The Free House was home to more than 20,000 records on Sunday for Nelson’s “largest ever” record fair run by Family Jewels Records.
The fair ‘Black Vinyls, Brown Beer’ was a celebration of all things LP with something on offer for everyone – from the die-hard collector to the first-time purchaser.
Family Jewels Records co-owner Josephine Cachemaille says her husband Grant Smithies had been organising record fairs for years.
“It’s a really good way to bring in a whole bunch of people who want to sell vinyl and exchange vinyl in some way.”
She says it used to be mainly middle-aged men who were interested in vinyl records, but now it’s a completely different story.
“It’s less specialist now, there are lots of young women which is really nice, more people are interested in them for the obvious reasons.”
“There’s even a girl from the college who’s turned up and wants to start a record club and we would fully set up a situation where she could do that.”
The fair operated like a market with stall holders each selling parts of their collections.
Josephine says there was a “bit of a frenzy” at the beginning with everyone trying to get into other’s crates to check out their stuff, but the afternoon was a lot more relaxed.
Long-time collector Alan Wastney says he owns about 6000 records and has been collecting for 40 years.
“I’ve got all double-ups here today, it doesn’t matter what you sell really as long as you have a good time.”
Stall holder Anthony Norton collects only New Zealand artists and had a selection of his 7300 records up for sale.
