Oxfam shop goes on the record

The shop is tapping into the record business

An Oxfam shop in Scotland has gone into the music business selling old vinyl LPs.

The charity's Stockbridge store in Edinburgh plans to resurrect the old dinosaurs in the hope of raising cash to fund its good causes.

People are already dusting off their record collections and handing them in to the shop ready for its grand opening at the weekend.

Tom Richardson, manager at the store, said: "There is a real market out there for people who are interested in building up their collections.

Tom Richardson: "There is a market out there"

"And there has been a return on vinyl over the last few months.

He added that no record collection would be rejected on the basis of taste.

"No collection will be too old or too embarrassing," said Mr Richardson.

Murray Winters, Oxfam's business development manager, said that many people have a "wonderful vinyl" collection but do not have the turntable to play the records.

"These collections are often filling a shelf and gathering dust. We want to turn those full shelves into money to help the poorest people in the world.

"And some of these pieces of music are now collectors' items," said Mr Winters.

Oxfam, the first charity to open a dedicated music shop, is hopeful for the future.

As long as DJs play vinyl in clubs it'll be cool to collect music on this old style forma

George Futcher, Fopp

It will not only be about selling vinyl, it has jukeboxes, cassettes, CDs and musical instruments.

The shop has even got hold of an old wind-up gramophone for people to listen to vinyl recordings.

The charity is now urging everyone to trawl their cupboards and attics and dust off their long forgotten musical offerings.

George Futcher, who works for the popular music selling chain Fopp, has applauded the charity's move into pop.

Confident of success

The manager of Fopp's Edinburgh branch said that for many music fans vinyl never went out of fashion.

He said: "As long as DJs play vinyl in clubs it'll be cool to collect music on this old style format."

Oxfam is so confident of success it already has plans to open more music shop branches in Glasgow and York.

The charity said it has specialist valuers in store who will make sure that the LPs are not sold off cheap.

Its volunteer staff are even offering to collect unwanted records from the homes of contributors.