There’s still time to bid on the ‘mythical’ Northern Soul 7″.

The London Records pressing of the Darrell Banks 45 ‘Open The Door To Your Heart’/‘Our Love’ is thought to be the only copy left of the original run, the rest of which were destroyed when rival EMI won the rights to release the single in 1966.

The 7″ is currently up for auction on RareSoulMan, where it’s already topped £11,000, with five days of bidding still remaining. Some collectors believing it could turn out to be even more valuable than Frank Wilson’s ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ which sold for £25,000 in 2009. Collector and dealer Pete Smith, who helped verify the single on a forum, said it was “the rarest British soul record of all time”. “Hardened collectors are sobbing at the sight of it,” he wrote.

The magnitude of the sale has not been lost on rare record dealer John Mansip of RareSoulMan, who says it is “not simply THE most important British Soul 45 to ever come to market. But also quite easily the most exciting record I’ve been in the presence of, in the whole of my record dealing career.”

Getting a little weak at the knees, the listing continues:

“No, this is not an apparition, the Darrell Banks STOCK copy – really does exist, yes it really, really does. The 48 years, mythical tales and vinyl dreams have now at last come true. When this escapee from the Decca factory scrap-skips, this vision of beauty was found in a deceased former employee’s “Decca/London” hoard…

It’s been in my possession now for 2 hours and my pulse is still racing. The high I’m on, is an intoxicating mix of disbelief and awe. I feel like French explorer of the New World, Father Louis Hennepin who allegedly travelled for weeks through uncharted territory, accompanied by an ever-increasing rumbling sound, until he eventually stumbled through a clearing onto the deafening vista of the Niagara Falls…

For the Northern Soul collector, this we feel is the most-prestigious 45 it is possible to own. Historically immense.. with both sides giving up the very embodiment of the Northern Soul Sound itself.”

Banks only released two full-length albums before he was killed in Detroit in February 1970, shot in the neck by an off-duty policeman who had been having an affair with Banks’s girlfriend. ‘Open the Door to Your Heart’ was his only hit, reaching number 2 on the R&B chart in the US.

Head over to RareSoulMan to place a bid or content yourself with the YouTube version below.

Why do rare records get our pulses racing? Find out in this psychological diagnosis of record collecting. [via BBC]