Collectors' Stories by Manos Koufakis
from the motion picture "Trick or Treat"
Episode 1: "Heavy Metal Music Collector"
Elias Chatzialexis, Heavy Metal Music Collector
In 1982, the first album I bought, was SCORPIONS "In Trance"
I started collecting vinyls, because my father had given me some hard rock tapes,
And this motivated me to buy records, because he also had around 200 records,
And at home we were used to listening to music from our turntable.
My collection at the moment consists of 4700 LPs,
Around 2700 CDs
Around 100 music DVDs
And some demo tapes
Approximately a total of 7500 units
The most expensive piece of my collection is PARADOXX ("Plan of Attack")
No more than 30 copies are rumored to exist.
LIQUID EARTH ("Molten Metal") is also quite expensive.
R.A.F. ("Hammer to the Wall") is also hyper rare, cause despite being a US band,
it came out in Peru and only a few copies come with a cover
WYZARD ("Knights of Metal") is now a well known rarity
And finally WIDOW ("Widow") that is New Wave of British Heavy Metal
The band later changed their name to RITUAL
The best record hunting adventures, occurred in record fairs abroad
Quite tiresome experience, loads of records but also many great finds
One day, I was digging through the records of a British seller
And shortly before paying him, I spotted this album placed upside down in a plastic bag
I grab it at once and ask him for the price,
Then he takes a good look at it, tries to understand what the band name is and mumbles
" ...this is...this is..."
"...this is a piece of shit!"
"...you may have it for free!"
And I got it as a gift!
I collect music from various countries
From South Africa, Malaysia, Iceland
Eastern block countries,
South and Central America,
Venezuela, fantastic music scene
Many countries
MANOWAR had been the reason why I started using mail orders,
In order to find any editions of their albums that I was missing
And I collect everything related to MANOWAR
Singles of the band members before forming MANOWAR,
Of DeMaio, of the guitar player and of Adams
The strongest part of my collection is 80s US power metal
Was the closest thing to MANOWAR, so that got me into searching for albums I didn't own
And among collectors, US metal is the most sought after
The biggest amount of money spent on a single record was $450 US Dollars
But the record I bought was much pricier
The main outlet of finding records is EBAY
Most people buy records from there
But I also trade a lot with other collectors,
Because through the years I've stocked many spare copies of rare and old stuff,
As I've been tracing bands and was getting copies of their albums,
And also when I discovered a spare copy of something that I thought would be a future rarity,
I kept it in stock so that when in the future would become valuable, to be able to make trades
So trades cover big part of my record collecting needs
The music genres I like collecting the most are heavy metal releases mainly,
I also like hard rock
And the last years I'm also into the harder pomp rock stuff,
And I mean albums that sound like a mix between metal and hard rock with pomp rock touches
For a record collector, a combination of rarity and music quality is what matters the most
For example, a mega rare album that musically sucks,
Does not fetch big prices
Contrary to the common belief, that being collectable is what draws big prices,
It simply doesn't work that way
When something is both good and rare it can sell for sky high prices
So, the combination is the most important thing
Big part of the heavy metal collectors, are close to forty years old, or even older
And most of them are accustomed to vinyl not CDs
So it's more common for them, to prefer the vinyl editions for their collection and not the CDs
Plus, vinyl is more of a fetish
The cover artwork is bigger thus more attractive
Vinyl analogue sound offers a different sound quality
It may seem unbelievable, but my biggest find ever is my rarest record
It's PARADOXX ("Plan of Attack") bought from EBAY at a time, that no one else knew about it
And honestly I had bought it cheaper than an ice cream
It was acquired as part of an 18 record lot for $85 US Dollars
And to understand what a rare opportunity that was
We are talking about a record that currently sells for $2500 US Dollars
Only 30 known copies exist, because the other ones were dumped by the band,
Because of a misprinting of the record labels
And I got it for less than $5 USD
The most weird trade I've ever done to get records,
Was with a young guy from U.S.A. that had got his uncle's record collection,
And he didn't care for vinyls but only CDs,
And he traded records from his uncle's collection with CDRs
For any release he couldn't find on CD, I dubbed it for him on CD-R
In general, I'm not much of an overboard type of person,
But the most crazy thing I've done as a youngster related to music collecting,
Was when after a night out with a friend of mine and in the early morning hours,
I headed for Monastiraki (in Athens), drank coffee,
Around 8.30 in the morning
And despite the rain and being tired with a bit of hangover and wanting to go home,
It stroke me, to enter a record store that usually never had anything for me
And searching through a box of records, I managed to find the Greek edition of SCORCHED EARTH ("Tomorrow Never Comes") that was quite rare
And even though I was super tired, I decided to search through all the remaining thousands of records that the store had,
And found 2 more copies of it!
That was quite out of the ordinary I guess
There is no serious collector in the world, that collects for years, that hasn't discovered an unknown album
In collector's terms, when we say "discover an album" what we mean is,
To find a record that is completely unknown to the majority of collectors and sellers
And find multiple copies of it before anyone else, that's the ideal of course,
And get more people to learn about it, especially if it's also a great sounding album too
The first album I discovered, that was completely unknown and found copies of it,
Was an album that I had seen only once for sale
EGYPT ("Egypt")
A British release, featuring great music,
British but not sounding like New Wave of British Heavy Metal,
But mostly like power metal
My latest discovery is RH FACTOR
It's US melodic metal with hard rock touches, completely unknown even to the great collectors
Very few persons in the world have it in their collection
In the pre-internet days,
The whole thing was a bit more pure
Cause we didn't have that much information available,
So most of the records we were looking for them with great anxiety,
We didn't even know what to expect
And it was much tougher to find something less known
When internet kicked in, much more information was available,
So you could listen to an album before buying it, making it easier to avoid bad purchases
The digitization of music, MP3s,
Have helped many people to listen to albums that otherwise would not have access to,
Either because they couldn't find them or because they were very expensive to buy
For me internet is a tool
Listening to MP3s or using youTube to listen to stuff,
You get info about something and if you like it, you buy it
As a tool, it's pretty valuable, but collecting MP3s has no value
Musically it's inferior to other formats like CDs and vinyls
The most common thing people ask me when they visit my home,
Or know about my collecting hobby, is:
"Have you listened to all those records?"
That's a pretty standard question
Most of them simply can't get it
But some of them, despite not being collectors, understand the passion for music
Record collecting is a never ending quest
This trip will never end
You can never say, "I have found everything"
There will always be something missing or you may listen to something new you like and want to find it
So you have it in physical format
Someone starting their collection now, shouldn't become desperate
Besides, they shouldn't be expecting to collect everything in 2 years
I've been collecting for 31-32 years
There is still potential to get all the stuff they want,
But it takes patience and will take many years
Although, there's great competition in collectors' circles,
I don't think it's worth it, to argue over a record or ruin a friendship for a record
Records do come and go, you should never become obsessed with a record
Sooner or later, if you're patient, you will find it
In Greece, there are many metal collectors with some of them being top
Many of them are located in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, Crete,
But in Athens, there are the most top level ones
But in general the level is quite satisfactory
Two great collectors that also happen to be friends of mine are Stavros Sokaris and Chris Saltsoglou
But compared to the greatest maybe heavy metal collector, the German Andreas Preisig,
We still have a long distance to cover
Quite a few people ask me, if it has ever occurred to me to sell my record collection
The truth is that my collection is some sort of a companionship
Music is a daily habit, so I wouldn't even think about
At least, not for now
Who knows what the future holds, but now I wouldn't do it...
