Awkward Record Store Transactions

[catalinacaper]

Park Ave. is hit or miss with its used section. There's generally an awesome selection of used rarities but the guys that own the place are definitely aware of what records are worth. Sometimes they let some things go for significantly under Ebay prices. The only instance I can think of is I found a copy of Pelican's "What We All Come To Need" in mint condition on the cheap. I'm willing to do some hunting to find a good deal.

[dancingpotato]

I tend to have great luck with unpriced records. At Phonopolis here in Montreal they had just unveiled the 7'' section after they moved and none of the records had prices yet. I fished out a couple of Superchunk singles and brought them to the guy. He looked it up online and said 'one of these sold for 8, another for 12, how's 6 sound?' or something like that.

The other good score I had was Neurotica (I think) in Toronto. There was another box of unpriced singles sitting there and I found Alkaline Trio - Hell Yes and the Blue Meanies split. He asked for 15 for the two together.

[vinyljunkie]

Don't shop at / support places that don't price. They will all be gone in another couple years anyway

if i find a record that isnt priced, or a section that isnt priced, i will go up and ask. If they dont give me a price immediately, or if they turn around and check ebay and popsike, and start searching for it, i just turn around and walk right out.

If you cant price stuff, keep it in the back. If you just wanna get rid of it, and dont think its worth your time to price it, dont let it sit in some box and get all excited when someone wants to buy it and try to find the internet price of it.

[idreamofpunk]

I've bought a lot of stuff in New Orleans over the past 6 years that I've lived here. I went to record stores before that but I was always living in smaller towns and those places never had anything I wanted or could afford.

We're lucky here. We now have four stores that are great places to find different kinds of things. If you're ever here, these are my favorite in order:

Euclid (in the Bywater community, and I work there one day a week, so....Big inventory, little pricey)

Skully'z (in the gay section of Bourbon St., nicest owners, always have good used records and they get new things all the time)

Domino Sound (in the Marigny, most reasonably priced records anywhere in the state, lots of punk)

Louisiana Music Factory (Pricier because it's in the French Quarter but they have a massive inventory and lots of local stuff)

The WORST = Jim Russell's Records!

This shop is on Magazine Street (uptown) and it's terrible. Lots of stuff, disorganized, and nothing is in good condition. The place has been in business 30 years but since the owner's daughter has taken over, it's gone downhill. It's like a small warehouse where there are just things everywhere. Nothing is priced (or only a handful of records are priced). There are signs that say, "Price can change upon checkout without any notice). I've gone in there a couple times just to attempt to dig and I get pissed off with it every time, I've never bought anything. Awful.

Not awkward but I've been annoyed by the last place so much I had to tell someone.

I haven't been to NO in well over a decade, so I have to ask: Is Record Ron's still around? Magic Bus? I remember going in to those places and enjoying it, but as Lemmy said to someone remarking that they thought Venom blew them away when they were twelve, "a day at the beach will blow you away when you're twelve."

[jase]

If things aren't priced at a record store I go into and the worker seems like a jerk. I'll go to the far corner of the store and yell out 'how much for this mate?'. Meaning he has to get up, come over and look at it. I refuse to go to them. Then, when they sit back down, I'll ask again. And I'll do this until they get pissed off and say something.

To which I repy, if these had prices I wouldn't have to ask. Depending on their reaction I'll leave with nothing or empty my wallet

[almightyseancore]

Bill's Records and Tapes in dallas used to do the no price thing, like you mentioned.

i haven't shopped there in over 10 years so i don't know if he still does, or if they are still open...

it made shopping there really hard, cos i would be afraid to take a big stack up to the register.

some things would be surprisingly cheap, while others would be a total rip off.

he would also look you up and down before pricing, like he's judging how cool he thinks you are.

also he was a very grumpy, old, chain smoking, very butch...homosexual..

there were rumors that he would sell the hard to find/expensive stuff to teenage boys for reasonable prices in exchange for pictures/favors...i do not know how true these rumors are, and don't want to discredit the man, but there were indeed rumors.

he also had a sign on his register that says "shoplifters will be taken to my office", whatever that meant.

my most awkward experience with him was my purchase of a sealed copy of Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Singles box set back in 1998. (i had originally tried to buy a used copy of the very same release from him a few months earlier, but put it back after he priced it at $50 even tho one of the discs was scratched.)

i approached the register with said box set, a handful of LPs, about 3 tapes, and a Descendents "Everything Sucks" album cover shirt.

he looked over the boxset, put his glasses on and looked at it s'more, then asked me where i found it. i told him and mentioned how i tried to buy a different copy from him a few months back, and he asked me how much he priced it for.

i told him honestly, and he replied with $100.

kinda bummed me out but being the die hard pumpkin fag that i am, i bought it anyway.

i walked out there spending over $200 for all the items i wanted.

i felt that if i had lied about the price i might have gotten that box set cheaper, because he didn't seem to know too much about it or it's value, but i've always been an honest guy, and it usually winds up getting me fucked over in some way or another.

[kriss]

the better way to look at that is that he may have known and would have said a higher price if you had lied. Record store workers make up for their deficiency in math with a memory to rival a terabyte hard drive.

[almightyseancore]

yeah, and $100 back then was about right for it. i think it went for $35 in 95 when it came out, but they sold out and the price skyrocketed quick. they go for about $200 or more now.

[patron]

One time I walked into Discovery Records (almost exclusively classic rock, but in better condition than most) in Toronto looking to fill some holes in my Elvis Costello and the Attractions collection. It was about 40 minutes before closing and the owner just snarled at me and said he's leaving in 40 minutes. When I said I know that, he snarled again and said he only accepts cash. I said I know that, it says both of those things on your website.

I ended up grabbing two or three Costello LPs and the Duty Now by Devo for about $25. Got out of there pretty quick after I found those.

Time before that he laughed at me when I asked if he had any MC5 or Stooges records.

[almightyseancore]

IDA JUMPED THAT FUCKIN COUNTER "whats so fucking funny about the stooges HUH!@?"

[bill]

Don't shop at / support places that don't price. They will all be gone in another couple years anyway

if i find a record that isnt priced, or a section that isnt priced, i will go up and ask. If they dont give me a price immediately, or if they turn around and check ebay and popsike, and start searching for it, i just turn around and walk right out.

If you cant price stuff, keep it in the back. If you just wanna get rid of it, and dont think its worth your time to price it, dont let it sit in some box and get all excited when someone wants to buy it and try to find the internet price of it.

This and This.

[chiefwahoo]

There's a store like this that is 30-40 minutes away from me. I knew they didn't price things and were known to be overpriced as well but I eventually sucked it up and went. I found a stack of singles that I really wanted and was willing to semi-overpay for since they were scarce. Not valuable, just scarce. After a couple of hours of searching, I went to the counter. They told me the owner wasn't there so they couldn't be priced or sold until he was back. I couldn't even believe it.

[kriss]

I didn't know that stores running on this system were so common - maybe that's WHY they are since this is obviously an acceptable way in their minds to conduct business. For me, if I encounter a place like Kiss The Sky again where there are no prices on 90% of the stock, I'm just gonna walk out straight away instead of wasting my time digging.

[deafmx]

and record stores wonder why they can't get any business and sell records in these "hard economic times". :

I always feel judged by buying records at places like Treehouse or Electric Fetus even if they see me in there on a regular basis. fact is, I buy most of my records online and can't afford to go digging at stores very often beyond that.

[kriss]

and it frustrates me because these folks complain about online sales killing their shops while thumbing their noses at the folks who come in, even the regulars as you mentioned. I had a time constraint so I only had time to cobble together that small handful of singles. Had I the allotted time I usually put into digging, I would have easily accumulated a stack three or four times as large. The time it took for the guy to put on his act of hemming and hawwing over condition and pricing for those five or six singles alone was nearly 20 minutes. I'd have been there for nearly an hour and a half at the counter while he did his thing and even as I was there, there was no one behind me waiting to be rung up. I can think of anyone in a far out Illinois suburb who is going to want records for those prices and with no mail order, I'll be left to assume the singles I left behind will rot there for years until some sucker comes around who grabs them because they don't have the savvy to compare prices and figure out that they're being taken for their money.

How can it be possible to run a record store and not like music?

[chiefwahoo]

These places are very much the exception to the rule

[Guest markovianprocess]

I once had the same record store sell me the same broken record twice and didn't think to apologise. The guy just laughed.

Also, one of my pet hates about that store is they pack records into shelves so tightly, so you can't actually browse unless you're willing to start rearranging their shelves for them. I haven't bought anything from there in a good while now.

[scarnage]

The most akward record store transaction I ever had was the time I walked into Skeezers and discovered that is was naked tuesday.

[jds17j]

Record Exchange in Salem, MA does the no price thing. I spent at least two hours looking through their 45's a couple weeks ago. They have them just thrown in random boxes in the back of the store. I brought up the 10 or so to the counter and the guy says he can sell me two of them. The rest will have to be "priced by the owner". I found some good stuff so I was willing to see what he'd price them at. A week later I get a call with the prices. The majority of them were eBay prices or higher. I like supporting small record stores, but what the hell are these guys thinking?

[afireinside7444]

Glad Ive never ran into this...... We have a shop that dose have tags on all their stuff, and is pretty close to flea bay prices.

For instance I paid I think $70 for DCFC Photo album on white. I think the going price was $100-120.00 at the time. But I knew the price through the glass

[plasma36]

The House of Guitars in Rochester, NY, has price tags on very few records/CDs, but at least with new items they're set at the original list price. I'm really glad I've never run into a shop that does eBay prices, that's really dumb.

[thieves]

yeah i go to several places that have high but fair prices on some collectible records, but no store i frequent seems to do the straight up ridiculous prices on anything. i had a clerk explain his whole process of trying to find a good middle ground price on a record where he could pay a decent amount to the person traiding it in and not having to sell at an 'ebay price' and it made me want to patronize his store more often.

[cloud87]

There's a small record store here in Adelaide that's in an arcade off from the main shopping street. The guy there is renowned for going off at people about UFO's and reptilians.

My friend first told me about this guy blabbing on about UFO's to them when they were trying to buy a Pink Floyd album. I didn't believe them though until I went a few months later myself (it's only old records so I go there rarely).

I see a Midnight Oil album I want and as I'm thumbing through some other records the dude starts talking to me about how the cover is an allegory for an invasion or something. Next thing I know he's going on about how he's constantly on the look out for UFO's and taking pictures of them. And how they're there but you have to "see it through a camera lens to see through their disguise".

I then looked at the other end of the store and realised this may be the reason he also sells tons of vintage cameras. Awkward.

[kriss]

They'll lease retail space out to anyone...

[hipsterasfolk]

There's a small record store here in Adelaide that's in an arcade off from the main shopping street. The guy there is renowned for going off at people about UFO's and reptilians.

My friend first told me about this guy blabbing on about UFO's to them when they were trying to buy a Pink Floyd album. I didn't believe them though until I went a few months later myself (it's only old records so I go there rarely).

I see a Midnight Oil album I want and as I'm thumbing through some other records the dude starts talking to me about how the cover is an allegory for an invasion or something. Next thing I know he's going on about how he's constantly on the look out for UFO's and taking pictures of them. And how they're there but you have to "see it through a camera lens to see through their disguise".

I then looked at the other end of the store and realised this may be the reason he also sells tons of vintage cameras. Awkward.

Well I do see the resemblance. Is he the guy at the beginning of Brights Eyes - People's Key album per chance?