A BRITISH MAN collected over 40,000 records – including vinyl singles and CDs – throughout his life, buying Top 40 chart hits every week from the 1950s to 2015.

Now Keith Sivyer’s entire collection is going under the hammer following the 75-year-old’s death – and includes records by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Abba, and the Sex Pistols as well as many one-hit wonders.

Ewbank Auctioneers, which is looking after the sale, has detailed music-lover and former DJ Sivyer’s dedication, explaining how his three-bed terraced house had thousands of pop records “neatly arranged on shelves around the rooms”.

Sivyer wanted his 45s (seven-inch vinyl singles) to be kept together, so 27,000 of them are being sold in one lot. The second lot has 8,000 12-inch singles, and the third lot is his 10,000-strong collection of CD albums and singles.

His brother Gerald told Ewbank’s that in 1952, Keith began to buy every single in the Top 40 chart.

It became an obsession with him. He used to spend a fortune and towards the end, I don’t think he even listened to them. Most of the singles were bought in the week they were released from a record shop in Teddington called Earfriend. When the record shop closed, he started buying them from Woolworths and Tesco and when Woolies closed, he started buying them off the internet.

Sivyer catalogued his entire collection, and stored the records alphabetically. It’s believed that most of the reocrds are in great condition, with many of them either played once or never.

The collection will go up for auction on 21 May.

All photos: Ewbank’s Auctions

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