70 year old single tops the charts at EIL.COM

Eil.com's record archivist Richard Austin commented: "On occasion we are quite blasé about the fantastic pieces of vinyl and memorabilia that we come across from day-to-day. However, every now and then an item will appear that stops us in our tracks. In this case, not due to it's rarity nor value, but because something so fragile is discovered in jaw-droppingly pristine condition after over seven decades."

Warming to his task Richard explained the team's excitement at the find, "shellac was created from a mixture of the secretion from the lac beetle and slate dust to produce a hard wearing but very brittle surface. The addition of the slate dust was the touch of genius as it helped grind the early heavy needles to fit the groove more closely. Whilst millions of these records were made very few survive that can be played and sound as good as they did when they rolled off the production line over two generations ago".

Despite the age and condition the item is only worth a small amount. As eil.com co-founder Julian Thomas commented our worldwide teams of buyers are tasked with finding the rarest music collectables full stop. This does not matter if the item has limited monetary value - for us it is all about the condition and scarcity of the item and knowing that somewhere out there will be a collector who will be amazed when they hear about this item as it will be the one that completes their collection".