Unloveable: the heresy of not wanting signed record sleeves

Is a signed copy of a record better than an unsigned one? Ah, tricky question! No, actually it's NOT a tricky question. Not at all. It's a straightforward one: and no is the answer. Or more accurately: no, and in fact it's worse. Yep, I must admit I've always hated record sleeves defaced by a musician's scrawled Sharpie signature. Records like this one: 

Hmm, one of the most irritating (not to say politically deluded/unpleasant) people in pop has made a mess of my Bigmouth Strikes Again 12". What a fucking rotter, eh? I have no idea how I've ended up with this horribly-damaged record but it must be one a record company rep bunged me back in my record shop days. In addition to this signed monstrosity, I've got about three other Smiths white label 12"s - more freebie sweeteners for the record shop drones. God knows what lowly shop assistants like myself were expected to do in return - play the new record on rotation on the shop sound system? Ensure it was a hit? No, Rough Trade were clearly anxious about their new chart darlings and were fearful their records weren't going to sell unless they pulled out all the marketing stops. And they were probably right to be. Despite the Smiths' latter-day reputation as a super-popular, chart-conquering band of the period, they were, I recall, one of those outfits with only a shallow level of support (essentially students and some uber-fans) whose records didn't actually sell as well as their fame would suggest. Yes, their albums were pretty big and some of their singles did quite well, but their singles didn't get into the top ten (Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now just scraped its way to number ten) and - as I recall - after an initial peak Smiths records would drop like a stone from the charts. Not, of course, that I think selling lots of records is important (far from it). Anyway, all this, I presume, goes to explain the presence of the signed Bigmouth in my 12" singles stash. I didn't realise I even had this Morrissey-ised record until I started going through my 12"s yesterday to compile another of my exciting A-Z lists. God, what's this horrible thing?, I thought when I came to the Bigmouth record. To make matters worse, this is also one of a couple of dozen of my twelve inches adorned with unsightly wood oil stains along the bottom edge, the result of yet another music-endangering accident in the flat (look carefully at the photo above). It turns out - of course - that there's a ready market for signed copies of records, Smiths ones included. Fancy a signed copy of Meat Is Murder? Yours, for only £2,148.72. Meanwhile, it seems a Marr/-Joyce-signed copy of the aforementioned Bigmouth Strikes Again could get you £176 in the er, marketplace of ideas. Hmm, it's a truly weird business, this trafficking in famous people's signatures. The autograph hunter-turned-trader Adam Andrusier suggests it comes from a male pathology centred on incompleteness, attempts to fill the void. Yeah, probably so. And that's surely true of most forms of avid/compulsive collecting. And who's to say I don't have a little of this myself? Hopefully not too much though ... Anyway, for aesthetic reasons as well as a distaste for the tawdry business of buying and selling autographed records I'm going to ditch the Morrissey-signed Bigmouth 12". I was initially tempted to hive off the sleeve and keep the record itself (less for the mediocre Bigmouth, more for the much better Unloveable b-side, I may seem a little strange / Well, that's because I am ...) but no, I'll just get rid of it entirely. My local charity shop can try to flog it for £21.99 or whatever ("signed copy"). And then, when I go back down there to peruse their shelves and very likely buy a book for £1.99, I'll notice they've sold my signed Smiths record almost immediately. Oh no, I should never have parted it with it! Now I know how Joan of Arc felt ...