How do those awesome records end up in the used-records shops?

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This seems like a such a simple question it doesn't need to be asked, but I've wondered about this for a long time. Of course, I understand that people looking to get rid of their/a family member's/whomever's record collection often call the local shop or just look up "record store" in the yellow pages. And people always take shit into shops to sell. And I remember that dude Miggy who ran a shop out of his living room in Brooklyn saying he traveled around a lot on the weekdays to buy records. I think I remember GimmeGimmeGuy in NYC saying the same thing. But surely even the smallist shop needs to have someone who goes out there and hunts down stuff.

But where do they go? Where do those used-records store owners go? How do they find out about people unloading their collections? endless yard sale searching? (Doesn't seem like that would actually turn up the greatest stock.)

Or is it just as simple as it all comes from people calling their shop?

― Dan Gr (certain), Saturday, 20 January 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

estate sales a big i think...

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Saturday, 20 January 2007 16:52 (eighteen years ago)

there are lots of records out there. people get them all sorts of ways. advertise. make trips. people bring stuff by. for every cool record you see in a store, what you don't see is the endless mountain of crap that someone has to wade thru to get it. plus, good customers know what to bring to a specific store for trade/sale. i used to bring all kinds of cool stuff to the stores i frequented in philly.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 17:03 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, or people dumping collections because they are moving, or needing rent money. One time on Ebay I bought some album from a guy who got a collection of soundtracks in lieu of a rent check from one of his tenants.

(x-post)

― The Dusty Baker Selection (Charles McCain), Saturday, 20 January 2007 17:05 (eighteen years ago)

shoplifters

― m1ck3y (alanbanana), Saturday, 20 January 2007 17:16 (eighteen years ago)

I always just shake my head, think to myself "Man, some people are fuckin' stupid", and buy the record immediately. Sometimes I even buy records I already have to give to other friends if it's cheap and hard to find.

To attempt an answer to the OP, the stores here have people calling them and coming by with collections on a seemingly daily basis. Most of it is crap, like Scott said, but...

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Saturday, 20 January 2007 19:10 (eighteen years ago)

Given I currently work at a used record shop, it's usually someone calling up and saying, "I have (whatever large number of CDs) to trade in. Can I bring 'em by?" And since this is possibly the most important aspect of us staying in business, the answer is always an enthusiastic "Yes!"

― Adam Harrison-Friday (AdamFriday), Saturday, 20 January 2007 19:27 (eighteen years ago)

Craigs mother fucking list is it. These stores, and many collectors, and DJs, drive around and check out collections people are getting rid of.

Some stores though get a lot of their stuff from DJs defaulting on storage units.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 20 January 2007 19:51 (eighteen years ago)

sadly, drug habits are a record store's dirty friend. aids too. ouch, did i say that out loud? hey, it's true.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 19:56 (eighteen years ago)

One time my house got robbed, and the dude stole all of my CDs from Ki to Ma, alphabetically. I called Amoeba and asked them if they'd made a buy that day involving that part of the alphabet, they had, and I got my CDs back. The dude who brought them in went to jail.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that theft is another way the CDs wind up in the used bins.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:21 (eighteen years ago)

"One time my house got robbed"

see: drug habit

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:29 (eighteen years ago)

Poverty. Three years ago I spent a very very lean summer and I still get nauseous when I think about the CDs and LPs (mostly rare and perfect jazz vinyl and box sets) I unloaded in order to keep my electricity on. If you got the Complete Miles Davis at the Plugged Nickel for a song, you're welcome. And bite me.

― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:40 (eighteen years ago)

Oh, well, I hadn't really meant CDs, since I figure it's much easier to keep a used CD section stocked with just what people walk in the door and sell. Mondo Kim's always seems to be stocked with promos I assume are coming from village voice shmoes coming across the square to get some beer money.

I meant more the vinyl, especially in places that are more curated.

I picked up some great records (though in beat up condition) once off of a couple with many old DJs in the family who gave them their collections to sell on the street. had the records been in good condition they would have been grossly underselling them.

― Dan Gr (certain), Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:53 (eighteen years ago)

Poverty

You're right. I retract my earlier "people are fuckin' stupid" statement. There are all kinds of reasons.

― sleeve version 2.0 (sleeve testing), Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

"Poverty"

oh yeah that too. i've traded in at least a 1000 or more CDs over the years cuz i didn't have cash to buy stuff. or i needed money. and records too. good stuff.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

i always liked to see the look on people's faces when my friend bob, who had/has a store in philly would go thru a hundred records that someone would drag thru the doorway and he would buy two from them. he was way picky. he didn't have the room for crap. here they thought they could just unload it all like they were going to the dump.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 21:03 (eighteen years ago)

aids too. ouch, did i say that out loud? hey, it's true.

In the late '80s I bought tons of ridiculously cheap Eurodisco/Hi-NRG/Itladisco/other late '70s and '80s dance 12-inches and albums at places like Sam's Jams in Ferndale, Michigan that I assumed had belonged to DJs who had succumbed to HIV. There was no way to know for sure, of course, but lots of them had clearly come from the same DJ; you could tell by how they were marked. And great piles of them seemed to show up at the stores all at once. Obviously AIDS was not the only explanation, but it was my first guess. So: sad, but true.

― xhuxk (xheddy), Saturday, 20 January 2007 21:09 (eighteen years ago)

i got a ton of techno and hi-nrg 12"s and lps outside of luxx once, it was caked with white powder. no lie.

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 20 January 2007 21:13 (eighteen years ago)

of course, sometimes deejays will just unload a ton of stuff that isn't hip anymore. stuff they can't play cuz it's two week's too late. philly's dollar bins were always great for that stuff. import stuff that went for 20 bucks that nobody cared about anymore.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 20 January 2007 21:37 (eighteen years ago)

1) People do DIE, you know...

2) The person who sold it probably had different tastes than you and knew he could get some good $$$ for it. Their poison = somebody else's medicine. I once unloaded a much-desired Louis Armstrong box set on Sony...I'm sure some Dixieland jazz fan was creaming the day he or she saw it for sale cheap, but it wasn't my thing, and my collection is big enuff as is, so I let it go.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Sunday, 21 January 2007 02:12 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, the dying thing. people don't want their crazy uncle's old records. they want them out of there.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)

i keep waiting for all the old hippies to die here, but they're tough to kill. even so, i find stuff here almost every week and i don't have very many options.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 02:17 (eighteen years ago)

Mine was a continual moving situation. I had a collection which covered the early seventies and onward of rock, disco, punk, post-punk, industrial and on. A great deal of it would have made me a small fortune if I'd held onto it, alas it was getting damaged through each move so I decided the best was to hand it on before it was beyond repair. I regret it to this day, as I'm always mentioning here and music blogs have taken away some of the pain as I've managed to restore it via digital files but it aint the same. I remember the excited shuffle behind 'Record and Tape Exchange' in Notting Hill every saturday as I traveled with as much as I could carry from the East End on the Central Line each week for two months to get rid of it.

― tolstoy (tolstoy), Sunday, 21 January 2007 03:49 (eighteen years ago)

craig's list, walk-ins, other stores closing (got great stock from a shop in Jersey last year), obsessive compulsives getting evicted and unable to move 10,000 LPs, estate sales (though these are a crap shoot), DJs yes (see craig's list), antique/thrift shops on long island and in jersey--thrift stores are really a great thing, i think, especially where people don't care about records. usually when i go home to visit the folks I can pick up a bunch of stuff cheap in thrift stores and sell it to my employer when i get back for a nice chunk of change/weed money.

college kids developing coke habits.
punk rockers unable to kick their junk habits.
aging hipsters settling down, having kids.

some great LPs that have just walked in off the street recently
signed KISS ALIVE
terry riley "persian surgery dervishes" 2LP
orig misfits 45s

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 04:49 (eighteen years ago)

and someone brought in a whole bunch of Fall LPs the other day! and some This Heat stuff.

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 04:51 (eighteen years ago)

i get alot of lps from antique pickers and dealers who look upon them like they r so many yesterdays pissed on pile of vomit baby clothing.

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 21 January 2007 04:59 (eighteen years ago)

tangentially related discussion we could have:
-what about the dudes who bring you three milkcrates of moldy, scratched up INCREDIBLY COMMON LPs and then complain that you won't give them more money "and just take the rest" (READ: the unsellable, rejected LPs.)

sigh.

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:19 (eighteen years ago)

i have to fight with them sumtymes to take th dreck w them,even if i have spent a few buxx on stuff i did want....i then ask them to pay me munny to dispose of them,,that usually ends it..

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:22 (eighteen years ago)

oooh, that's a good tactic to try. if they want to LEAVE the stuff we'll just chuck it in the basement or the dollar bin, but it's when they want significant money for their garbage that i get annoyed--"$50 for those? How about $75 for all of them? I really don't want to take them home.. I'm trying to make space..." NO, I SORTED THEM INTO TWO PILES FOR A REASON.

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:27 (eighteen years ago)

You two should create the rolling 'What clueless feebs say when they sell shit to me' thread if there isn't one already.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:30 (eighteen years ago)

see now i already talked about this:

-- scott seward (skotro...), January 20th, 2007. (scott seward)

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:41 (eighteen years ago)

the best dudes who sell records are the ones who bring a stack of like 5-10 killer LPs and walk out with a similarly-sized stack they traded for--these are people who know the values of their records, and how best to translate that into NEW KILLER RECORDS.

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:42 (eighteen years ago)

i only bought stuff from people off the street for a short period when i had a store, and it was often a headache. people in public can just be difficult to begin with. and record people can be a fright. but i made some friends too. it goes both ways.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:44 (eighteen years ago)

see, i mentioned that too:

plus, good customers know what to bring to a specific store for trade/sale. i used to bring all kinds of cool stuff to the stores i frequented in philly.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:45 (eighteen years ago)

see, the best thing if you collect stuff is finding stuff worth money that you don't care about. so you don't mind getting rid of it. i like too much stuff though.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:46 (eighteen years ago)

Last time I sold to Academy I just donated all the stuff they wouldn't take. I didnt' want to have to carry it around any more.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:55 (eighteen years ago)

you're the kind of guy we like, daniel q. selzer.

― be home by 11 (orion), Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:56 (eighteen years ago)

yeah the guy was like..."dude, we don't need this Beatles record, it's got a sticker on the front. And this VU acetate? It looks a bit scratched up." I didn't want to carry them so I was like "can I just donate these to the dollar bin? The clerk was very helpfull and friendly and took them off my hand.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 21 January 2007 06:16 (eighteen years ago)

i was just gonna say sum dudes will pretend they dont care about one stack and then offer a decent amt for th other stack so u wend up donating stuff to him he really wanted anyway.."well i will give u 45 dollars for these 6 original one eye miles davis records but i have no real interest in that sealed grateful dead record..oh alright ill take it,i can donate it to the burn victims unit,their jelly smeared hands won't hurt the delicate cardboard because of the shrink wrap"

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 21 January 2007 06:58 (eighteen years ago)

Alot of men have been offering up great stuff(minutemen,delta 5,slits.etc etc)because they have already either a)made mix tapes and given them out to their bestestetsfets friends..b)djed alot of birthday partys w early Human League 12"s that noone dancxed to,,c)or is upgrading to BluRay...so great men get a vote

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 21 January 2007 07:00 (eighteen years ago)

http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5368/703/640/663034/image0-22.jpg Who sold me this?...a) a crack user....b)an "ol skool" dj

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 21 January 2007 07:06 (eighteen years ago)

At a store I worked at we got lots of free promos, and though we were never told not to sell them, I guess the idea was that they were only for personal use. My friend used to sell a lot of them at secondhand stores until some jerk buyer called the corporate office and got him fired for doing it. I've always found that bizarre--"You're bringing in all these great CDs, so I'm gonna have to narc on you."

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Sunday, 21 January 2007 10:17 (eighteen years ago)

I guess poverty/need for luxuary is my main reasons to sell records.
Last summer I sold off some swedish prog (highly priced at the moment) and got myself three weeks vacation in Berlin. but still.. bittersweet.

― jon person (jon person), Sunday, 21 January 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

i think the middle aged and over people on ILX are the exception. most people i've met who used to be music obsessives kinda lost interest in their aging years. i remember about five years ago going with my dad to the used book/record shop to get rid of his huge filing cabinet of reggae vinyls. if only he waited a few more years until i started to actually like music.

― critique de la vie quotidienne (modestmickey), Sunday, 21 January 2007 15:45 (eighteen years ago)

Once, a family friend asked me to advise them on their records in the garage. Their son was a mobile DJ, and had lots of "singles, some albums, and a few picture disc and coloured vinyl"

So I went along, maybe pick up a few goodies etc.

However, most were eighties stuff, about a thousand of them, mostly without sleeves, packed tightly in boxes, yr Ottowans, Lynx, Tina Charles, Dollar, Kylie, Pat/Mike, and so on.

Well, I told them they had nothing valuable. "So what do we do with them?" I coudn't tell them! (I couldn;t say "Take them to the tip" but I couldn't think of any thing else)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 22 January 2007 09:55 (eighteen years ago)

In charity shops I always get something of a pang when I come across an especially good collection which clearly - somehow, you can always tell - has come from, or been donated by, one person, or their family, and if it's in, say, a British Heart Foundation or Cancer Research shop, there's clearly a possibility that the owner is no longer alive.

It does give me the creeps to think about it.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 22 January 2007 11:21 (eighteen years ago)

Music lives, people die.

I like it that the music can get disseminated once again.

Of course, this goes moreso for all those MaxBygraves and Classical boxsets..

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 22 January 2007 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

I used to have all of Zoviet France's original hand-made LP's :(

All I kept from that era was Lee Ranaldo's 'From Here Infinity' clear 12" and the '24 Hours' cassette collection of Throbbing Gristle.

I was going to sit here and list that which I passed on but I'd end up frying myself from the blubbering rag of tears over the keyboard.

Best forgotten (Sigh).

― tolstoy (tolstoy), Monday, 22 January 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

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