When asked how large his music collection is at present, there's a brief pause and a bit of a sigh as Tauranga's Tony Pill does the sums in his head.

'Probably about 3000 vinyl, 9000 CDs, 800 music books, and lots and lots of memorabilia.”

The pause is even greater, and the sigh more pronounced, when he's confronted with the question of what his utter most treasured album might be.

'Oh, that's really difficult to say, after owning a music shop for 14 years you listen to a lot of great music. I love my classic rock stuff like Pink Floyd, I grew up with the Rolling Stones in the UK, good quality blues and jazz, but I also like some house music.

'So yes, I go right across the board.”

Tony is one of 10 traders who'll be setting up shop at Totara Street in Mount Maunganui for the latest Mount Record Fair, which opens at 11am.

He's looking forward to the fair and says he'll be taking along a good cross section of his collection which will be spread across about 1100 vinyl, rare and collectable CD's, plus memorabilia and books.

'It's been great doing the record fairs, one of the interesting things about them is you see young people all the way up to people in their 70's coming down, there's a real good cross-section of the community.”

To many local music lovers Tony will be a familiar face - that's because he used to own and run Record Roundabout in Tauranga's Piccadilly Arcade before selling up in 2000. But he's now back in the music business, having recently resurrected Record Roundabout as an online store.

For Tony, music has been a lifelong passion, one which started back in the 1960's when he was given his first ever record as a birthday present from his parents – a 45 rpm of Duane Eddy's ‘Guitar Man'.

But because he didn't have a turntable to play it on his parents also bought him a record player for Christmas. Luckily for Tony, his birthday's only two weeks before Christmas, so the wait to play his record wasn't too torturous.

'That's where my love for vinyl started and it grew from there. It was good fun in those days, when an artist or band released an album you'd be queuing down at the record shop to buy a copy. You'd get a record, feel it in your hands, look at the cover, and read the album notes.

'It's a totally different scenario to downloading music these days. You can download a song, but you can't feel it or see it, it's just not the same as it is with vinyl.

'Vinyl's a bit like a painting, everyone sees something different.”

The Mount Record Fair is on at Totara Street in the Mauao Performing Arts Centre today, March 12, from 11am-4pm. Entry costs $2 from midday, or earlybird first choice from 11am for $10.

For more information visit the Mount Record Fair's Facebook event page.

Photo: Mount Record Fair/Facebook