A move to semi-retirement in suburbia has ''backfired, because we are busier now," says Janis Stevenson from Just For The Record. Most regular customers still visit the Just For The Record business, along with out-of-town collectors, but an increased online presence has been a big boost to sales.
"Covid has been good for us, particularly during the Auckland lockdown that went on for months and months," she said.
"Our online orders increased dramatically and I would probably say 80 per cent of our orders went to Auckland."
Gordon said online sales, mainly for new vinyl, were constant,
"So far today we've sold nine albums and it's not even 12 o'clock," he said.
'It's very big business at times. It is quite fascinating to see the pile waiting to go out on a Monday morning, after a weekend of sales."
He said new vinyl was superior to most of the vinyl sold decades ago.
"In the past, you'd get a record and you could flip it like a wobble board.
"That was about 110 grams. Now it's 180 grams and they've got better cutting techniques, a bit better-quality vinyl, better everything."
In Waipawa, Passionate About Vinyl owner Tony Ward said vinyl was the best medium for listening to music.
"It's a more cohesive sound in my opinion," he said.
"We have analogue hearing, so I believe it is suited better to humans."
In Hastings, Music Box Record Exchange owner John Nichols said CDs were on the decline.
The CD unfortunately seems to have passed its peak and last year in the States, as I understand, more vinyl was sold than CDs new," he said.
"A lot of artists are only coming out on vinyl or digital formats."
Electric City Music owner Dean Mardon said he had a wide variety of customers.
"Business has been great last few years - the resurgence of vinyl," he said.
"All sorts of people, a wide range of the public, are getting back into vinyl, dusting off their turntables."
He said people needed to be quick if they wanted to buy reissues of old favourites.
"Look at Nirvana's Never Mind, which just got reissued recently.
"I went to order some of those and there's no more stock available and they don't know if they're getting any.
"Usually they make a run of it and, once they're gone, that's it and they move on to the next."
Retailers said they purchased most used vinyl from people carrying it into the shop.
But Ward says if it ain't rocking, don't bother knocking - he wants your uncle's vinyl, not your nana's.
"They'll come in with boxes of them," he said.
Often about 90 per cent was "crap".
"James Last, Roger Whittaker, Nana Mouskouri, Kamal - it just doesn't sell.
"I don't understand why.
"I'm not really saying it's crap because it's crap, but it just hasn't taken off again."
Nichols said he liked to buy Doors music, Pink Floyd "and things of my generation".
"I do have a small collection out the back, which I have to be very disciplined about because otherwise I would have no stock and be a hoarder."
Although there was joy to be had listening to vinyl, Gordon Stevenson said there was also money to be made as collectors chased rare discs.
"A couple of years ago we had this young fella wander into the shop and he dumped a box of wine at the end of the counter," he said.
His exact words were, 'This if effen rubbish'."
"We looked at it, put that effen rubbish out the back and some weeks later I went through it.
"There were four Howard Riley albums in there.
"I'd never heard of Howard Riley - he's an English free-jazz pianist - and three of them I identified very quickly.
"I got $300 for one and I got $180 and $120 or something.
But the fourth one, which was called Discussions, I just couldn't identify.
"It took me some months and I finally did, and I found a copy and it was $3200.
"So I put it on the market for $3000.
"The reason it was so expensive was when it was pressed in England in 1968, if you pressed 100 pieces or more you paid VAT.
"He only pressed 99, so there's only 99 of these things worldwide.
"So it's very rare and that's the reason I got that value."
John Nichols says "A lot of artists are only coming out on vinyl or digital formats." Nichols has also found a rare disc, which he is thinking of selling for $1000.
"It's by the Glitter House," he said.
"They were a New York band and they were in the 1960s, the 67- 68 psychedelic period.
"They only made one album and it's very limited and I've got one.
"There's probably less than 500 issued in the 60s, and there's probably no more than 50 in the whole world now.
"The cover's a wee bit tatty, but the vinyl is excellent and it plays really well and that's the first edition.
"It's children's songs set to an acid trip, If you want the blunt information about it."
