One of Australia’s biggest record collections is going up for sale.
It’s the property of renowned Aussie rock journalist and broadcaster Glenn A. Baker, who started collecting the records in the early 1960s.
Through Lloyds Auctions, Baker’s complete collection has come forward for auction for the first time. Over 80,000 items, including CDs, vinyls, magazines, and more, are available to bid on now until 7pm on Friday, August 30th.
“LP records are at the core of the collection, over 50,000 of them primarily representing rock’n’roll and popular music of the second half of the 20th century,” Lloyds Auction’s listing states.
“These records are mostly sorted A-Z by artist’s name but there are diversions into releases of comedy, film soundtrack, original stage cast, Christmas, children, classical, interview, girl pop, spoken word, documentary, blues & soul, world music, mood music, jazz, concepts, events, 10 inch, pre-rock era and various artist collections (including sets) of specific decades or themes.”
According to the listing, Baker’s collection contains “thousands of music magazines and fanzines” such as Tiger Beat, Monkee Spectacular, Rolling Stone, Flexipop, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, and many more.
Some particularly popular artists in the collection (Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix) have their own sections in the compacts units in the centre of the archives containing everything by them (albums, singles, books, etc.).
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There’s also thousands of published books in Baker’s collection, which Lloyds Auctions claims is “one of the largest in the country… More than can be detailed.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Baker’s collection also features thousands of music videos, including well-known rock movies, TV shows, and VHS/Beta releases by artists, crates of b/w photo stills of recording artists, particularly those from the ’70s and ’80s, and colour images as transparencies.
You can check out the full collection here.
Baker, now 72, built up a reputation as one of the finest music and travel writers in Australia throughout his distinguished career. He was named as the BBC’s ‘Rock Brain of the Universe’ three times during the ’80s, and won the Australian Travel Writer of the Year Award twice (1995, 2000).
