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Remember the good old days, when the streets were lined with small independent record stores, and you could have a night out, go on holiday, buy a car, and still have change from a fiver. Alas, those days long gone, replaced instead by world ruled by bandwidth and all the ram you can muster, Mister.

For the record collector it's the online market place where the majority of those vinyl rarities of can now be unearthed. They give the collector an opportunity search through the catalogues and lists from dealers and collectors all over the world. But where do you begin that search? Where are the best web sites to find that Limited Edition Bananarama Picture Disc? Don't panic, here are a few of my favourites to help you along the way:

www.ebay.com

181 million registered users worldwide make Ebay a global brand and the biggest online market place on the interweb information freeway thingy. A quick search on Ebay UK alone for vinyl records gives 136181 items. Ebay's big advantage is that it is an auction site, and that makes it possible to sniff out the odd bargain, especially as at times there seems to be more auctions than buyers. The second best thing about Ebay is its simplicity. Once registered, paying for items using Paypal literally takes about four clicks. You can also check the reliability of sellers using the feedback rating, which is a big help in guarding yourself against those scams and fraudsters, of which Ebay has its fair share.

www.eil.com

Spawned in 1987 as Esprit Mail Order, EIL has since grown to become one of the biggest rare music & rare music memorabilia dealers on the net. They claim that catalogue contains over half a million items, although many of the items listed aren't actually in stock. Despite this, EIL do seem to be able to get their hands on the rarest and most collectable items, specialising in vinyl and vinyl memorabilia such as gold and platinum presentation discs. A good thing about EIL is that as they are a single independent dealer, there are no scammers or fraudsters to worry about. The downside is that there aren't many bargains here, they can be a little expensive.

www.musicstack.com

Mu sicstack was founded in 1997. It is not just a single online music store, instead it is an online portal for over 3500 independent record stores from all over the world. Dealers register with Musicstack and upload their inventories, giving users access to literally millions of titles. Like Ebay, Musicstack has a feedback rating allowing them to identify

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