After spotting Record Hunter listed in that Pop Poster advert in the Record Mirror...
I found this article in the 'Evening News (London)' dated 27th November 1972:“Unicorn - fabulous or just extinct? FORMER City of London policeman Mr. John Goldsmith is on his toughest assignment yet, He is looking for a well-heeled music-lover and a sound financial manager for Unicorn Records, which specialises in filling some of the more glaring gaps in the classical recorded repertoire. Unless he tracks down his man before December 10, Unicorn is likely to have to go into liquidation and become another fabulous beast.Mr. Goldsmith decided in 1964 that life had more to offer than pounding a beat based on Snow Hill Police Station. Together with a partner he set up, near Waterloo Station, the Record Hunter - a shop which still has a high reputation for stocking discs that are not readily available elsewhere. Shortly after he managed to obtain some rare tapes of wartime performances by the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler. He produced an album of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, which sold with great success over the shop counter. A glowing review of the Choral Symphony attracted attention in Japan. Almost at once Mr. Goldsmith was inundated by requests from Japanese record companies for as much Furtwangler as he could let them have. The clincher came when Columbia of Japan put one of their top men on a jet to London and only then bothered to wire Mr. Goldsmith that their representative was on the way. A deal was immediately signed up and within weeks Japanese sales of Furtwangler conducting Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony had topped 17,000 - an almost unprecedented total for a classical recording. Mr. Goldsmith has since received a golden disc for sales of over 100,000. With £13,000 in his pocket, he quit Record Hunter and set up Unicorn so that he could put his record-making activities on a proper footing. - “That was probably my first mistake”, Mr. Goldsmith admits, “I got too ambitious.” Dave Harwood (2025)
Name: Peter Ellis
Comment: I have a 1969 tape of Paganini's violin concertos by Ashkenasi with the Vienna Symphony with a Record Hunter price label on it for £2.50. The cassette is as old as I am and plays wonderfully! Thanks Record Hunter.
(22 March 2013)
Name: Michael Browne
Comment: The Record Hunter near Waterloo Station, run by John Hunter(?), who went on to found Unicorn-Kanchana records - always worth a browse.
(2023)
Name: Misha
Comment: With Horenstein John was responsible for recordings of Mahler 1 & 3, Nielsen 5, Robert Simpson’s 3rd Symphony and others, all on his Unicorn label. He published Mahler 6 but was not involved in that recording. He also recorded with Stokowski, Bernard Herrmann and others and was one of the first to publish Furtwängler’s recordings on LP. He was originally a London bobby but left the force to open Record Hunter.
(17 June 2020)
Name: Philip
Comment: As a 17-year-old working at the nearby St Thomas Hospital in the mid-sixties, I started calling into the Record Hunter on a Saturday
lunchtime when my shift finished. John introduced me to the music of Bernstein, Copland, Gershwin, Mozart, Shostakovich and many other
composers.
I also remember vividly the enjoyment he had in playing Bill Cosby and laughing at the Medic track.
I have never forgotten the hours I whiled away in the Record Hunter, and the kindness John showed me.
Thanks to John I can enjoy music from many genres, and that has lasted a lifetime.
So sorry to read the sad news and thank you.
(4 January 2022)
