T his summer brought a new record price for a 45rpm single disc when Frank Wilson's Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) sold for £25,742 via an online auction.

Recovered in the late Nineties from a worker at Tamla Motown's pressing plant ARP in Detroit, it was sold by Kenny Burrell, a Scottish DJ and record collector who had bought it for $22,000 from a Canadian record dealer shortly after it was unearthed.

There were fears that the disc had had thousands of pounds wiped off its value when Mr Burrell persuaded Frank Wilson to sign its label "To Kenny" in blue felt tip.

But the Scotsman was not complaining when the frantic bidding finally ended.

It's generally seen as an all-right soul record, but what makes it special is its history. Wilson, a middle-ranking Motown producer, cut it late in 1965 with plans to release it on the company's Soul label. But Motown boss Berry Gordy insisted that Wilson was a songwriter and producer rather than a singer, and he ordered the disc to be destroyed.

A researcher at the Motown archive in Los Angeles unearthed a copy in 1977 and it became a subversive anthem for England's Northern Soul clubs.

In the end, Frank Wilson was given the credit he deserved, the song now crops up on dozens of compilations and has a million hits on YouTube.

This particular disc is now the proud possession of a Lancashire collector, and it's easy to imagine it's some Northern Soul fan of years ago come good.

Of course, it's mishaps such as Berry Gordy's opposition to the release of Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) that turn a 50p charity shop single into a collectors' holy grail.

And it's the reason why the Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen from the Silver Jubilee year of 1976 is among the most prized of British singles ever released, selling at anything from £500 to £12,675 a copy.

What makes it so special is the fact that before the Pistols signed to Virgin, a small number of copies of God Save The Queen had been pressed on the A&M label – and it's those that are worth the megabucks. Sorry about that, all you Virgin people.

Before we leave it, a reminder of the rumours that circulated at the time, when the Virgin version peaked at number two behind Rod Stewart's I Don't Want To Talk About It on the chart used by the BBC.

The fact that it hit the top in the NME chart prompted fans to suspect that it was a cover-up, saving the BBC and independent radio the bother of a chart-topping record they had banned.

The most expensive Beatles disc is a copy of the White Album sold last November, in demand because of its sleeve numbered 0000005. That one was landed for £19,201.

For the Rolling Stones, the top rarity is an American single of Street Fighting Man with a picture of the group on the sleeve, versions of which went for $15,200 in April 2007 and $9,000 last June.

All of which makes the $10,656 for Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding LP in red vinyl and $11,400 for Elvis's Sun version of That's All Right in mint, unplayed condition, look a bit paltry.

But Bob's not worrying about that, and there's every chance that Elvis isn't, either.