Collecting vinyl records has always been popular but ironically this hobby has really taken off since the need to play them disappeared. Computer software means that old records, even 78s, can be transferred to CDs. Static, scratches and clicks can be deleted, providing a better sound quality than the originals.

Complete areas of music history have now been rediscovered, including early Australian jazz. This genre was once largely forgotten except by those who were there at the time.

Judith Durham was there and in her biography she was keen to point out that the sweet and innocent singer of the Seekers started her career in Melbourne's sweaty jazz joints. She had just left school when she started going to clubs like Dante's Inferno, The Purple Eye and Black & Blue.

"The music was hot Dixieland, blues and gospel and the audience was full-on, stomping and cake-walking," recalls Durham in Graham Simpson's 1998 biography, Colours of My Life.

"Town halls were literally packed to the rafters every weekend with teenagers. It was crude entertainment in a way but it had a real character of its own. It had its own fashion - corduroys, sloppy joes and desert boots." Plus the mandatory duffle coat and, for the male of the species, the jazzer beard.

In 1962, Durham first appeared on stage at the Memphis Club in Malvern. She was then asked to appear as guest vocalist with Frank Traynor's Jazz Preachers, one of the most popular of Melbourne's bands. The first song she sang on television was a jazzed-up version of Just a Closer Walk With Thee.

Melbourne in the '50s and early '60s was the heartland of the Trad Jazz movement and recordings from this period are now keenly collected, not only by those who were there. A new generation sees this as an important and exciting period. Records were released by Crest Records, W&G and Magnasound but the dominant label was Swaggie Records, founded by Graeme Bell and Nevill L. Sherburn.

Bob and Len Barnard, Dave Dallwitz, John Sangster and Alan Lee were among the most prominent Swaggie musicians, along with Bell. Most of these recordings have been re-issued on CD but many prefer the original vinyl records.

Bell was friends with artists like Sidney Nolan who supplied paintings for several LP covers, including The Ned Kelly Suite. Some copies have sold for up to $100. The usual price for a Swaggie record in good condition is from $20 to $30.

Some can still be picked up from $5 to $10 on eBay where you take your chances on condition. Computer software can only improve reproduction so far.

There are thought to have been more than 300 Swaggie records released, including eight on the old 78 rpm format, 227 12-inch LPs, 11 EPs and 36 singles (45 rpms). The LPs include seven in the Louis Armstrong series and 129 in the Jazz Collector series.

One prominent Sydney collector is known to have a complete set and a few others (see My Collection) are getting close to the target.

Single records were a relatively new innovation when the Melbourne jazz scene was taking off. A Magnasound recording of Frank Johnson and his Fabulous Dixielanders performing When the Saints Go Marching in states on the label that it was recorded on February 21, 1954. This makes it one of the first 45 rpm singles to be recorded here.

Other rarities have more to do with the talent. In 1957 Smacka Fitzgibbon, another Melbourne jazz legend, recorded his Smacka Meets Graham EP, also on the Magnasound label. That's Graham Kennedy no less, a young radio announcer who aspired to be a jazz singer.

The Red Onions Jazz Band was another Melbourne group that achieved unexpected fame when three of its members left to form the Loved Ones in 1965.

Just as this band's one and only LP is a prized item among record collectors, so too are previous releases by the Red Onions featuring the distinctive voice of Gerry Humphreys. Copies of Red Onions records are relatively common.

There are collectors who go further back in time to seek out treasures.

Graeme Bell, usually called the father of Australian jazz, made his first recordings on 78 rpm. One of the most desirable is his Czechoslovak Journey, recorded in 1947 just before his band's tour of Communist Europe with the Eureka Youth League.

Also part of this formative period is George Trevare's Jazz Group. An occasional member was a teenage Don Burrows, who started playing clarinet at Kings Cross nightclubs when he was under age.

More modern styles of jazz are also collectable. The Australian All Stars was formed in Sydney in 1958 featuring a more mature Don Burrows.

This group cashed in on the beatnik craze by releasing two albums called Jazz for Beach-niks. The cover shows the boys in business suits posing next to the Whale Beach Surf Life Saving Club surf boat.

It's rare but nowhere near as scarce as an original copy of the Charlie Munro Quartet's Eastern Horizons, released in 1967 and still on top of many collector's wish lists.

Others in the same league would be Graeme Lyall's Psychedelia Part 3, Georgia Lee's 1962 Downunder Blues and a complete set of John Sangster's four-part Lord of the Rings series, starting in 1974 with The Hobbit Suite.

All have been re-released recently but their current availability on CD seems not to affected their increasing value in the original vinyl format.

$5

Forty-five-rpm singles by jazz pioneer Graeme Bell are fairly common. This is a 1950s release of some of his early material.

$10

In 1963 the Alan Lee Quintet recorded the Moanin' EP on the Crest label. It's rare but not impossible to find.

$30

Another classic from the Swaggie catalogue is Dave Dallwitz's Ned Kelly Jazz Suite, featuring cover art by Sidney Nolan.

MY COLLECTION

Peter O'Neill is an electronics design engineer living in the small town of Saddleworth in South Australia's Clare Valley.

Despite the isolation, he is one of several jazz fans trying to collect the complete set of Swaggie Records, something that is possible these days through the internet. He buys mostly on eBay.

By his estimation, O'Neill, pictured, has about 90 per cent of the 300 or so Swaggie records released, including rarities such as The Ern Malley Jazz Suite.

He's managed to pick up most of his collection for about $10 each but some go for much higher.

He's paid $72 for one rare John Sangster LP and has heard of others fetching more than $100.

O'Neill also collects the Swaggie printed catalogues, valuable for research. Like many record collectors, he transfers his valuable records to CD for listening.

He also collects vintage recording equipment, including the kind of reel-to-reel recorders that were used on the early Swaggie records.