Hitting the Mother Lode

OK, half the fun of being a record collector is hunting down those elusive discs! You know-those discs you heard at a friends, etc. And there's certainly no shortage of used LP sources. Record stores, dumpster diving, flea markets, garage sales, craigslist, ebay, radio stations, etc. are some of the many sources for used LPs. So the question is: what was the source of your biggest haul in history?

For me, that LP mother lode happened for me about 20 years ago. One afternoon after work, I was walking down Broadway and 115th St (right by Columbia Univ.) and happened upon a vendor selling LPs on the street. Among the LPs on sale were a few Mercury, RCA and other assorted record labels which I prompted snatched up; in the course of our conversation, I then casually asked him if he had any more LPs for sale. He replied in the affirmitive and finally after three weeks of telephone calls, I finally managed to set up a time to meet him to check out the other LPs.

Well that fateful Wednesday night finally arrived and it was off to this fellows pad on Bdway and 106th St. And I was hardly prepared for what I found: a one bdroom apt. stuffed to the gills with boxes containing 1000s and 1000s of classical LPs. I asked him how he upon all of these LPs and it turned out that he was a recent graduate of Manhattan School of Music -- and surprise of surprises was unemployed. To pay the bills, he was working in a Harlem library just about to undergo rennovation. And stored in the libraries' basement were boxes of records that WABC AM had donated to the the library sometime in the '60s when the station changed format from classical to ????. And guess what. They were just going to toss all the records in the dumpster and this guy stepped in and saved all these LPs.

So I ended up buying roughly 400 LPs (including original pressings from Mercury, RCA, Argo, Vanguard, London, etc.) from this guy at $3 apiece. That night as I was heading home in a cab with my evening's haul, I began to wonder if I had missed some records that night. So I called the guy again to see if there was a possibility of coming over again to look at the LPs again. He took his time getting back to me--and finally admitted that someone told him the albums were worth more than he was selling them for (now at that time, I had been paying $5-10/album from other sources including a vendor at a local flea market). I told him that he might be able to get more for the records--but then people would be more choosy and he would have to deal with people wanting refunds for any defective records. So he agreed to let me come over and pick through the LPs again for the original price of $3. So I ended up getting another 300 LPs from this gentlemen and almost all were in mint shape. So the total was around 700 LPs though with what I know about the different labels nowadays, the number could have been much higher

Mike Lavigne said:

mine's easy, it happened 6 weeks ago.....although it was 20 years in the making.

one of the Managers at the company i manage has been with me for over 20 years. this manager's wife's father was retired Air Force and a Classical Vinyl enthusiast. i had met him over the years a few times and we had spoken about our common hobby. a few years back my Manager and his wife had divorced, but the family was still close, and all three of his children eventually worked some for our company. last summer the wife's father passed away. they spoke briefly about selling me the collection as they knew i would respect the care and love the father had felt for the collection. the ex-wife and her sister decided to offer it to some local record stores and myself, since they did not know the value. the record stores wanted to cherry pick the collection and then the sisters decided that afterall they would keep them since it meant so much to their father.....and they could not get the value ($2k+) for it they had expected. this was in Nov 09'.

then in March they decided it was just too much to deal with and sold me the whole 2200 Lp collection for $800......about 40 cents each.

now that i've lived with it for awhile and cleaned and listened to 300+ i'd say i died and went to vinyl heaven. there are maybe 200 'Record Club' Lps which are unlikely to ever show up on any of my tt's. then another 200-250 which might not be stuff i want (but i won't know until i can investigate them). but i'd say 1500+ are really nice Classical Lps (a few Jazz and Pop) in near mint condition. i've found maybe 5% with any significant noise. there are some which are early RCA's, Mercury's, Decca's, and others which may be somewhat valuable. but what i love is the great performances i keep hearing. this is great music. maybe not first pressings in all cases but a collection put together to represent quality performance and recordings. as i have minimal Classical knowledge how else might i have ever put together this type of collection.

i feel very lucky to end up with these Lps.......i think it was fate that i got them.

i've been on a musical journey daily since these have shown up and it has been wonderful. likely my most enjoyable 6 weeks of music ever. every day brings new musical horizons. the true mother lode was not only the lps but that it was a life's work of loving assembly of great music.

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That's really awesome Mike! Great find and it really sounds like you're enjoying the LPs!

OTOH, the sad thing is do you know how many LP collections are simply tossed by the kids?

RBFC said:

While not as amazing as Myles' story, here's mine. I went to a record sale in the basement of the Cleveland Music School Settlement. They were getting rid of older LPs as CDs began to come out. I was looking through the piles of albums and found a copy of Balalaika Favorites on Mercury Living Presence, still sealed! After paying the exhorbitant asking price of $1.00, I left with that treasure and some other LPs. The same week, at another store, I picked up Adam's Giselle with Fistoulari on Living Presence (double LP set) for $7.00. Although opened, this one looked like it had never been played. Sounded that way, too.

Lee

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Very nice Lee! I think it's safe to say there's more of your moments in record collecting than mine And Balalaika Favorites is an awesome Mercury and just great music. If you like the Mercury recording, keep an eye out for Sasha Polinoff Fastest Balalaika in the West on Elektra (try to get the early gold pressing). He used to play at the Russian Tea Room in NY and is excellent. He also has a second LP on Elektra whose name escapes me at the moment.

Shouldn't cost too much either for this LP

Now one interesting tidbit about the Polinoff recording. Found this via a list of reference recordings by Larry Klein (yes the one and same who used to write for Stereo Review). For some reason back in the '60s, he could actually hear. There were quite a few LPs on his list that turned out to be real keepers. Wish I had the list handy but believe it's in storage somewhere