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The stuff of rock 'n' roll

 
Published Feb. 4, 2000|Updated Sept. 26, 2005

(ran TP edition)

Bring your wallet, vinyl to swap, and any collectibles to a show Sunday.

You didn't get famous yourself, so Sunday's collectibles show is your chance to make some money off someone who did.

Maybe you'll even get on VH1 in the process.

The popular TV show VH1 Rock Collectors will be on hand to judge the worth of that stinky sweat towel you caught at the James Taylor show, that fake eyelash you swiped from Marilyn Manson, that empty rice-milk box from the Lilith Fair, or the empty Jack Daniels bottle you copped backstage on the '79 Van Halen tour.

Each taping of VH1 Rock Collectors features the appraisal talents of a rock 'n' roll expert. The Tampa taping will be presided over by Howard Kramer, associate curator for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Giles Moon, a Sotheby's collectibles specialist.

But the baby boomer music channel is a mere garnish to a main course of record dealers and vinyl swappers. The Tampa Bay Record and CD show will feature 25 to 30 tables.

The show is put on by Richard Rounds, former owner of a rare-coin shop in Pinellas Park. "That finally closed down after my second robbery," says Rounds, who now does yearly record and CD shows while making money selling coins on eBay.

For $50, you too can rent a table and get rid of your old vinyl, as Tampa police Officer Fred Burke will. Burke, 52, was a rock 'n' roll singer in the '60s.

"I didn't make it, so that's why I work for the city of Tampa," he says. He sells rock records dating from 1958 to 1977 at collectibles shows.

Burke echoes the sentiments of all aficionados who've kept their vinyl when he says, "I love music. If I didn't have music, I don't know what I'd do."

And it probably doesn't hurt Burke's music appreciation that there's money to be made in classic vinyl. "In a single day, I've made as much as $2,000."

When one can go to the Vinyl Fever record store and buy Steely Dan's entire catalog, used, for under $20, one can only guess what a man who makes $2,000 at a vinyl swap must have in his collection.