PRINCE NAME CHANGE WON'T BE MUSIC TO COLLECTORS' EARS

PRINCE NAME CHANGE WON'T BE MUSIC TO COLLECTORS' EARS

IOLA, Wis. (Wireless Flash) -- Prince's decision to dump the unpronounceable symbol he's used as a name since 1993 isn't music to the ears of some record collectors. "Goldmine" magazine rare records expert Tim Neeley predicts the new name change won't increase the value of recordings Prince made during the mid-1990s when he simply called himself The Artist. It seems the name change alienated many Prince fans, and artifacts from that era are worth about as much as KISS memorabilia from their makeup-free period. Although some of Prince's '90s-era CDs are hard to find, Neeley says the original recordings will be valuable only if Prince re-releases them using his Prince moniker.