Review - Hillside IL Record Collector Show

Last Sunday as the rain poured down on Chicago, I headed out to Hillside IL for the Record Collector’s Show. I visited 2 rooms full of vinyl records, memorabilia, cd’s, magazines, etc. It was a little overwhelming. I saw many visitors spent a great deal of time going through bin after bin of records.

The crowd was predominately men over the age 40. Hmm, I wondered about that, women love music just as much as men, but are we not collectors?  Or was it the location of this record collector show? The Best Western hotel where the show is held is off the highway, not really accessible by a train or a bus. You need a car to get there. I’ve seen many women (both young and old) buy vinyl at other record collector shows on the northside, so I can only assume that this hotel’s location doesn’t attract the younger crowd merely based on it’s location. I certainly wasn’t the only female there and there were several college types there roaming around as well.

As I made my way around the crowded room, I had to say “excuse me” a lot as getting thru some of the aisles was a challenge. I met a man named Mel, who used to work in radio promotions; he had an entire wall filled with all sorts of promo records, vinyl, button packs, books, posters, and a pile of autographs which were a little dated. An autograph of Vannila Ice, ehh, not so interesting, however, he did have this cool Beatles book based on their time working on the film Help. It was in a little rough shape but still a really unique item.

There was a dealer named George who had bins and bins of 45’s for 50 cents each. I skimmed the bins and saw that they were in no particular order and found singles by Frank Sinatra, Connie Frances and the T-Bones. George told me that the more 45’s you purchase, the lesser the price gets. How much lower can you go than 50 cents! None of the 45’s were in jackets so you really need to check for scratches and it made it hard to go thru the bins just pulling at random records.

Poster guy, Steve, had stacks and stacks of concert and band posters. He kept them in plastic on cardboard and it was fairly easy to flip thru them. He had a worn Beatles poster dating back to 1964 for 50.00 already framed. I found a really nice black and white poster of Black Sabbath from their early 70’s, they were all looking a bit psychedelic in the poster. His poster prices ran from 5.00 and up.

I came across a record dealer all the way from Peoria IL who had a bin of items from Record Store Day. All the vinyl was still in the original plastic sleeve, numbered and priced within reason. He also had another bin of items that were in sleeves and appeared to be in great shape. Another item I found was a Neil Young out of print Dreamin’ Man Live 1992 from the Harvest Moon recordings for 49.98. Also, found a Muddy Water vinyl called Folk Singer still sealed for 64.00. I should’ve bought that one!

I found another dealer who was a bit of a curmudgeon, as I was looking thru his neatly displayed bins of cds, I asked him why I didn’t see more of a youthful crowd in the room. He claimed that the dealers did not have what the kids want. I will say, that I did not see pop music bins or any hip hop vinyl but I don’t think that is necessarily what the kids want these days. I think our youth have a varied playlist on their iPods and could attend a record show like this. I flipped thru his vinyl bin and did find a Jay Z record for a song called ‘Show Me What You Got’ for $10.00. I wanted to show it to the crabby dealer and say ,’Wait! Here is something the kids would want!!’ but I didn’t want to stick that in his face. I just moved on.

I did run into a female Bob Dylan fan, named Jackie, who was quite friendly and really didn’t know why more women weren’t at the record show. Hmm, were we too busy growing up female collecting Barbie dolls and not records??  We didn’t have any definitive answer. Another record collector stated that he used to see more females at the record shows maybe 20 years ago, the girlfriends and wives of the record collectors, but not as much these days.

My head spun as I saw bins of vinyl priced 5 for a $1.00! Lots of Goldmine magazines, a Kate Bush 45’s box set 1978 to 1983 for 125.00, a table of German progressive rock music (who knew people were looking for that!), a Murder City Devils button pack 6 pins for $5.00, The Monkees Headquarters vinyl for 3.00, a gold Cheap Trick belt buckle for 25.00 (if it were all black and white, I would’ve grabbed it), met die hard Elvis Presely collector Bob Alaniz as well, he had a great display of Elvis singles that were priced from 10.00 to 50.00.  His book Presleyana VII with author Jerry Osborne was proudly on display.

I really did enjoy myself at the record collector show. I enjoyed scouring the records bins, boxes of vinyl, posters stacks, speaking with the dealers whom were all knowledgeable and friendly. Ladies don’t be intimidated by the guy crowd, it’s worth the trip and even if you aren’t a record collector chances are you know someone who is, bring them along. Album covers make great art!  There will be another record show on Sunday November 24th at the Best Western Hilliside IL location. Check out their website at  www.chicagorecordcollectors.com. Here are some other record shows in the area to check out:

NW Chicago Record Show

Sunday October 6th

10am to 4pm

Holiday Inn Express

1550 Dundee Road

Palatine IL 60074

Lansing Record & CD Show

Saturday November 16th

11am to 4pm

University Quality Inn

3121 E Grand River Ave

Warehouse Record Sale

Saturday October 12th

9:00am to 2:00pm

Cheap Kiss Records

700 Albion Ave

Schaumburg IL 60193

Beat Swap Meet travelling record swap meet– check out where the next show will be at www.beatswapmeet.com