Ultimate thrift store record find?

Having looked for records at goodwill and garage sales for many years, i have often wondered " what is the ultimate record find?"

So, who out there knows some of the top record finds from goodwill/salvation army/thrift stores or garage sales ?

Or, what is the best collection of records ever found at a estate sale?

Thanks

 

found a complete set of original Beatles albums...covers were in good shape but the albums weren't...I was happy just to have the covers...I have the music in many formats and since I don't play vinyl much...it was a great find. I did find a dead MINT first pressing of Meet The Beatles cover and vinyl! up on the wall!

 

Finding any Beatles album in usable condition is always a treat. Since the advent of Ebay, most of the thrift stores have pulled Beatles albums out of the dollar bin, even in poor shape.

 

a huge treat...I found a mono and stereo MTB...the thrifts shops around here don't pull them...many are church run shops...although there are frequent sharks with their phones scanning UPC bar code wherever they are available on items to resell on ebay or Amazon, etc...they usually go very early in the day.

 

Probably my most prized discovery was finding the "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" soundtrack in a used CD store for $5.99 CDN. A big deal because it is so rare (and I got it for such a bargain).

Recent finds include two box sets, Emmylou Harris' "Portraits" and "The Definitive Tom Jones 1964-2002", each for under $15 and each in pristine condition.

 

Found a Beatles Yesterday And Today second state butcher cover for $1.00 at a thrift store.

 

When did that happen?

 

I think you stand a much better chance of finding something good at a thrift store and not in a real record shop. The record shop I go to weeds out all of the good stuff and sells it on ebay. The dime a dozen crap that's left gets put out in the used bins.

 

My top record finds and my biggest bargain finds are not the same list. Not sure which list concerns you as, personally, my top record finds were more important to me in the long term.

Example of a top record / CD find : Skin Games "The Blood Rush", maybe back in 1990 or 1991. Absolutely loved "Your Luck's Changed", but so rare to find in the US (remember, this was before eBay). Found the CD by chance while in Soho or the Village, I believe. I still remember the excitement of finding the CD and I've treasured it for 20 years, now.

Probably not worth spit today, but I don't really care. It's not like I plan to sell it.

 

Thrift stores are catching on, also (there's been a few threads here, about this change). Goodwill has its own sales portal!

Best chance of a bargain, from my experience? Garage sales. Other than the Beatles which people still think are gold (even scratched up copies), generally Joe Garage Sale Seller doesn't know what they have. I've never found a butcher cover but I have found some dollar specials that were actually worth ~30 bucks.

 

Whenever I'm going through a box of thrift store/flea market 45s, I have to pause on every Decca label to check for "Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers" on the label. Haven't found one yet, but that would be pretty darn cool.

J. D.

 

Recently found a very Nice Led Zeppelin II RL cut for $4. Plays with some light surface noise and a few pops, but overall pretty sweet. I'd say I got my $4 worth

 

I've told the story before but my ultimate find was finding a German pressing of Amon Duul II's Tanz Der Leminge while working at a Salvation Army Thrift Store.

I used to do really well at Value Village locations in Ottawa. I found Beatles albums and two occasions there, one time an original Abbey Road in very good condition and another time mono pressings of Rubber Soul and Magical Mystery Tour.

 

So far my luckiest thrift store experience is when an employee put a Gabor Szabo Impulse! release in VG+ or NM condition in the bin while I was shopping there.

 

I always go to St. Vincent de Paul on half price day (so albums are $0.25) and one time I found 60 vintage LP's that cost $15 total. Included were fantastic copies of LZ II and IV, Pink Floyd Animals and The Wall, Neil Young Everybody Knows and After The Gold Rush, CSNY Deja' Vu, Wishbone Ash, Johnny Winter, Ten Years After, etc, too many to list. They were first pressings with posters and original sleeves. Many were upgrades to titles I already had which I sold on eBay for, in some cases $25 apiece. Several were titles I didn't have. Obviously someone with similar tastes either dumped their collection or had it dumped by someone else. Also found a mint copy of "Thrillington" for $1.49 at Goodwill.

 

Yeah , i can identify with that heartstopper , only here in Europe its the orange scroll Polydor label rather than your Decca label......in our case 99.9% of the time its some Bert Kampfert 45.

 

Goodwill hunting

Kenny & The Kasuals "Live At The Studio Club" LP (Mark Records) original 1st pressing @ a Goodwill store in Corpus Christi, Texas 1976...50 cents plus tax.

 

An original 1994 pressing of Vitalogy by Pearl jam in perfect condition at the local Salvation Army for 1$.

 

Dangg ............

 

Last year was really when I started seriously digging at the thrift stores and garage sales and it got my adrenaline pumping like nothing before. My favorite dollar finds:

Led Zeppelin 1 Pirros cut
Cream - Wheels of Fire
Steely Dan Aja MFSL
Miles Davis - Kind of Blue stereo 2nd pressing
Dillard & Clark - Through the Morning, Through the Night
Jimi Hendrix - Axis, late 70s pressing but mint
Nazz - S/T

...
And a bunch more common stuff

 

recently? a WINNER! WOW! that is so cool.

 

G'day,

Just the other week I went into the local thrift store to check out the CDs and LPs.

Just as I getting to the bins I saw some bloke flicking through the goodies and walk away with about 10 Blue Note LPs: Out To Lunch, The Sidewinder, Our Man In Paris, Open Sesame, Idle Moments, etc. These were not reissues since they had that slight yellowing to the covers.

I was cursing myself for stopping briefly on the way in to re-tie my shoelaces, which had become a bit loose. That bit of banality cost me dearly.

--Geoff

 

excellent find! love thrift shopping...never know what you are going to find!

 

I figure these kind of LP's are more likely to show up in thrift stores / garage sales, as people just don't know what they have.

Last year I found an original "Brilliant Corners" LP that I found in a crate of LP's that were selling for 5 bucks. It was in pretty bad shape so it wasn't worth a ton, but I did end up selling it for ~$35. So not bad.

(I have the reissue LP which was in much better shape, or else I probably would have kept the other one, warts and all).

 

Mine have been nothing special but the during one trip to a now closed Goodwill, I found an original Mercyful Fate EP (White bordered first pressing) and a US Parrot pressing of The Zombies featuring She's Not There and Tell Her No. $1 each