Featured Essay: If the Sun Refused to Shine

by Brendan Franz

My wife Kerri and I first met at a Record Fair over 30 years ago. She was a regular customer at my collector items stall and always arrived early in search of rare Led Zeppelin vinyl. My business partner and I had worked hard to build a loyal clientele and we always tried to bring something special held under the counter for each of our best customers to get first option to buy. It was a little service which kept the serious collectors coming directly to our table at every Record Fair BEFORE they’d spent all their money! And I have to admit – we were expensive. I have always believed that rare records in exceptional condition should command a premium price, and we were ruthless with the condition and selection of our stock – buying only the cream mostly directly from other record dealers, leaving behind the chaff and fodder for the seagulls to fight over.

As a lifelong Zeppelin collector myself I knew the kinds of records Kerri was looking for, and it wasn’t unusual for me to grab something at the last minute from my private collection to take to the Record Fair specifically for her to appraise. Our mutual affinity for Led Zep and vinyl meant that we had plenty to talk about and I always looked forward to catching up with her every few months.

And although I only sold records about four or five times a year, for me the Fairs were strictly business business business. I sell records. I talk about records. I buy records in order to sell more records.

But apparently not such a strict rule for my then business partner Justin…

I would slip away from our stall whenever I got a chance in order to dig the crates of the other dealers in search of the best quality and rarest pressings – those things which were occasionally overlooked or simply underpriced by less observant sellers – and bring them back to our stall and add another zero or two to the price sticker. (Back in those days, there were no internet databases to look up prices, or to document the myriad of variants etc – you just had to really know your stuff and know it well – which I think was our major strength for success.)

I would instruct Justin to write down everything he sold in my absence – which he did – although at the end of the day, the money in the tin would never seem to reconcile with what I had priced the “sold” records at. Of course we were always flexible about negotiating a feel-good price with the customers – but this was not a charity.

I can’t remember exactly how I found out – but it transpired that Justin had been giving Kerri the “pretty girl (substantial) discount” price on all manner of rare records whenever I was off crate digging. He was definitely sweet on her – although I was fairly sure she was only interested in our records!

As time passed, Kerri would regularly come to visit me at my home between Record Fair dates – at first apparently to check what new Led Zeppelin vinyl I had unearthed for sale – and we became very good friends, and spent many hours listening to Zeppelin vinyl bootlegs and watching dodgy 10th generation VHS tapes of mostly 8mm live LZ footage – which she’d obtained through other collectors.

In fact, I was so cluelessly blinded by our fan/collector-based relationship that the idea of any romance never even occurred to me! Besides, she was WAY out of my league anyway.

That was until one fateful day when she knocked upon my door. When I opened the door I was actually a little stunned. The usually casual-dressed jeans ‘n T-shirt gal I knew was dressed up to the nines and was looking devastatingly beautiful (even more-so than usual). Oblivious, I asked her where it was that she was going later after she had visited me, and what was the occasion? And then suddenly – out of the blue – she grabbed me and kissed me!

That was well over 25 years ago now, and we are today the proud parents of a ridiculously out-of-control record collection (12,000+) which fills an entire room, and spills out into several other storage areas of the house… (pic shown: our very Zep wedding!)

Brendan Franz is a musician, writer and insatiable vinyl addict.