Valer Records

Valer Records was a mail order firm, established in 1976. Original address: Chancery Chambers, 55 Brown Street, Manchester, U.K. It had a distribution deal with the Manchester (UK) based wholesaler/distributor Wynd Up Records Ltd. In 1977, Valer Records got into a dispute with EMI over the sale of the Motown Box Set "Motown Story", which was supposed to be sold by Valer Records exclusively for the price of $25,50 and Valer advertised the box set on TV with the pay off "not available in any store at any price". Five days later, the HMV stores in Manchester started selling the same box set for $16,90. It turned out that HMV obtained the boxes by means of cheap imports and for that reason Valer started doing the same, which enabled them to sell the box set for $11,80. The success of this recipe of cheap imports from the US and then reselling them on TV at a good profit, inspired Wynd Up Records Ltd. to start selling their own stocks in the same way, in some cases from an importer who provided copies that had an "as seen on TV" tag on them. The move impressed Valer Records' managing director Philip Felstead and he approached Colin Reilly, the owner of Wynd Up Records and worked out a distribution deal with them. The first release they set up together was Black And White Connection, a compilation with 40 tracks from 30 artists, most of which are on CBS, who also manufactured for Valer. [Source: Billboard Magazine, 14 May 1977, page 65.]