Ex-Mablethorpe mayor Tony Howard selling 50-year NME collection

A former mayor is selling his 3,000-strong haul of NME magazines to free up loft space and turn it into cash for concert tickets.

Tony Howard started his New Musical Express collection in 1966, then aged 12, when he ditched reading comics in favour of his first love – music.

The huge collection is expected to fetch up to £3,000 at auction on Tuesday, according to auctioneers John Taylors in Louth.

Now age 70, Mr Howard, who was twice formerly the mayor of Mablethorpe in Lincolnshire, described the lot as a “wonderful reference book and backdrop to my life”.

The NME, which launched in 1952, ceased as a weekly magazine in 2018 but exists online.

For six decades, getting a copy from the local newsagent was a rite of passage for many British teenagers.

“I’ve read them every week as they’ve been published,” he said.

“I had a regular order with the newsagent, wherever I’ve lived, and had it delivered instead of a comic every week from 1966.

“Then about a year later, in early ’67, I thought if I keep these I can always look back at these articles, constantly refer to them and keep abreast of everything.

“I just kept keeping them until I got about 3,000.”

Mr Howard’s collection is “almost complete” except for a few missing copies from about 1972, which were mistakenly thrown out by his mother while tidying the home.

Decades later and the music fan is having a purge of his own.

“I don’t refer to them as much nowadays as I used to and so I decided that rather than taking up a lot of space in my loft, I would turn them into something useful, like ready cash, and I could use that ready cash to go and see these bands that I’ve been reading about.

“I’ve had the enjoyment once. I get the enjoyment yet again.”

First on the gig-goer’s list is Jethro Tull in Germany.

Since entering retirement, Mr Howard has clocked up the miles to see some of his favourite bands, including Roxy Music in Glasgow in 2023 and Bruce Springsteen in Sunderland.

James Laverack, auctioneer at John Taylors, said Mr Howard’s magazine hoard was “perhaps the finest ever to be offered at auction”.

“Other sales have had runs of the NME, some quite early, but involving limited periods. Nothing of this magnitude,” he said.

Mr Laverack said the collection would be sold in three parts: 1966-72, 1973-2018, and “a duplicate copies lot”.

“It’s a win win all round”, added Mr Howard.