Sheet music, like other collectible commodities, is subject to a number of variables where value is concerned. For a start, condition is everything, as is rarity value.

One of the problems for the seller of old sheet music is that much of it has been legally digitised - in many cases by large universities - and is therefore freely available via the net. So it?s really the keen collector of original material who is the potential buyer here - with the exception that always applies to rare stuff by, say, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, etc.

Some months ago I was given an archive of around 5,000 original sheet music pieces dating from the 1880s to the early 1960s, once the property of a professional pianist. It sits in a filing cabinet as I, from time to time, go through it, scanning and cataloguing ...