How Come? (A Salvation Army Thought)
behemoth
2,189 Posts
now i know people occasionally find great records at SA. hell i have even found quite a few good ones over the years. but my question to you is....
how come? no matter what kind of neighborhood you're in there are always the same crusty records that are infamous for being IN Salvation Army's?
i mean yes i know most of them were really common records that people considered trash and would throw away...
but for instance in the last 2 days i was in 2 separate locations. pretty affluent neighborhoods. one being predominantly black and the other Mexican yet overwhelming amounts of Robert Goulet, Barbara Streisand and Perry Como...
one would think maybe there would be a Marvin Gaye record? a common Latin record? a copy of like i dunno The Impressions Greatest Hits?
people drop off their stuff at specific locations right? not to a huge center that then ships them to other locations right?
i am just trying to figure out why they ONLY have these records? not complaining about not finding anything amazing. but i never even see a random common as disco 12" or even a beat up Beatles record...
how come? no matter what kind of neighborhood you're in there are always the same crusty records that are infamous for being IN Salvation Army's?
i mean yes i know most of them were really common records that people considered trash and would throw away...
but for instance in the last 2 days i was in 2 separate locations. pretty affluent neighborhoods. one being predominantly black and the other Mexican yet overwhelming amounts of Robert Goulet, Barbara Streisand and Perry Como...
one would think maybe there would be a Marvin Gaye record? a common Latin record? a copy of like i dunno The Impressions Greatest Hits?
people drop off their stuff at specific locations right? not to a huge center that then ships them to other locations right?
i am just trying to figure out why they ONLY have these records? not complaining about not finding anything amazing. but i never even see a random common as disco 12" or even a beat up Beatles record...
Comments
One Salvation Army near me was getting tons of records coming in everyday and they all had post-its on them with some sort of handwritten number for cataloging. Just out of curiosity I went to another Salvation Army not too far away and sure enough... more of these records with post-it catalog numbers.
Either employees take em, or they are pulled out to go to boutique stores.
It's probably a combination of both?
My understanding is that salvation army/value village/oxfam have record "experts" who pilfer anything of value that they either sell on the side or keep. I have never ever come up at these spots.
I was told by a former SA employee that records with offensive/suggestive covers never get put out. And yes, the employees do take the more "desirable" records at alot of thrifts.
I hit up my local SA and Goodwill everyday and I've found some real gems (including some well known stuff - Beatles, Zeppelin).
The part that always cracks me up and let's me know (Goodwill at least) does NOT have experts are the records that are priced higher and sold in the "Keepers" section. It's always the most common, mundane shit! They'll put an Elton John record in Keepers for $9.99 and have Funkadelic - Maggot Brain out on the floor fir a dollar (that's a true thing that happened too, not a hypothetical).
haha yeah. i was at a goodwill over the weekend and came up empty except for some smooth jazz turd for teh beatz, yo and a mint copy of thriller (i'll always buy a nice copy for a buck and give to freinds or whatever). i get up to counter and notice the MJ has a 3.99 electrical dept price tag. so, i'm high as fuck and this exchange goes down with the ~40 year old woman cashier.
"um, i think this might have been mispriced since all of the other records have a "books" tag on them."
"Oh yeah, thats the wrong tag. that's such a great album."
"yeah, it is..."
"how old are you??!!"
"i'm 24."
"wow. i listened to this album as a little girl!"
"well, if it's 3.99 i'll just take the other one"
as she's examining the inside of the gatefold, "oh, come on! its worth it! it isn't perfect but its in really good shape.... this picture always creeped me out."
"well, they pressed tens of millions of copies of that record so i'll pass"
then she calls for a price check and this, like, 17 year old girl comes up and says that it is the wrong tag but the right price and that it would have been a dollar before he died.
major facepalm at this point as i realize there is a line forming and im looking like the a-hole demanding a price czech on a 4 dollar item. i politely give them a dollar for the turd and walk out as i hear them discussing how "electronics" is gonna get credited with the sale when someone eventually buys it...
I've been thrifting on and off since the eighties, and can say for certain that black music seldom turns up in thrift stores. At least not where I live. Definitely in actual used stores, but never at the thrifts. They could be in a black neighborhood, but you still see the same Billy Vaughn and Bobby Vinton elpees you'd expect to see in the suburbs.
Occasionally, a black-owned thrift will show up in South Chicago with an R&B-oriented stock, but those are few and far between.
As far as Latin records go, I've never seen anything more obscure than Perez Prado, but I've heard reports here and there that they could have been found...twenty years ago.
I pulled an original Give The Drummer Some picture sleeve 12, a complete mint Stevie collection (incl. 12" and 45's) and Rock Creek Park 12" in the Bondi St.Vinnies for AU$5 back in 99.
There is a SA like charity spot in Amsterdam that i do consistently well in especially for obscure Melodia and random rap for some reason. and the last big haul was from a SA store.
But yes, the amount of James Last, Streisand and First Family i had to dig through over the years makes me question the pursuit.