My wife and I stopped at a used furniture and antiques shop while driving through Wisconsin a few weeks ago. It was more used crap than used furniture: stuff randomly spread out among seven small buildings, no rhyme nor reason to what was where, just stuff dumped for others to fish through. A box of VHS tapes used to home-record movies? Rotten golf bags with rusting clubs? Broken console stereos from the 70s? Yup, yup, yup.
What caught my eye were stacks and stacks and stacks of records: albums, 45s, 78s, box sets, just lying there. Again, nothing organized, it would take hours to even make a dent into what was there. Even at $1 each, unlikely he sells anything because 1) unlikely record collectors would think there’s anything there and 2) even if they stop in, finding anything is an archeological dig.
We drove back this weekend and made an offer: fill up the car, make an educated count, and pay $0.50/each. He jumped at it and while I filled up the car, my wife got his life story. Literally just grabbed from various stacks and filled up the wagon and back seat, and got them home. I assume I’ll stumble into some gems and keepers, and sell the rest to a used music store.
I’ve started separating into genres and eras, trending towards country, Christmas, classical, and Christian music. Though I’ve found a few interesting things, it remains to be seen whether I made a good decision or not. Definitely fun, but it’s going to take me a while to sort things out.
