Brazilian bus magnate offers £23,000 for Birmingham vinyl collector's stock

A Brazilian bus magnate has offered to buy a record collector’s entire 70,000 stock of rare vinyls which had been put on sale for £1 each.

Reddington Rare Records boss Dan Reddington is considering the £23,000 offer, but he said he wanted the closing down sale to reward loyal customers.

The astonishing bid has been made by Sao Paulo millionaire and record collector Zero Freitas, 62 – a man whose quest is to buy every vinyl recording ever made.

The eccentric’s New York buyer, Allan Bastos, confirmed the offer could see Mr Reddington pocket around £23,000 for the extensive collection, which also includes 5,000 CDs.

He said: “I spoke with Mr Freitas and we are interested. The condition is that Mr Reddington does not take anything out of the stock and, of course, he has to cancel the (public) sale.”

Dan has run the now Redditch-based business, which began as a shop in Digbeth, for almost 40 years.

He said interest in the collection has been “incredible”, with enthusiasts flying in from Japan and America.

Dan has already turned down an offer for 5,000 vinyls after the owner of a Welsh record shop pulled out “two great big bundles” of cash totalling £10,000.

Speaking of the latest bulk bid, the 73-year-old said: “Mr Freitas may have some of the world’s rarest records but, as I said previously, buying in that amount of bulk isn’t true collecting.”

And he laughed: “Now if he was to say £1million I’d take it all back – you can dream.”