Good Album Hunting, April 1, 2021: Relics Antique Mall

I got two $25 gift certificates to Relics Antique Mall for Christmas. Relics’ gift certificates are unique in two ways to Relics’ favor: They expire in a mere six months, and you have to spend the total amount on the gift certificate as they give no change and they’re not gift cards that can carry a balance.

I had a couple of minutes between picking up the oldest from his after school activity and picking up the youngest from his after school activity, so I stopped by to see if I could find anything. When I was in during the Christmas season, I had spotted a set of fencing equipment which I believe had two vests, two helmets, four gloves, and two foils, and I would have been all over that if I saw it again. I mistakenly thought I had two $30 gift certificates, so I thought I would almost afford the fencing set which was $75 if memory serves. But I didn’t see it. I started browsing records though, thinking if I could find $30 in records in fifteen minutes, I would spend one of the certificates, and if I only found a couple bucks’ worth of records, I’d pay.

Well, as I have lamented before, record prices have been rising. Not so fast for the old and the obscure stuff I like as much as for more popular fare, but where records would have been a couple bucks a couple years ago, now they’re five dollars and way, way up.

Still, I was playing with house money. And in about twenty minutes, I found enough to spend both certificates.

I got:

  • Torch Songs for Trumpet by Doc Severinson and His Orchestra.
  • Catching the Sun by Spyro Gyra.
  • All Access, a two record live album it looks like, by Spyro Gyra.
  • Hollywood Byrd by Charlie Byrd. A jazz musician who the people who price records for antique malls don’t seem to have heard of as both his records were on the low end of the price scale.
  • The Touch of Gold by Charlie Byrd. Of course, both records are ‘pops’ more than jazz maybe.
  • One of Those Songs by the Fluegel Knights. It looks to be a compilation; the name would seem to indicate a fluegelhorn somewhere, ainna?
  • Here’s Jody by Jody Miller. She looks very country, but she’s PWOC (Pretty Woman On Cover), and the record has a version of “Won’t You Stay (Just A Little Bit Longer)” that I want to hear.
  • Organ Moods in Hi-Fi with Buddy Cole at the Pipe Organ. C’mon, man, can you have too many organ records? I mean, I have bought Klaus Wunderlich new on CD. You know how I would answer. Plus, this record was fifty cents.
  • The Best of Tim Weisberg by Tim Weisberg. Two bucks; on the low end of the price scale, and I already have several Tim Weisberg albums. Again, I guess this is the obscure stuff I accumulate.
  • Impressions for Flute by Ransom Wilson. He looks much more serious than Tim Weisberg.
  • A Nonesuch record with works by Francis Poulenc. I have no idea who he is, but I know Nonesuch records.
  • Around the World by Frankie Carle.
  • Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione. Because it has a better cover than the other one that I recently bought at another antique mall.
  • Golden Classics by Ace Cannon.

I carefully estimated and thought I’d picked out about $65 in records (profligately). It was only when I got to the register that I re-discovered my gift certificates were for $50 total. But with the discounts applied, the total came to $53 something.

Which means that the records I got only cost me $4. Many of them came with their own mylar sleeves, which is further savings.

However, as my recent tidying of my record shelving has indicated, I really need to build more shelving. Especially with the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale coming up later this month with its fifty cent records on the Saturday. Ay, if only I had a pickup truck to easily haul lumber.

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