Record Store Horror Stories

Rockadelic

I went to a store out of town a couple of weeks ago and had been told by a friend who lives in the town where this store is that if the owner thought I was from out of town he would price everything up high. He volunteered to meet me there and introduce me to the owner so I would get a "fair deal". My buddy is money and was there to give me a glowing intro to the store owner and even hung with me while I dug for 5 hours. As I was going through the racks I noticed some LP's were priced, but most weren't. I pulled out one marked at $19.99 and commented to my pal that it was a good deal. he then said...."We'll see what kind of deal it is after he RE-Prices it" Huh??? Yep, that's right, Dude has a sign in the front of the store stating that no record has a final price until he "looks it up"!!.....I knew I was in for trouble. So I decided to bring a stack up to the counter to get a feel for where the pricing would be.......handed him about 12 LP's and went back to digging. So after about an hour I go back to the counter to see what kind of pricing insanity I'll have to deal with. Owner explains that he has looked them all up on GEMM and Music Stack and priced them accordingly. First LP I pick up to check the price is an obscure local female folk LP....Price: $94.50 WTF I ask how he came up with that price and he says..."I couldn't find that one on the Internet"...then he tells me that EVERY record he couldn't find was priced at $94.50!!! Here are some of the prices this dude came up with.... Peter Walker on Vanguard - $249.00 Rare Bahama Disco LP: Paradise $7.99 Celia Cruz OG on SEECO - $149.00 Freedom "At Last" on Actuel $149.00 Sacred Mushroom OG - $559.00 Irma Thomas on Fungus - $129.00 Lily & Maria on Columbia - $9.99 wanna guess which two I bought?? Oh yeah...the one I pulled for $19.99 was RE-Priced at $34.99 as the dude explained that the $19.99 price was over a year old!@!!

high_c

yeah, Forever Young sucks doesn't it? Dave smells the non-Grand Prairians coming from a mile away.

Rockadelic

yeah, Forever Young sucks doesn't it? Dave smells the non-Grand Prairians coming from a mile away.

LOL.....this was 1,200 miles from Grand Prairie.

I don't think Dave pulls that kind of shit but god forbid any halfway known artist kicks the bucket, their LP's are sure to go up in value 300% at FY.

high_c

I don't think Dave pulls that kind of shit

In the past, no. Now, EVERY time I go, including this past sunday, Dave first checks his 8+ yr old price guide (which is devoid of most soul titles) before going behind the checkout counter to peruse ebay. YES, he references completed auctions on premesis. I luck out when they aren't found in either resource. Though the day he discovers popsike we're all screwed.

Rockadelic

I've known Dave since '79-'80 when he used to set up at Fair Park Flea Market and later Trader's Village so he treats me pretty good......I've turned him on to some dollar bin common collections and that helps too....... I always wait for him to price stuff before trying to score it from him..... If someone like you or I pick out an unpriced LP he automatically thinks it must be valuable....he over prices 90% of his LP's but that other 10% can be sweet.

Dj_Coma_Toast

 

they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

coffinjoe

 they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

WTF ?!?

Rockadelic

 

they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

WTF ?!?

What he said....

Just drove through Gulfport and Biloxi and the devestation there was mind boggling.....and it's a yaer after the fact!!

pacman

 

they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

Pittsburgh?

pickwick33

 they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

Pittsburgh?

Comatoast, could you identify this? Where'd this happen? Was this post-Katrina New Orleans, a bad flood elsewhere, or what? Thanks in advance - people out here comin' up with all kinds of disparate guesses here...

tripledouble

ohhhhhh boy. i hate this shit. fresh faced guys looking at records, nodding their heads saying " oh yeah, this is primo stuff" when i know theyve never listened to anything like it before in their life. a nice collection came into a new shop last week and homeboy xrayed everything under the gemm-o-meter. "ultramagnetics must have had quite a following...yeah, this one goes for $140 but i wont ask that much". cold gettin dumb is apparently now a hundred dollar record.:ewef:

i try to point out that outrageous prices on gemm are common and things can very well sit forever, but who would believe me??? i almost wish these dudes would stick to ebay pricing.

pacman

 

they were holding the first meters and walter benton quintet for me when this happened. Thats nothing compared to the people that lost thier homes though. I helped clean up around the neigborhood afterwards.

Pittsburgh?

Comatoast, could you identify this? Where'd this happen? Was this post-Katrina New Orleans, a bad flood elsewhere, or what? Thanks in advance - people out here comin' up with all kinds of disparate guesses here...

I could have SWORN I saw this pic on here before about some shop that flooded in Pitt. It might not be the same shop though.

hammertime

search engines are your friend!


Attic Records Rebuilds
Staff, owners and dedicated friends continue to pick up the pieces (literally!) of Pittsburgh mainstay, Attic Records, severely damaged in the flood of September 17th. Like many other Pittsburgh area Mom & Pop businesses they have lost almost everything and are working day and night to reopen.

While my heart goes out to all the individual families who lost their homes in the flood, there are also many programs and fund drives in place to help them get back on their feet. Area business owners, however, are in need of the same assistance. In the spirit of the holidays, consider adopting a Pittsburgh area business in Oakdale, Etna, Millvale, Carnegie, Heidelberg, or one of the dozens of other communities devasted by the floods. Whether you donate money, time or expertise, I'm sure they'll really appreciate it!

Dj_Coma_Toast

sorry for the late i.d.

pittsburgh is it. Last time i was there they were getting back up on thier feet pretty well almost 2 years after the fact. The younger guy that works there is a real stand-up dude.

Rerog

I was with High-C at FY this last Sunday and I found quite a few good unpriced records in piles around the front of the store that I didn't buy because of the price he determined from ebay/price guides/can't find it in either. One in particular, he priced at $50... I don't mind paying that for a record but this was a little too much for this record, so i told him if he sold it at $35 I'd buy it right then.... "No" he said, "this kind of stuff is just going up". It will be sitting there next year I promise.

Rockadelic, on a related note, a bunch of Dallas area record nerds are getting together for a trade/listening session at wil's apartment by the main half price Sat. August 19th if you might be interested in coming through.

canonical

I went into a pawn shop that was closing, and the owner was on a bare matress laying down (obviously post-drugs), a person beside him was crushing up crack or cocaine, and his kids (or very young friends) werein the back doing heroin.

I went into the basement pretty shook, pulled no good records (previously found rhythm and rhyme at that place).

When I came back upstairs from the basement, this dude walked by me and he had a gaping knife wound about 1 or 2 days old, totally untreated.

I bought the 3 terds I found and got the fuck out.

Worst record digging related experience ever.

SoulOnIce

Reid from In Your Ear was just telling me tonight that
Attic Records was his favorite store he had been to anywhere
in the US, and I mentioned this jpeg, which has been shown
on here many times. Pretty impressive that they recovered from
this, he just assumed they were out of business.


And I have yet to encounter anyone using Gemm
as a price guide, but I think I would probably snap,
like seriously lose it, just because Gemm pricing is such
an absolute joke. If stores want to use eBay, that
wouldn't even bother me, I consider most eBay prices
to be a fair idea of "value," and there are plenty
of records that generally get priced higher in stores
than they sell for on eBay, so things could even out.
Gemm, though? That's just crazy.

canonical

My friend sometimes prices at gemm divided by 5. Which works for the more common-label stuff.

axefoley

Sacred Mushroom OG - $559.00

DUDE. WOW.

parsec

Sacred Mushroom OG - $559.00

DUDE. WOW.

I know huh? That Peter Walker is a nice 10 record and that Irma Thomas is a cool 20 dollar record. That guy is smoking crack it sounds like.

pacman

I went into a pawn shop that was closing, and the owner was on a bare matress laying down (obviously post-drugs), a person beside him was crushing up crack or cocaine, and his kids (or very young friends) werein the back doing heroin.

I went into the basement pretty shook, pulled no good records (previously found rhythm and rhyme at that place).

When I came back upstairs from the basement, this dude walked by me and he had a gaping knife wound about 1 or 2 days old, totally untreated.

I bought the 3 terds I found and got the fuck out.

Worst record digging related experience ever.

Controller_7

Record Man in the Bay Area is the worst. He looks everything up in a book and generally goes off of mint ratings. He's nuts. He told us that it was "a privilege to be able to look through his collection." It's a store, not his living room. One time I saw him ring up a guy who had some 45s that were already priced. He says "this one is priced wrong" and tells him it's $40 instead of the $5 it's priced at. The guy says "ok, but it says $5. I don't want it then." Record man says "good, I don't want to sell it to you anyway."

On the other side of the coin, I've been to stores where the owners look at the records before they sell them and say things like "sheesh, that's too much, how about $2" when it's marked higher than that. I even got a free copy of Dorothy Ashby's "Afro Harping" because the guy looked at it and thought it was too beat. it plays fine to me. I gladly go back to the places where the owners are cool and realistic about what they are selling. If they think everything they own is a piece of gold then it's such a turn off that I almost don't even care what kind of records they have.

ariel_calmer

Record Man in the Bay Area is the worst. He looks everything up in a book and generally goes off of mint ratings. He's nuts. He told us that it was "a privilege to be able to look through his collection." It's a store, not his living room.

I really hate sellers who ask you "have you ever SEEN this many records??"

hammertime

yeah gemm pricing is just ludicrous. I can understand a store looking something up on ebay, but why can't they do that when the shit comes in the door and price it accordingly? I feel like places that wait until you get up to the counter are just hoping to rope you in on some "well i already brought them up here and already feel like they're mine" shit.

With one exception that I can think of, I don't shop at places that don't have their stock priced. And if a place pulls the "hang on let me look that up" then I don't go back. Period. Easy as that.

I think if you're some crazy paranoid dude that gives the evil eye to anyone trying to give you some of their money because you think they're trying to screw you over, then maybe a retail business isn't right for you.

coffinjoe

yeah gemm pricing is just ludicrous.

the one time this worked for a record collectro
a friend down south had just bought a big collection,
lots of rare jazz & blues,
wax varied in condition (so so)
but covers are mint & would be used to upgrade & replace m.i.a.'s
then
super duper freak t-storm floods out basement
cause dude has his collectro insured, files claim
& justifies $$ value with gemm page print-outs
(can you think of 2 gemm dealers you'd like to price ur collection)
even @ getting 80% of "gemm" value
dood got double what a decent ebay auction would have fetched

hammertime

whoa, time to take a crowbar to some water pipes at home.

behemoth

i came up on about 8 crates of hip hop 12"s...most of which were water damaged and scratched and whatever. guy still ebayed everything. he wouldnt sell me the "Word....Life" LP because there wasnt a listing online at that time. i proceeded to tell him "people like you are insane". he kicked my out of the store and i didnt get my beat to shit "Strictly for the Ladies" 12" or my CRU LP

but i felt ok when the shop closed a few weeks later

Jonny_Paycheck

Record Man in the Bay Area is the worst. He looks everything up in a book and generally goes off of mint ratings. He's nuts. He told us that it was "a privilege to be able to look through his collection." It's a store, not his living room. One time I saw him ring up a guy who had some 45s that were already priced. He says "this one is priced wrong" and tells him it's $40 instead of the $5 it's priced at. The guy says "ok, but it says $5. I don't want it then." Record man says "good, I don't want to sell it to you anyway."

On the other side of the coin, I've been to stores where the owners look at the records before they sell them and say things like "sheesh, that's too much, how about $2" when it's marked higher than that. I even got a free copy of Dorothy Ashby's "Afro Harping" because the guy looked at it and thought it was too beat. it plays fine to me. I gladly go back to the places where the owners are cool and realistic about what they are selling. If they think everything they own is a piece of gold then it's such a turn off that I almost don't even care what kind of records they have.

I went to record man for the first time recently and had no problems.

1. don't wear hip-hop clothes

2. don't pull out obvious jazz, soul, or otherwise funky titles

3. act like you didn't find that much

4. don't argue, if the price ain't right brush it off nonchalantly

5. doing the above four things I was able to pull several great records for (relatively) bargain prices.


I know record man can be an ass. Most of these dealers though, they are fucking OVER the "cratedigga" who wants to score a $75 funk record for $10. I don't blame them for wanting the right money. I swear some dudes just want to go in, cherry pick the good shit, pay $20 total for 15 records, and then brag about how they "got over" on some old dude that doesn't know the time. Two way street.

What I hate is the guys that let you dig around their shop for hours on end, in all the unpriced shit, and then tell you the entire stack you just pulled is "not for sale". WASTE OF FUCKING TIME

hammertime

Record Man in the Bay Area is the worst. He looks everything up in a book and generally goes off of mint ratings. He's nuts. He told us that it was "a privilege to be able to look through his collection." It's a store, not his living room. One time I saw him ring up a guy who had some 45s that were already priced. He says "this one is priced wrong" and tells him it's $40 instead of the $5 it's priced at. The guy says "ok, but it says $5. I don't want it then." Record man says "good, I don't want to sell it to you anyway."

On the other side of the coin, I've been to stores where the owners look at the records before they sell them and say things like "sheesh, that's too much, how about $2" when it's marked higher than that. I even got a free copy of Dorothy Ashby's "Afro Harping" because the guy looked at it and thought it was too beat. it plays fine to me. I gladly go back to the places where the owners are cool and realistic about what they are selling. If they think everything they own is a piece of gold then it's such a turn off that I almost don't even care what kind of records they have.

I went to record man for the first time recently and had no problems.

1. don't wear hip-hop clothes

2. don't pull out obvious jazz, soul, or otherwise funky titles

3. act like you didn't find that much

4. don't argue, if the price ain't right brush it off nonchalantly

5. doing the above four things I was able to pull several great records for (relatively) bargain prices.


I know record man can be an ass. Most of these dealers though, they are fucking OVER the "cratedigga" who wants to score a $75 funk record for $10. I don't blame them for wanting the right money. I swear some dudes just want to go in, cherry pick the good shit, pay $20 total for 15 records, and then brag about how they "got over" on some old dude that doesn't know the time. Two way street.

What I hate is the guys that let you dig around their shop for hours on end, in all the unpriced shit, and then tell you the entire stack you just pulled is "not for sale". WASTE OF FUCKING TIME

yeah i've never encountered the "that's not for sale" line but if I did I'd be cool with them kicking me out because I'd never come back anyway. And I hear you about store owners being wary of being tooken, but you really shouldn't have to go through all these deliberate motions just to buy some damn records at a reasonable price. Is it really too much to ask that shop owners price the items they're selling?

DjArcadian

Record Man in the Bay Area is the worst.

Where is he located?

overpriced_artisan_butter

ohhhhhh boy. i hate this shit. fresh faced guys looking at records, nodding their heads saying " oh yeah, this is primo stuff" when i know theyve never listened to anything like it before in their life. a nice collection came into a new shop last week and homeboy xrayed everything under the gemm-o-meter. "ultramagnetics must have had quite a following...yeah, this one goes for $140 but i wont ask that much". cold gettin dumb is apparently now a hundred dollar record.:ewef:

i try to point out that outrageous prices on gemm are common and things can very well sit forever, but who would believe me??? i almost wish these dudes would stick to ebay pricing.

But this fella's a lot younger than you, hasn't had time to build up the knowledge. And you spent several hundred dollars there on just this one collection. And he let you set the prices on most stuff. And you've since been back to buy more. What's the problem?

Local headz know the deal.