A treasure trove of unfinished music by British rock groups JOY DIVISION and New Order is up for sale as the woman who found the tapes in the trash is concerned over their potential deterioration.

Julia Adamson, ex-assistant to producer Martin Hannett, discovered the discarded collection years ago and decided to rescue the items, including a master recording of Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division's first studio album.

Adamson approached the members of both bands and Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis' widow, but they were not interested in purchasing the collection and now she is keen to hand them over to an expert to save the tapes from any further decay.

Posting a snap of the collection on her Facebook.com page, Adamson alerted music fans to her plans to sell, writing, "Rescued tapes of Martin Hannetts (sic)... anyone interested... I have looked after these tapes for a long time and when I approached the artists (who were my first port of call) I was subjected to accusations and abuse...

"I know they are worth something to a collector... the quality of Unknown Pleasures far surpasses the mastereing (sic) from vinyl over the years... probably one of the reasons these tapes are in my hands in the first place, (is that) they were incalculably valuable and needed to be rescued from a skip... I am keen for a collector to have them (the whole collection ideally) as they are very old and probably deteriorating."