Rare 45 Records: Values and the Most Valuable 45s

The most valuable 45 rpm record with a documented sale is Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)", a 1965 demo on Motown's Soul label that made £25,742 in April 2009. Wilson was a Motown producer rather than a singer, the label decided not to release the record, and the pressing was supposed to be destroyed. At least two copies survived, and possibly as many as five; one is rumoured to be Berry Gordy's.

The other 45s with hard numbers behind them:

• Sex Pistols, "God Save the Queen" on A&M, 1977 — £24,320, over US$31,000, at Wessex Auction Rooms on 5 July 2024. In 2006 the same single was valued between £500 and £13,000 depending on condition, which shows how far a single record can move in under twenty years.
• Elvis Presley, "That's All Right" on Sun, 1954 — the record sold about 20,000 copies and reached number four on the Memphis chart, so original Sun pressings are genuinely scarce rather than merely old.

The pattern is the same as with albums. Every 45 that reaches four or five figures was either withdrawn, never issued, or pressed in numbers a small town could absorb.

Northern soul is a British music and dance movement that grew out of the mod scene in the early 1970s in northern England and the Midlands. The name came from the London record shop Soul City, run by the collector Dave Godin, who first used it publicly in his Blues & Soul column in June 1970 as a shorthand for what customers from the north wanted to hear.

What the scene prizes is the opposite of chart success. It generally avoids Motown records that were commercial hits and chases lesser-known "rare grooves" issued in small numbers on labels such as Vee-Jay, Chess, Brunswick, Ric-Tic, Gordy, Golden World, Mirwood, Shout and Okeh. The clubs — the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca, the Golden Torch in Stoke-on-Trent — were kept alive by DJs digging up records nobody else had.

That is why a 45 that failed in 1965 can be worth thousands and a 45 that sold a million in the same year is worth a few dollars. In this market, commercial failure is the supply constraint.

The single richest category in 45s is records that were pressed and then killed.

The Sex Pistols signed to A&M in March 1977, the label pressed "God Save the Queen", and within days it dropped the band and destroyed the stock. The handful that escaped are now among the most valuable records ever pressed in Britain; Record Collector has called the A&M single the most collectable record of all time.

Frank Wilson's single is the same story from the other side of the Atlantic: pressed as a promotional demo, cancelled before release, almost entirely destroyed.

When you are checking a 45, the question worth asking is not "is this old" but "did this one ever properly come out". A label name that does not match the artist's usual label, a white demo label, a "Demonstration — Not for Sale" line, or a catalogue number with no commercial release behind it are all signs you are holding something that was not meant for a shop.

Most 45s in a shoebox are worth between a dollar and a few dollars, and three things move a copy up from there.

• The picture sleeve. For a 7-inch single the sleeve is often worth more than the disc, and it is the part that gets thrown away. Goldmine grades sleeve and record separately and, for records sold with both, suggests averaging the two grades to estimate a mixed-grade copy.
• Promo versus stock. A promotional copy has a white label, a different colour scheme, or wording such as "Demonstration — Not for Sale", "Audition Record" or "For Radio-TV Use Only". A rubber-stamped "promo" on the sleeve of an ordinary copy is not the same thing and counts as a defaced stock copy.
• Condition. The Goldmine scale applies to singles exactly as it does to albums. Very Good is no more than 25 per cent of Near Mint, Good and Good Plus are 10 to 15 per cent, and Poor or Fair is 0 to 5 per cent.

Singles carry the same evidence as albums, in less space.

The catalogue number is printed large on the label and is the same on both sides. The matrix number is different on each side and is often printed upside down on the label so it is not mistaken for the catalogue number — and it is also etched or stamped into the dead wax, the smooth ring between the last groove and the label. On 7-inch and 78 rpm records the two sides often carry numbers that are not consecutive, because they were assigned when the songs were recorded rather than when the record was assembled.

A suffix on the matrix number is the cut number: 12345-3 means the third cut of that side. Sides were recut when stampers wore out, when a plant in another city made its own master, or when a fault was found, so a different cut number is a genuinely different pressing.

Our runout and matrix guide shows how to read the string under raking light. Photograph the label and the app identifies the record; the runout tells you which pressing of it you are holding.