what's the best thing you've ever thrifted (=purchased at a thrift store, yard sale, etc.)?

well?

Neu! 75 Orig. Brain VG forty cents at a library sale in a coliseum.

http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?searchtext=pandit+pran+nath&x=0&y=0

xpost. shit, that's great

It was just tossed in with a bunch of Christmas lp's. My (older, record store clerk) friend told me I was wasting my time looking right as I flipped to it. I think I probably smiled for a half hour.

there's GOTTA be a couple good records but im blankin now... i do have this awesome green sweatshirt w metallic gold CA golden bear that fits perfectly that i found in san jose last year...

so many great things over all the years thrifting, esp since my entire record collection is 75% thrift, but best recent was a hedge trimmer for $20 at a garage sale that I went to on a lark while I was driving to Home Depot to buy a new hedge trimmer! (we have big yard-edge hedges that were more than double the max appropriate height since the old one broke last year). totally cosmic.

AND this a was at big hippie/yuppie villa where I also scored some weird New Age books and a cassette from Findhorn of the chants/songs they would sing to make the vegetables grow ginormous. I felt like Andre (as in My Dinner With...)

i've found 200 and 300 dollar records before for a dollar, but my biggest find was a clean copy of this:

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20050113/4066956451.jpg

clean too. with the sticker on the cover. i didn't even know what it was when i bought it. at the salvation army right down the street from my house in philly. i got so much great stuff there. those were the days.

i've found 200 and 300 dollar records before for a dollar

I've found ... I dunno, $50 records for a dollar. Never hundreds. I got a Serge Gainsbourg record for a buck.

there was a store that opened across the street from me in philly - it was there for about a year - and the guy had a room of dollar records. I bought tons of them. mostly 12 inches. this was in the late 90's. lots of rap and 80's stuff. i held on to it. pre-ebay, i never would have sold most of it. who would have bought it? i've made thousands off of those dollar records over the years. every once in a while i'd dig one out and notice that it was selling high. just got $122 for one a couple weeks ago!

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20090721/400062899891.jpg

(electro on the downswing though. was selling for 300+.)

i found this for 4 bucks a month ago. so as far as i'm concerned, the world is still my oyster.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20081206/280292256562.jpg

found a clean copy of this in the middle of a box of moldy records last week. Yay, team!

http://www.popsike.com/KING-HANNIBAL-Truth-AWARE-LP-soul-funk-PROMO/250605904640.html

i could put a thousand dollar record in my dollar boxes and nobody would ever find it. no big diggers around here. people are soft from craigslist and the like. kids, today...

when i think about how cheap i sold stuff for in my little shop in philly in the early 90's...oof. lots of happy people out there somewhere. the world was a different place back then though.

found this for a dollar last year. tell your friends. bid high and bid often:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330455483140&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

yard sale, 50 cents. not that rare, but i rarely find anything at yard sales.
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7195/poppyfamily.jpg

ha, didnt realize this was an ILV thread when I posted before cuz I was looking at Site New Answers. I have no clue what anything's worth since I don't deal but consume, so The Best would prob be my first, all-time fave and life-changer

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/innerdialogue.jpg

was 18 and was still stuck buying records that I thought would be, like, actually good. took a chance with my dollar just for yucks and entered into a whole new world beyond reason or Taste.

this was another long ago dollar purchase from that store in philly. NOBODY has this single. i've never seen another one for sale anyway. and it is flat out amazing. one of the best "boogie" singles you'll ever hear. the artist's son actually contacted me via ebay wanting to know how i found the record. if another one makes it to auction, i think it will double or triple in price. don't know who bought it, but if they played it for anyone, they will want one.

http://www.popsike.com/Leon-Gibson-Boogie-Street-RARE-Local-80s-Boogie/330354058255.html

if i had put a sound sample up it would have sold for more - hardly anyone has heard it! - but i'm lazy. and incompetent.

i had this album lying around for YEARS. i don't think i ever even played it. somebody paid me very good money for it. i had no idea. i just looked it up cuz i was bored. who knew?

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20090212/270343656672.jpg

this one too. had no idea. (its horrible)

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20090422/330324263207.jpg

oh i could go on and on. records are fun. good chunk of my life spent getting dirty in other people's basements. it sounds sexy, but, man, there are some scary fucking basements out there.

dude, that inner dialogue record rules!

my wife confounded her prof in lollege by doing an exegesis/presentation of 'Doctor Man' for Music Composition class. he was so intrigued they spent the rest of the day listening to other choice cuts.

"A world beyond reason of taste....."

40+ library records - KPM, Standard, DeWolfe - for 50c each at a local charity shop

SF Sorrow, and records by LeOrme, Gnidrelog, Steamhammer and other psych/ hard rock commons all for a euro each at a car boot sale last year

i'd be pretty happy to find a perry leopold at a yard sale

most of my best bargains were in record stores. buying stuff at the right time etc. i did find twilights 'cathy come home' 45 for 50c in a salvation army store but that's not all that impressive

my "best" thrifted things would probably be clothes that i wear a lot, like my giants starter jacket, a striped shirt i really like, etc.

as far as rare records, a couple months back at goodwill i found a soul LP which i traded for $40 credit, and a prog LP i sold on ebay for $100+.

i sold this 45 after finding it at an antique mall in Alabama last year for $2. but not before sharing it on youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsFrxjtRx4E

This is not very much in tone with the rest of the thread but a goody nonetheless.

I was buying some Codeine or Earth ep in the early 90s from subpop mailorder and much to my dismay, they sent the wrong 7" to me. i called them up and explained the situation to them and they apologized and sent me what I wanted and just asked me to keep what I had.

So I did. i got curious and played it once, it was really bad.

So about 7-9 years later i was doing the ebay thing and i pulled out a box of what i thought was crap and what do you know i stumbled upon that very same 7". Sunny Day Real Estate's debut" with a book and all sorts of emo-fodder in the 7" slip. I threw that puppy on the 'bay and got triple digit bids within 24 hours. lol @ emo.

Picture this: $45 garage sale purchase worth $200 million?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2010-07-27-ansel-adams-garage-sale_N.htm

that seems a bit dubious.

any other finds you guys would like to share?

ya, there's speculation from adams' grandson they're not what they claim now.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128828530

I got a few Art Ensemble of Chicago records, Michael Hurley "Watertower," Daniel Johnston "Hi How Are You," Alan Watts "Om" and a bunch of other shit over the years at fifty cents apiece from the continuous lp sale that happens in the recorded sound room of the academic library I work at. All this shit is mint, mostly. All stuff discarded from KBIA, the university's station that mostly does npr and a tiny bit of jazz and classical programming.

damn, dude.

best deal $$ wise: I got the Platters' album on Federal for 75 cents at a yard sale

coolest artifact: Italian import Trans-Europe Express 8-track for like 50 cents

also I got a couple of hundred 45s for $50 once from an ex-RCA employee, mixed in there was a promo copy of Little Richard's Taxi Blues

couple of hundred aaaactually maybe more like 150 + a dozen or so LPs now that I think about it. still a good deal.

http://www.goodgroove.org/discoboogie/cd12/Rozza&Wine_DiscoBoogieWoman.JPG
Found this in a Value Village in St. Catharines, Ontario. I thought it was a reggae 12" at first but when I got it home and internetted, found out it was a Canadian pressing of a US/eurodisco track. Before I got my hands on it out of the $1.99 bin (all records are 1.99 at VV) it was being handled by these "remember vinyl?" people out on a date!

wait so did you get it

Oops - Yes. I got right in there after they finished... I think I was more excited about some Chris Rea album at the time though.

My single best day of cheap stuff was probably when a local library in Virginia had a sale in an art museum lobby ... I think I got two grocery bags of LPs for two dollars (it was the end of the sale and they cut prices), the best of it was some blaxploitation soundtracks -- Coffy, The Mack, and Hell Up in Harlem I know were in there, I think maybe one or two more? A lot of the rest of what I got that day turned out to be junk but at those prices I'm gonna grab just about anything.