The shop has welcomed generations of customers since it first opened in 1947
Diane Cain with her mum Dorothy and son Tony inside The Musical Box Record Shop on West Derby Road (Image: The Musical Box Record Shop)
A family-run shop that’s welcomed customers for generations has been transported back in time to the 1960s. Now in their fourth generation, The Musical Box on West Derby Road in Tuebrook dates back to 1947, when the Liverpool institution first sold toys and LPs to customers before becoming a much-loved record shop.
The shop was originally owned by Diane Cain’s uncle Jack Lewis, but when the family returned to Liverpool, Diane’s mother, Dorothy, later bought the Tuebrook shop. Today, the business is run by Diane’s son Tony Quinn and his wife Paula, with her grandsons also helping and running the social media accounts.
The shop has been visited by many famous faces over the years, including the likes of John Lennon, Pete Best and Elvis Costello. For almost 80 years, it has operated from the same building and more recently, the family were told that The Musical Box is the oldest record shop in England.
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The shop has recently transported West Derby Road back through the decades as the team uncovered three “ghost signs”. Paula, 62, told the Liverpool ECHO how The Musical Box are having their new shop sign painted this week, but in the process discovered further pieces of their shop history.
Paula said: “The shop sign needed replacing as the one that was up didn’t have the original date on it. It had 1951 on it and that was when Tony’s nan took the shop over from a brother.
The Musical Box on West Derby Road in Tuebrook dates back to 1947 and recently discovered ghost signs under their current shop sign. Pictured, a sign from the 90s(Image: The Musical Box Liverpool)
“But her brother had it in 1947, so we say the family business was established 1947. The dates didn’t correspond, so we thought we’d get a new shop sign and now we’re going more old school and getting it hand-painted.”
Paula said they could already see traces of one ghost sign which they wanted to preserve from the 1960s. But it wasn’t until the current shop sign was removed that the family discovered other ghost signs.
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The first rediscovered ghost sign was from the 1990s and is white with a black gramophone on it.
The second has bold red writing and the family believe it could be from the 1960s. Through the decades, the family has kept and preserved many items from the past surrounding the shop’s history and Liverpool’s music heritage.
In 2022, ahead of their appearance on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, specialist Wayne Colquhoun visited The Musical Box which inspired the family to transform Dorothy’s former upstairs living room, which for years had been a stockroom, into a second shop floor and museum to display some of their history. Taking 14 months to complete, The Musical Box never shut during the upstairs renovations and on December 9 2023, they officially opened their new heritage museum to the public, with Wayne Colquhoun attending to cut the ribbon.
The Musical Box on West Derby Road in Tuebrook recently discovered ghost signs under their current shop sign. Pictured, a sign from what is believed to be the 1960s(Image: The Musical Box Liverpool)
More treasures have since been found – such as rare record sale logbooks, now displayed in The Beatles Museum. Paula said the family are getting ready to surprise her mother-in-law Dorothy with the rediscovered signs proudly on display.
She said: “We’ve had some work going on recently and it’s just lovely how the community have been walking past when we’ve been painting and renovating saying how lovely it is.
“When we found the signs, we said straight away that we’ll have to get these up in the shop. They weren’t going to end up in a garage.
Paula Quinn inside The Musical Box Record Shop museum upstairs in the shop(Image: Photo by Andrew Teebay)
“Everything that we’ve found, it’s more history to display and for people to see. One sign we’ve got actually up the stairs that just fits perfect.
“We’ve got another one just at the top of the stairs and then one on the landing. So we’ve got the four signs now as the other has been reversed. It’s just been fantastic.”