"No, I can't believe I found it either."

I promise, this isn't a thread about showing off your records (although it will most likely happen as a side effect.)

This is about finding a record/records that never even occurred to you. But you're browsing, you see it, you buy it, and you still can't wrap your head around the fact that you have it. I don't mean Holy Grails, I mean Grails that you never even considered that somehow found their way into your hands.

I found original Japanese pressings of the first three Scott Walker albums at the Shinjuku Disc Union. By all rights, I shouldn't have. I hardly ever visited the 60s section (all the genres are on different floors, so it's not like I passed by it while I was shopping.) I got a wild hair that particular day, and decided to hit it. Found them in the new arrivals.

When I brought them to the counter, the guy said "haiai!" ("that was quick!") I don't know if he meant that he had just put them out on the floor, or if he said it because I was in the room for about 30 seconds before I took them up to the counter. Either way, he wasn't wrong.

They were 6000 yen each, roughly $60. I still say I got them cheap.

TELL ME YOUR STORIES

 

I've been wanting the box set of Get Smart dvds for a while. I was in the local record shoppe and a guy walks in front of me with a large bag of dvds. Sitting on top was the complete series, in the telephone booth box. I asked if I could buy it, and he said he wanted to see what they would give him. They offered $12, I offered $15 and it was mine. Score of a lifetime.

Edit: here's a link to it at Best Buy. They say there are 5 discs, there are actually 5 separate cases, each holding 3 discs. A buck a disc. Crazy.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/get-sm...ffcode=pg201033&ksdevice=c&lsft=ref:212,loc:2

 

I had been looking for Buddy Holly's now out-of-print boxed set and book Not Fade Away: The Complete Studio Recordings and More for a number of years now.

The current lowest asking price for a used copy on Amazon.ca is $517+$17 shipping, and the last 3 copies on Discogs (since September) being sold between $264 and $440.

I was in a used music store last week, and saw a copy for $150. While it is easily the most I have ever paid for any album, it was certainly one of the best bargains I have ever purchased for an album.

 

Not sure if this one counts, but a year and a half ago at my local shop I saw a CD of Wish You Were Here behind the counter. Asked to see it, and sure enough, it was the famous 35DP-4 two-track edition (matrix 101A2). Didn't see it sitting in the bins for three bucks like some people have, but what they did have it priced at was more than fair (I can't remember the exact price, it was $55 or $60 or so). Way too good of a deal to pass up, even though I couldn't really afford it (I had to put some stuff I really wanted back because I knew I'd never see it again). Got it home, popped it on, and I thought it sounded like thin weedy crap. Oh yeah... I like EQ, don't I? Oh well, I still sold it, made a decent profit, and put that money toward one of my true holy grails on Discogs. And somebody else got a pretty good deal on it.

 

It wasn't a music purchase...i walked into Half-Price Books shop and looked at a stack of recent Blu-Rays, plus they had a 50% off Sale that week of December.

The Hobbit : Extended Editions [9 Blu-Ray discs ] stickered $29.99? So take it up to counter, clerk rings it up add discount and i had a small gift card to use, just under $12 buck and she hands me the change w/receipt. Total time in the door 17 minutes....whole Boxset was Mint!

 

My two greatest finds in a record store, both at the same time (original pressings) and for $20 total. I couldn't believe it.

 

In January of '16 a few months before his passing, I stumbled upon a trove of Prince and Prince-related rarities, all priced absurdly cheaply in the R&B used CD section of Mystery Train Records in Gloucester, MA. Many of them I already had, like perfect copies of the '94 edition of The Black Album and assorted CD singles. I did go home with:

Mint CD of Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic, the fanclub-only alternate edition of Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic. Usually goes for no less than $150 to $200 and I'd never even seen a copy in real life, this was priced at $3.99
Rare, imported tracked version of Lovesexy (standard edition tracks the entire album as one track) - $8.99
Mayte - Child Of The Sun, the Prince-produced and written solo album of his dancer/wife/protege - $3.99
Chaka Khan - Come 2 My House. rare Prince-produced album on NPG Records - $3.99
Graham Central Station - GCS2000, another Prince production - $3.99

 

Yes but now you’ve got to find the fourth Scott Walker to complete the set! I did a sweep of most of the Tokyo Disk Unions in December and I can vouch for how competitive the New Arrivals sections are. I love how the locals slide the records up as they flip through the bins.

 

Back in 2013-ish, I was browsing in Greenwich Music & Video Exchange (formerly Record & Tape Exchange, now Music & Goods Exchange), and looked up at the display records above the counter, and there was the only copy I’ve ever seen of Curtains by Tindersticks. Only ever pressing, 1996, 2 x 45 LPs. Price tag £120. Was bereft of funds at the time, but two days later still couldn’t get it out of my head.

Was at work, and remembered I’d bought the John Martin Island Years box set for cheaps (like €30 in an Amazon DE pricing snafu), and I’d ripped the discs, and had no real need to hang onto it. So I called my most reliable housemate (never live with artists and/or students) with instructions of what to take and where to go, called the shop to make sure it was still there, and came home to find a minty fresh copy of Curtains sitting on the kitchen table.

 

I`m not bragging,........ (OK ,I am bragging!). But I got this on a market stall (£20), when I was just walking through a local town on my way to an appointment....



And I know that I have posted about it before....but you can`t have too much of a good thing!

 

I bought the Mike McGear....`McGear` album from a junk bin on the floor under a table at a record fair for £1, I figured that I would probably get £10 for it.
I didn`t even look at the inner sleeve or record until i got home, and boy did i get a surprise!
The inner cover has a handwritten message just aside his left shoulder that say`s......

"TO GEORGE, SORRY THAT YOU COULD NOT MAKE THE SESSION....SEE YA`......MIKE".

George Martin or George Harrison?
Is this a copy meant for George Harrison?



More likely George Harrison as this was the time that he was falling out with Paul, and unlike the other Beatles did not contribute to the record.

 

Pet Sounds DCC for 3.00, Loggins and Messina-Sittin In MFSL for 1.00

 

I have too many stories like this to tell. But since you mentioned Scott, I will tell this story:

There used to be a hipster record store where I lived. If an old obscure LP was reissued, the plaid-shirt-wearing twenty-something waifs who worked there would act like they had been into it the whole time, and you, the customer, were the Johnny-come-lately. But if the album was not reissued, more than likely, it would end up in the dollar bin.

So one day, I'm going through the dollar bin, and what did I find, but a mint UK MONO pressing of the first Scott Walker album. I happily plunked down my dollar bill and carried it out of the store.

 

i think the thread title needs to be changed to "i can't believe i found it this cheap".

 

Nah. My man above paid £120 for the Tindersticks LP! That's not cheap at all!

 

Two Tindersticks stories both from 2011. A regular record store in Berlin, I didn't even plan to go there but I had some time to kill. What did they just get in? "Curtains". 50€. I swayed out of that store.

A couple of weeks later I was at a fair, I just had paid 60€ for "Simple Pleasure" on the Internet and was super happy and there was this dealer from Dresden. Guess what he had? Two sealed copies of "Simple Pleasure", 20€ each. So after being so glad that I managed to find one copy of this album, I suddenly found myself with three.

It's weird sometimes....

 

Or people could try to stick to the OP’s criteria.

 

this is going for $80 on Amazon. I found it for 10 in the local record shop. It was definitely one of those double take moments when I saw it in their used rack.

 

Geez really?! I have this. No idea it was worth a thing.

 

At a long out of business store that I used to like to shop, one night I dropped in just after they had taken in somebody's collection. There were boxes everywhere. I asked if I could look through them, and they said sure. In the third box, I found a copy of Steve's 2 CD Beach Boys compilation on Razor and Tie. $5 later I, it was mine. Found some other good stuff in there as well, but this was the one that surprised me the most.

 

Buying vinyl in a store in Pittsburgh, grabbed four Genesis titles. Three US pressings, but my favorite album ever - A Trick of the Tail is a very first UK press for $3, I didn't even know until I bought it - CDS-4001, February 1976!

 

I actually found Scott 4 in another "woah, really?" buy, although this one was a bit more predictable. Was browsing through one of the new arrival crates at a hole in the wall record shop (which would close soon after...it was in a back alley, no foot traffic whatsoever.) French OG, $35. One of the best sounding records I own

Good lord. I don't think I've even seen one of those. Damn/God Bless those hipster kids.

 

Less exciting, but back in the mid-90s when I was an obsessive Floyd head, and made it my mission to pick up all their work on vinyl, I arrived at my local record shop at the very instant that someone had deposited 1A pressings of Atom Heart Mother and Ummagumma, presumably in order to switch to the recent CD reissues.

The shop owner didn't even gave time to check any sort of price guide and I almost bit his hand off to get those, and threw down fifteen quid for both albums. I sold (and eventually re-bought) most of my Floyd LPs a few years later, but these two were just too perfect to part with.

 

I had no idea that was going for so much!
A related story, I got into Buddy via a Reader's Digest 6 cassette set that my Mum bought in the 80s. A few years ago I was at a book sale and found the 6 LP box set of it in mint condition for $2 amongst all the classical and easy listening boxes which really made my day as I haven't owned a cassette deck for about 20 years.

 

Found McGough And McGear UK first Parlophone mono pressing for £1.00 in a bargain bucket on the floor of a (now long gone) shop I used frequent. Think the guy thought it was a comedy record about two garden gnomes.