Record Weirdo: Binge and Purge - Selling records at the Greater Orange
County Record Show
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It was time to thin the herd, separate the wheat from the chaff, and
about four hundred other bad analogies. About once a year, I like to get
a table at a record show and sell some of the stuff I have accumulated.
For some collectors this might be comparable to pulling teeth or amputating
a limb, but for me it gets easier each time. I am now able to do it completely
without anesthesia. Selling at one record show a year is plenty for me. I don’t want to lose my amateur status. Why do I accumulate such useless junk in the first place? I don't know. Maybe I am not fully evolved and haven't quite gotten over the hunting and gathering instinct. Why do cats kill things and leave them on the doorstep instead of eating them? Same reason - they probably don't know either. Actually my surplus of records can be easily explained. It was an accident.
It was a series of accidents. I’m sick. Sometimes I get free stuff. When people find out that I collect records, they offer to give me the records that have been gathering cobwebs since they bought a CD player in the 80's or, in some extreme cases, since they bought a cassette deck during the Tony Orlando and Dawn Administration. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes this is not good. I tell people that I sometimes sell records at collector's shows and that their once-cherished possessions might get sold to any unwashed reprobate with a buck in his pocket. Most people don't care; they just want to get rid of their old junk. There's a word for those people - normal. Sometimes I buy stuff that I don’t like, but I know it’s valuable and I can re-sell it. This is morally wrong but I do it anyway. Here are two examples: I bought a Mother Love Bone album at a yard sale. I knew it was worth a few bucks to somebody, so I hauled it to a record show to sell. It got stolen. I chalked it up to Karma. Greed is bad. I wasn't very upset, though. At least I didn't have to take that shitty record home. Example two - same situation and motivation with the album "Quiet Riot II". If you've seen their story on "Behind the Music" you will know that they made two albums with Randy Rhoads, who later became famous for playing with Ozzy Osbourne. Heavy metal guys hold Randy Rhoads in high regard, not just because he was a good guitar player, but also because he died before making any horrible, self-indulgent solo albums. This Quiet Riot album, as bad as it is, is collectible because it was only released in Japan. On the cover, the band is shown primping and posing in a locker room with several partially clothed athletes. This may have made some early 80’s heavy metal fans uncomfortable and the record didn’t sell. In fact, the Village People would have probably rejected this cover as being "too gay". Anyway, I've already hauled this clunker to a couple shows without success. Obviously, I'm not very bright. Getting a table at a record show is fairly easy. There is no secret language or code, at least that I know of. You find a record show, find out who’s in charge, and just tell them that you want to reserve a table at the next show. Some will want money up front and I don't blame them. Then the work starts. Pricing. Pricing is an art. There are several price guides available, but they should not be taken literally. They can be informative but most of the prices listed do not represent real life. Okay, pricing is pure guesswork. If you price too high you won't sell anything. If you price too low you will run out of stuff and have nothing to show for it, which is what I try to do. On to the show. I brought about 1000 combined items to sell - 12”albums, 7" singles, CD's, DVD's, and books. I also brought 63 8-track tapes. Exactly one small truckload. Load-in was 7:00 am. As I pulled in, there were several informal sales already going on in the parking lot. Inside was busy too. There is an early admission thing at this show where the serious geeks pay a bunch of money to get in early and get the best stuff. I will never be one of those guys. It took me several trips to move all my stuff inside, but as soon as
it was plopped on the table, they were on me like piranhas on a clumsy
wet cow. I made enough to cover my gas in the first twelve seconds. I
paid for the table in the first ten minutes. I made twice as much money before the show officially started than I
did the rest of the day. I had four boxes full of about one hundred 45's each that I marked at
25 cents a pop. Most were beat up old cast-offs that had just magically
accumulated over time. Some records seem to reproduce when left alone.
Anyway, these consistently went like hotcakes throughout the day. I should
sell them by weight. They didn't bring in a lot of money, but they brought
people to the table and kept it active. There is nothing that attracts
collectors like other collectors - if they see a crowd then they want
to be part of it. A dealer sitting behind me with his table facing in the opposite direction
kept farting. “Price Guide Guys” annoy me. They have to look up everything to see what it’s worth before they consider buying it. Case in point – a Jerry Lewis look-a-like in his fifties or sixties. He had a price guide attached to him like a conjoined twin. Every page had been laminated, punched, and put in a three-ring binder for quicker looker-upping. What did he buy? The Dave Clark Five, David Bowie, two solo efforts by members of Kiss, and “Ca Plane Pour Moi” by Plastic Bertrand. Of course. Don’t be too scared, he was only a dealer planning on reselling them. He’s not loose on the streets. I don’t know why, but this reminded me of a line from the funniest movie of the last decade – “Twister”. There’s a scene where the lovable misfit tornado guys come in contact with a rival group of tornado guys that have a bunch of spiffy equipment and matching outfits. One of the misfit guys says something like “they’re only in it for the fame and fortune and not the science.” I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, but it still makes me laugh. Just when you think you know record geeks, something happens that changes
everything. A nice, normal-looking young man wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt
walked up to my table with his girlfriend (this in itself is unusual for
a record show). He picks out a Johnny Cash two-record set of the San Quentin/
Folsom Prison live albums and asks me if it’s any good. I tell him
that it’s great and that if he didn’t buy it I would have
to give it to him because I own multiple copies of both albums and everybody
else should too. He agreed to buy it, but not before throwing me for a
complete loop. I sold five 8-track tapes for a buck apiece. There was a “Special Guest” at this show. Diane Renay, a singer best known for her hit song “Navy Blue”, signed autographs and stuff. I hadn’t heard of her before, but I had to have my picture taken with her. When it was all over, I had unloaded hundreds of records and ended up with a pile of money. I guess it was a pretty good haul, but when you factor in the time spent sorting, pricing, boxing, hauling, and accumulating, it averaged out to about 2 1/2 cents an hour. Which is pretty good money – if you make tennis shoes in a Chinese prison. I’m not in it for the fame and fortune. I’m in it for the science.
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