- B - Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath have been pretty consistent with album quality over the years despite one or a few line up changes. Don't pass over the contributions from Dio, Gillan, Glen Hughes or Tony Martin on vocals but first start with the one and only Ozzy Osbourne.

The best place to start is at the beginning with Black Sabbath , Paranoid and Master Of Reality . Better still take the plunge and pick up the near perfect The Complete 1970s Replica CD Collection: 1970-1978 .

As an aside, for the purist collector, the only way to complete a Sabbath collection is with the original vinyl albums - but be warned they were pressed on the Vertigo label and the 'Spiral' version of the first album is valued at £150, versions of the second album fetch £200 and the third Paranoid album is priced around £100.

Another aside, there are plenty of battered copies of Sabbath albums that turn up every weekend at car boot sales, don't get too excited. To fetch these silly prices requires a mint (virtually unplayed) version first pressing and not the one played to death and sat on by the cat. While on this topic, still one of the most collected bands is the Beatles, their first pressings on vinyl can fetch over £3000 for a gold label version of Please Please Me and over £100 for each of the following albums. But, and it's a big but, the top prices are for mint, practically untouched factory fresh versions of which there aren't many. Please don't pay silly money at a car boot sale just because it's the Beatles (or Sabbath) and the sleeve is hanging together with tape, the inner sleeve is missing and the record looks like it's been played with a rusty nail - collector price £0 walk away.