Baker Street The Musical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, on MGM records, 1965, value £50-£75

SOUNDTRACKS from stage musicals have very little monetary value, even original cast recordings from the 1950s onwards rarely exceed £20, if that, writes MICHAEL BROOKS. This one is the exception to the rule. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes has remained the most celebrated detective the world has ever known. From his first appearance in the novel A Study in Scarlet in 1887, the Holmes stories have never been out of print. They have been published in more than 50 languages, made into almost 150 films not forgetting 4,000 radio scripts and countless television series; 132 years later, he remains as popular as ever and could be described as the world's first superstar.

What makes this a collectable record is that only two musicals have ever been produced about Sherlock Holmes: this is the first one, the second one, written by Leslie Bricusse played to small venues and soon disappeared. Another factor is that aficionados of the Holmes stories, commonly known as Sherlockians, are very interested in searching for and collecting memorabilia about the character. Many of them would be prepared to purchase this record without ever listening to it, purely for the collectable value and to simply own it.

The musical was first shown on Broadway, New York in February 1965. Speculation mounted as to who was going to play the master detective? Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Alec Guiness, Trevor Howard, Rex Harrison were mentioned, Christopher Lee was interested but was not at that time considered famous enough, and Gregory Peck and Peter O'Toole turned the part down. In the end it went American actor Fritz Weaver with British actor Peter Sallis playing the part of Dr Watson. Sallis is perhaps best remembered as Norman Clegg in Last Of The Summer Wine and voicing the part of Wallace in the Wallace And Gromit TV series.

The musical took advance bookings of $1 million dollars, and it featured all the main characters from the books: Professor Moriarty, Mrs Hudson, Inspector Lestrade and Irene Adler. The show consisted of 14 songs, it ran for 311 sold out shows, and was nominated for three Tony awards, winning one of them. It also featured the debut of actor Christopher Walken.

Despite being a huge success, the musical became forgotten about and this particular show was never seen again. Some may say, 'is this really a classic vinyl?' To a Sherlockian, it definitely is, and there are a lot of them around!