Hans Pokora is an Austrian record collector and dealer.  With input from a group of hardcore record collectors, he's the author of a series of record guides highlighting some of the rarest records known to mankind.  As of 2024, Pokora's  published a series of nine volumes "1001 Record Collector Dreams" through "9001 Record Collector Dreams."  There's also a precursor book entitled "Rare Record Cover Book."  Each of the volumes cover beat, folk, garage, progressive, psychedelic and rock releases released across six of the seven continents (nothing from Antarctica).

My wife has called  the books "vinyl porn."  I think she has a valid point.  While the books don't provide "reviews" of the music, they provide album cover photos, release information and ratings based on the ill-defined concept of rarity.  The ratings go from "interesting" (a one "album" rating) to "the crown jewels of vinyl" (a six "album" rating).

I'll be the first to admit the books are fascinating, representing collectables that most of us will never see, other than perhaps as a reissue.  The biggest problem I have with the whole project is it's built on the assumption rarity is a good thing.  As almost everyone can attest to, an item may be rare because it's crap.  That's certainly the case with record albums.  Not to pick on an artist, but does anyone really think the late Peter Grudzien's "The Unicorn"  is anywhere near as good as The Beatles' "Revolver"?   Sure, "The Unicorn" is a billion times rarer, but as a former owner of a copy, I can tell you it's a hard album to sit through.  "Revolver" not so much.  

The other thing to keep in mind is in terms of these books "rarity" means a UK copy of Bang's debut album "Bang" is listed (Volume 7), whereas the far more common US pressing on Capitol is not.  The two albums are virtually identical - same track listing; same artwork; same label, but different catalog numbers.  Is anyone in their right mind really going to care you have the UK pressing, versus the US release?   If that's the case, then why isn't the Japanese release (Capitol catalog number ECP-80559) in one of the books?

Of course that hasn't stopped me from using Pokora's books to spend way too much of my limited disposable income on some of these albums.  By the way, my listing includes reviews.  Click on the "artist" link and remember, there are my thoughts on a particular album and may not represent what you think about a collection.  And yes, none of these are cheap items.  Please don't ask for a massive discount.

For the five of you interested, Klemen Breznikar interviewed Pokora for the  online "It's Psychedelc Baby Magazine" publication:

https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2012/01/hans-pokora-interview-about-record.html

Last updated: SEPTEMBER 02, 2024

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