Manship Moments 2 - Biggest Ever Record Find

Lev shows great patience to a guy who makes a good story seem drawn out !

What an excellent background story to the madness and uniqueness of this scene, excellent background story of the commercial aspect of record collecting and the lengths people go to - to feed demand on the scene. I guess there's a moral that I live by - when I sold my collection, I only asked for what I paid for the record because I believed that if someone could cherish the record as much as I did when I couldn't afford to continue to collect, then they shouldn't pay over the odds to have it. I was very lucky to have people like Gary Rushbrooke, Brian Rae, Dave Evison, Mick Smith and Marco from Peterborough who felt the same way and sold me records because I loved them as opposed to making a profit. I understand that record dealers have a massive part to play on the scene and they have to make a living. We used to say that record prices weren't sustainable in the 80's but we couldn't be more wrong! I can remember paying £20 for a mint date stamped demo on Tower of Love slipped through my fingers by Sam Williams outside the 100 club in London and mentioned it to someone at a local soul night in Easington in Co. Durham 10 yrs ago who said a copy had sold for £1900 in the week before! As I say, the uniqueness of the Northern Soul scene is just a privilege to experience and although I had to leave it to bring up my family, I miss it terribly as it was my family before I had children. Don't keep the faith, share it. Geordie Martin 🙂.

Ching Ching. I had gone off Soul ..and in 1972 sold my collection of 60's 45's (around 1400 ..every Ric Tic, Sue, Gordy shed, Stax, Stateside and loads of American independents) for £300 to some 2nd shift Soul dealer chap. He made the journey from Manchester down to me in London to buy them .. He was shaking with excitement as he loading the records into his boot, he pulled one out, waved it at me and said 'I'll get my money back with just this one !!' People are odd aren't they .. different values .. he wanted to let me know he had screwed me. I never regretted selling my records, The £300 bought me a couple of years travel in India .... and I had copied a lot of my songs on to tape. I came back to loving Soul in my thirties.

Once sold John part of my collection in 1981 and he even bought the suitcase! I'd just got married and needed funds. Those days at Cleethorpes Pier & The Winter Gardens were special days! After I'd finished running Jaspers in York, I sold the rest to Pat Brady in 2001 including a Terry Callier and Mel Britt issue!!!! DOH! All the best John

Nice Velvelettes photo in the background.

As someone relatively new to collecting but having loved the music for 40 years I can only imagine the adrenaline that find of records produced would have probably given me a heart attack.

absolutely brilliant, great interview x

fascinating story. thanks for sharing it John. Thanks Lev for taking us along.

It now looks like you need a footballers salary to purchase the classic NS we used to dance to - I still remember people trying to offload original copies because the records had been "bootlegged" and you would have passed on many a gem that today would be commanding 3 to 4 figure sums - ahh the strange yet ever wonderful world of Northern Soul

Johnny Manship drove up to Bolton to buy my collection - Tories were ripping the heart out of the North I was newly married and made redundant fromBAE and we needed a cash boost - shed a silent tear JM was very fair I was very sulky...

Great interview, thx to John for being so frank .....!!!!

Riveting stuff....Oh to be able to turn the clock back! Great stories

Interesting story thanks

wow! 🎶🎶🎶

great story speculate and accumulate

Fascinating story.

class story

Great video i bought a record off john at Soul Essence couple of years back for a a-side modern stomper only to find a deep soul monster on the b-side, of which i have played to many a dj at soul essence & even john & no one can find another copy.....mmmm Happy Days indeed

Nice one

this man reminds me of Graham, relationship counsellor, off the Jeremy Kyle show