Name: Steve Panter
Comment: An amazing place, operated by two older gentlemen, with Radio 3 playing quietly in the background. Racks and racks of 78rpms, and gramophones to play them on, but also a vast stock of unplayed late 1970s/early 1980s singles and albums.
Name: Tony Burke
Comment: I was a regular visitor to 78 Record Exchange in Stockport. Bought some good albums there including The Excello Story on Blue Horizon in the early 1970s, plus other albums over the years including Merrill E Moore on Ember I recall. Also bought some 78s by Sam Price for a collector in the USA and some Louis Jordan UK releases. Happy days.
Name: David Wheeler
Comment: The 78 Record Exchange was a paradise for me when I lived in Levenshulme as a student. I'd get the 197 bus, and debate which rare LP of musical theatre I could afford that week. I bought vocal scores from them too. The stock was in great condition too.
Name: Peter Goree
Comment: Sadly no longer exists, but will be remembered for a source of vinyl. Was a customer for a lot of years and have not yet found anything to equal its choice and character.
Name: James Moore
Comment: I lament the loss of this shop almost daily! I first visited it in Marsden Square in 1970 after my attention being drawn to it by an article in the Daily Mirror in that year. I was 15. I wrote to the paper asking for the shop's address, they duly supplied it. For the next 33 years I visited it every week, especially after they removed to Stockport when their shop was demolished to build the Arndale Centre. What a facility, Bill and Peter who ran it became like friends with always that slightly detached professionalism that their generation observed. Oh,how I miss it! The smell and sounds when you entered were like a benediction.
(2020)
Name: James Moore
Comment: What a great facility lost. I wish I had bought it, Peter and Bill, the owners, did offer me the chance in about 1990, I was young enough but had a mortgage and a young family to support so didn't take the chance, more is the pity. I would have combined my catering experience with my love of vintage music and converted part of the shop into a cafe/restaurant. I think it would work well now. Hey ho, halcyon days.
(2022)
… and this advert in the 'Alderley & Wilmslow Advertiser' dated 29th May 1975: “WE BUY AND SELL: 78rpm Records, LPs, 45s and cassettes. Wind-up Gramophones, Old Sheet Music and Scores. Collections Purchased. 78 Record Exchange, 9 Lower Hillgate, Stockport.”
… also, this article in the 'Stockport Express Advertiser' dated 3rd November 1988: “Shoppers scramble for free records - RECORD shop owners Bill Kloet and Peter Howarth had a real clear-out last week when literally thousands of old discs hit the deck. To give themselves more space at their cramped 78 Record Exchange on Underbank, Bill and Peter have spent the last 18 months sifting through every record in their huge collection. And on last Tuesday they hired a skip and discarded an estimated 15,000 records! The sight has amazed passers-by in a spin and many rummaged through to find records to add to their own collections. Explained Bill: “We have been in the business for 25 years and, as you can imagine, have amassed a huge stock in that time. We have been through it with a fine tooth comb and only thrown out those which we have other copies of. It was like bees around a honey pot as soon as people saw the skip and we saw some old people literally stuffing their shopping bags with records.”