In an unassuming storage unit among the industrial blocks of western Sydney, a record collection apparently too vast to be counted is about to be auctioned off. Records, CDs, books, magazines, newspaper clippings and other rock music ephemera sit haphazardly on warehouse shelves as potential buyers sift through what is estimated to be over 80,000 items. Glenn A.
Baker among his 50,000 records in the Penrith warehouse. Credit: Louise Kennerley The value of each item ranges from $20 books to rare records that could fetch closer to $20,000. The entire collection will go under the hammer on August 30, when a lucky bidder will become the owner of what could be Australia’s largest trove of rock music memorabilia.
The seller is 72-year-old Glenn A. Baker, an eminent music journalist and commentator for over 200 magazines and the author of at least 16 of the books in his own collection. After more than 50 years of collecting, the sale of the building housing the storage unit has triggered Baker to sell his stash.
“I was like a magnet,” Baker said of how his collection came to be. “Steel filings were drawn to me when I walked around.” As a teenager in the ’60s, he invited his neighbours to come over and see his 100-strong assortment of albums.
He’d been working on it since he was 11, building from his first purchase, Reverend Mr Black, by folk group the Kingston Trio. “They were completely unimpressed,” Baker said of his neighbours at the time. “I always had troubl.