy of The Jam’s Absolute Beginners single which simply reads “One whole year – doesn’t time fly by when you’re having fun. I LOVE YOU. xxxxx” – and reminds me of the protagonist in another song by The Jam, Monday, who is similarly unguarded about their feelings for the subject of his adoration: “But a sunshine girl like you/ It’s worth going through/ I will never be embarrassed about love again”. Another correspondent sent me a photo of his copy of The White Album, which told a somewhat different story. “To my darling Sue, with all my love, Eddie”, read one inscription. Then, written on top of it, in different handwriting: “Many Happy Returns Dave, Love Sue XXX” – suggesting this might have been the Sue who inspired Dion & The Belmonts’ jukebox classic.
