Across the country, the world and the internet, people are buying and trading collectible vinyl more than ever before. There are souls out there who go without dinner a few nights here and there to pay for their record habit. The survival of the vinyl format depends on these collectors, young and old, to keep the nostalgia of a once young America alive in it’s synthetic grooves.

One thing is clear about vinyl collecting: there is an allure, an emotional human response to the LP. Perhaps it is due to a sense of innocence or simply that they are “neat,” whatever it may be, there is a spectrum of appreciation for this mode of music delivery.

Everyone seems to have a vinyl memory and nearly everybody shows a sense of sentimentality toward the LP. This writer’s love of vinyl arrived about three seconds after my father finished playing the entirety of Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for me when I was nine. It is this facet that separates vinyl collecting from mere music collecting. It is the love of the format itself.

“To me, vinyl is the format that music should be on,” said Jack Chiara of It’s Only Rock and Roll, an actual “record” store in Lemoyne. “I kind of like the big black things with little holes.”

“In a way it is an artifact of an innocent age,” said Albert Muth, music manager of Encore Books and Music, one of only a few chain stores that stock vinyl in limited quantities. “Which probably has something to do with vinyl’s appeal to me. I came of age with the LP—it’s related to a sense of lost innocence.”

“Vinyl provides me with a link to childhood where I would sit and listen to records for hours on end,” said Keith Hobba, a local record collector who owns nearly three thousand LPs and 45s. “The warm sound of records, the covers that you can stare at for hours on end—that’s what I love about vinyl.”

“I love to sit around and look at all the records and the sleeves,” said Jes Switaj, who has been collecting vinyl for a little over a year. “They’re more interesting than CDs because there is so much more that a band can do with the design.”

It seems that the sum of a record’s parts are greater than its hole. From the slick 12 inch disc, to the cover art, not to mention additions such as gatefold sleeves, exclusive posters and the hotly debated “warmth” in the sound of a needle making physical contact with its medium, vinyl is still deeply loved.

“The sound is, well, more human.” said Brad Beard, long time record collector. “And a record sleeve is just so much better than a CD case—you don’t have to read lyrics and liner notes in two point!”

“A CD is this little thing that is so inconsequential,” Muth said. “With a record, you’ve got this 12 inch sleeve.”

“They still make vinyl,” Chiara said. “And when possible, I prefer to get a release on vinyl and 75% of our vinyl customers would agree with that.”

“There are collectors and acquirers,” said Beard. “Collectors are the people that know about every pressing of the record, various printings, etc. They’ll go after anything in a given artists’ catalog, like completists.”

“Acquirers look for stuff the might be interesting and cheap,” Beard continued. “I have the attitude that if you pay a buck for a record and there is one good song, then it was worth it. It’s the joy in finding stuff.”

“It’s fun to hunt down the cool, rare stuff,” Switaj said. “But I don’t think I’d ever make it into an investment sort of thing. I just collect things by bands I have an interest in.”

“Vinyl collecting is, for me, half economic and half emotional,” Muth said. “I wouldn’t buy the CDs of some of the vinyl I have collected, because I’m more interested in their value.” Pearl Jam and Nirvana records, for instance, stay sealed in Muth’s collection.

“I collect mostly items that have sentimental value to me,” Hobba said of his collecting motives. “Bee Gees & Yes 45’s, progressive rock LPs—for the cover art. My most valued record is the Bee Gees Odessa with the red felt cover. I’ve had it since I was six years old. It was my fathers old copy.”

Vinyl consumption has picked up, from it’s all time biggest slump in the early part of this decade to today, the interest in this delicate platter has been reawakened. In fact, vinyl accounts for over half of the sales at It’s Only Rock & Roll.

“For a couple years in the early 90s it seemed like vinyl was through,” Chiara commented. “But now it’s picked up. It’s not 1982, but it’s a lot better now than it was a few years ago.”

“A lot of kids are buying vinyl and it’s probably all new to them,” Chiara said. “People buy everything from old Miles Davis records to hardcore to classical.”

“The kids are buying lots of 60s stuff and, say... “Tool.” Chiara laughed. “Mainly rock and a lot of new wave stuff too. The older customers buy what you would expect, you know—replacing their copy of Surrealistic Pillow. And there are always the staples of the Beatles and the Stones.”

For everyone that collects vinyl, though, it comes down to one basic reason or another, and this range in reason is as wide as the age variation within the collecting crowd. From sixteen to sixty-four, vinyl is still loved and believed in.

“I’m always looking for a new tune,” Beard said. “Nothing beats finding something for next to nothing and discovering a great song that’s been buried for 30 years.”

“I love it that vinyl has picked up again, it’s a great indie rock thing,” Switaj said. “Vinyl is not for everyone, though, there’s got to be a certain appreciation for it.”

“Vinyl has a greater reality to it. The process is analog,” Muth explained. “Like the bow hitting the violin string, when the sound of a record hits your ear it’s vibrational. Digital goes into the abstract, you feel more secure with vinyl and analog sound... It is a leap of faith, subject to abuse and manipulation.”

So it is, and it is through these people and their kin across the globe, that the vinyl format will survive. Through people that understand the delicacy, the very temporal nature of vinyl and the care it requires—it is this understanding—that provides a reverence for the real “record.”

1. http://www.gemm.com-You can find nearly anything at this web site. Although this site supports all formats of music, the resources for tracking down hard to find, collectible vinyl are astounding. This is more of a broker for individuals and companies selling their stock.

2. http://www.iorr.com- Lemoyne’s very own legendary rock shop It’s Only Rock & Roll makes it’s web presence known with an easy to use site, free of unnecessary graphics that would otherwise slow down your browsing through the virtual racks of the rare, unusual and everyday releases.

3. http://www.parasol.com-Perhaps one of the best resources for independent rock and pop releases, trading mainly in the obscure and hard to find division of record commerce, with a heavy lean toward 7“ and LP releases.

4. http://www.midnightrecords.com-A tremendous selection of vinyl from all decades. From the blues and the doo-wop, bee-bop, rock hop of the fifties to the ever clever reinventive nineties, this site caters to nearly all tastes obscure or not.

5. http://vinylink.ari.net-Out of Silver Spring, Maryland comes the web presence of , easily, one of the greatest record stores of the East Coast, if not of all time. I used to skip school to shop there, now I can do it online without flashbacks or truant officer paranoia. Fantastic selection, especially in dealing with import items from the UK and Europe.