Putting a new spin on vinyl vim

The first records he purchased were Amour by Hong Kong pop singer Jacky Cheung, which cost 10 yuan, and a 3-yuan record by Huju Opera artist Yang Feifei. Records by famous Chinese singers of the past such as Nightlife in Shanghai by Zhou Xuan and Rose, Rose, I Love You by Yao Li can also be found in his collection.

One of his more extravagant purchases that cost 2,000 yuan was the record by the Great Wall Record Company which features four famous artists, Cheng Yanqiu, Shang Xiaoyun, Mei Lanfang and Xun Huisheng, performing the Peking Opera, Si Wu Hua Dong.

Half of his records are those produced after the 1930s, a period that marked the boom in international trade and a rapid growth of the middle class in Shanghai.

According to Chen, records were popular until just before the turn of the millennium when portable music devices like CD players and digital music started to grow in popularity.

Records, however, have started to make a comeback in recent years, though only a few companies in the suburbs of Guangzhou and the Caohejing development zone in Shanghai still manufacture these sound-storage mediums.

As such, collectors like Chen can only rely on secondhand stores, online auction sites and chat groups to fuel their passion. Chen himself is a member of a WeChat group that has nearly 300 record collectors from across the nation.

Despite amassing an impressive collection of records, Chen is still constantly on the lookout for more rare items.

"I once bought a rare live recording of the former Soviet Union violinist David Oistrakh's performance in Shanghai's Grand Cinema in the 1950s, but the owner of the secondhand store threw away the jackets of the records. I'm still searching for these jackets after all these years," says Chen, who revealed that he is planning to showcase his collection to the public.

"Records are a carrier of music. They represent the lifestyle of an era and hence should be passed on to the younger generations," he adds.