Dear Rob

For what it's worth I have never found LPs more fragile than CDs. Heavier, more cumbersome and requiring more space, yes. Never having been (and at this stage never going to be) a homeowner and having lived and worked in four different countries and dozens of different cities over the decades has meant that my records have not been spared an unkind amount of rough and tumble, yet they still give me as much pleasure today as they ever did even though some of them are now more than seventy-five years old.

Furthermore on the issue of the back catalogue, a lot, maybe most, of my LPs, especially those from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, America (north and south), Australia and Japan contain recordings and repertoire that still only exist on LP and very possibly never will exist on any other medium for all the hype about CDs. For any who doubt this just take a look at the late Michael Herman's excellent National Discography for East-Central Europe and the Balkans.

I am completely ignorant of the market as regards second-hand CDs. The only CDs that ever interested me were those of premiere recordings and although I stopped collecting LPs or CDs completely five years ago I am aware that there is still a very healthy international trade in second-hand classical LPs.