THE ninth Hunter Record Fair - the first since the pandemic - has been hailed as a "huge success", bringing together customers and collectors of all ages.
Organiser Dan Phelan said around 500 people visited Kotara High on Saturday to dig through tens of thousands of records, CDs, rarities and bargains at the first fair since 2019.
"Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves," Mr Phelan said.
"We had more stallholders and more tables of records than we've ever had before - as far as the amount of things on offer it was the biggest one so far."
He said many were searching for their own definition of "black gold", including at a specialty hip hop stall.
"There's always people looking for classic stuff that is now very collectible like ACDC. There was a lot of ACDC and Iron Maiden and heavy metal.
"Some are collecting Australian jazz soundtracks that are extremely hard to find and rare.
"I'm always looking for reggae records that I've never seen before and managed to pick up one from 1969."
Mr Phelan said vinyl's resurgence in popularity could be due to a number of factors, including people spending more time at home during COVID-19, plus wanting a tangible keepsake.
"There's not much money from streaming services and people like to have a connection and say they're supporting the artist they love," he said.
"We can all listen to music in other ways, in the car, or while you're folding washing or cooking dinner, but it's in the background... pulling a record out of the sleeve and putting it on the turntable and the needle on, it's an activity, you can be more focused and invested in the music and artwork and lyrics and everything about it."
