We have a good record store here with a great selection of used LPs, and also new 180-gram "vinyl" records. He always has boxes of LPs for $2 each in nice condition. There are a couple of antique malls with record vendors too. Flea markets around here only have what I would term "junk" records...nothing that I'd bring home if they were free.

This may sound silly, but I shop at Goodwill for mine.

I pick up some that look brand spankin new.
I actually purchased a Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits the other day that was still sealed.
And they are only a dollar......YES! $1.

I picked up a Readers Digest Songs of Swing 6 record set for $3 in Seattle Goodwill.
They had two big stands of records to go through.

Just just have to look at the record really good as some are crap condition, but a lot of them are in good shape.

I also buy on eBay as well.
But I don't pay outragious prices though.
I picked up a Elvis Moody Blue album for $5
The record is blue and it is the last album he recorded in a studio before he died.

Good luck fonding any records that could really be considered "collectable" at Goodwill or at the Salvation Army these days. The last interesting discs that I found at such shops would have been a group of old store stock Green Label Columbia Viva-tonal ethnic discs (Serbo-Croat, Slovenian and Rusyn) which turned up at a St. Vincent DePaul store in Cleveland Ohio back in 1985. Most of the worthwhile 78's were pulled out of junk shop accumulations fifty years ago, altough the occasional interesting find will surface in an antique shop A couple of years ago I found a bunch of KKK and 100% discs at a shop in Colon, MI. A copy of Gowan's Rhapsody Makers palying I'll Fly to Hawaii turned up in Coldwater a year or so ago, and a box of forty-six Deluxe Victor Twelve-inch records from 1903 and '04 came my way in January, but otherwise collectible 78's are pretty in on the ground save at shops like Scott's (Vintage Music, in Minneapolis). The last time I visited VMC I left with a couple of milk crates of good and scarce 1920's jazz sides for a pretty reasonable sum. Now if one's taste runs to Doris Day and Buddy Clark, Hugo Winteralther, or Johnny Ray, one can still find the odd 78 out in the wild, but most of the more important sides have long since been collectrd out of the general stocks of the shops.

Our goodwill stores in canada are called "value village" to be honest ive scored some good lps and i scored one of my consoles
for $15, i usually make the trip every 2 weeks but im freindly with one of the cashiers, if she sees a good selection of lps turn up she calls me

First off, I don't collect albums for the value. I buy stuff that I like, so I can listen to them.

Our Goodwill's have a very good selection of records. Just last night, I found a very good Hermins Hermits, Bread, Bryan Adams, and Dan Folgerberg album which still had the inserts.

At a $1 a pop I will shop there all day for records.

But don't you understand that no worthwhile music was producd after the War?

I like farm auctions. About three years ago, I got a pickup full of records, almost 5000 LP's for three dollars! The auctioneer could not get a bid, so I bid three bucks and got them. I still haven't gone thru them all. I collect records because I like to listen to them. I could care less what they are worth..........

+1 on farm auctions Electra. Last spring I scored 85 diamond discs for $25. The auction listing had them only listed as "records". From this experience I will call the auctioneer for "record clarification" if the auction is a bit of a distance and if nothing else grabs my attention. Several years ago, before I caught the 78 bug, I witnessed approximately 20 milk crates of 78's go for $20.

There is a young man in this community who fancies himself the next ebay millionaire. He started bidding me up on records at farm auctions. I turned the tables on him and made him pay $85 for a box of records just so he could score some Johhny Cash albums. He thought that "Folsum Prison" album was worth millions. I haven't seen him at any farm auctions lately.........

Records, radios, console stereos, any kind of audio tape, and CRT tv's are absolutely worthless in this part of the country. I can buy all I want for practically nothing. The thrift stores around here won't accept them. It sure gets interesting sometimes................GREG

You are not alone, OM. I also collect for the music. I often tell beginning collectors to not turn their noses up at million selling records, for there was usually a reason for any given disc's popularity, but after a collection gorws to a certain point one has clean copies of most all common records. THEN begins the search at the specialist dealers for the more obscure stuff.

Thos of you who enjoy the music of the post-war era have an easier time of it, for the supply of the late records is so much greater. Around these parts, however, large accumulations of LP's generally consist of worn, noisy copies of TV Special offer Country, Time Life box sets (and not the ones that I seek- has anyone a copy of the 1961 Time-Life Ring Cycle?) and coverless copies of The Alan Parsons Project.

That said, I've done pretty well buying from specialist dealers. About ten years ago I bought three pickup truck loads of unsold records from the Record Finder auction. These were records that did not receive $5.00 minimum bids in a number of their auctions. Were many of the discs worth $5? not really, but every one was worth much more than the three cents that it cost. Specialist dealers are always dealers iin only high-proced rarities.

I hit one of the Goodwills Friday after work on the way home.
I haven't been there in 3 days.
Man am I glad.
Walked out with
(2) Willie Nelson albums (Stardust and Red Headed Stranger)
Waylon & Willie
Willie sings Kristofferson
Mammas and Papas Greatest Hits
This is the Moody Blues
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Movie Soundtrack

All Receords were like mint and all covers except Sgt Peppers was VG to Like Mint.

$11.00 was my total..................Can't beat that.
Like I said, I will shop there all day everyday....just got to be patient.

I do pay more for albums on eBay, but my mass buying is Goodwill.

I like finding early lps, as a lot of them have artists ive not heard or where one hit wonders.
I have picked up a few late 1950s lps that look as if they have never been played , i know they will never be worth anything but as others have said i collect to listen to them.
I also like the obscure lps such as the ones made to be given away with an RCA console or as i found a record given away
by Canadian company "Electrohome" the record is in great condition, all part of the fun of collecting you never know what you might find.

Just this morning I received a telephone call from a collector friend in Colorado, who found a stack of about fifteen of the Columbia 33 1/3 RPM singles, they appear to be old dealer stock, as they and their sleeves are in labeled store envelopes. These are the little 7" discs with the red Columbia labels and the stroboscope ring embossed in the dead wax. All of the titles are 1948 and 1949 popular releases. Whilst these discs are of little commercial value, they are indeed rarities. I don't think that I've seen more than two or three of these records in forty years of collecting. Of course since I tend to prefer pre-war music I may have in the passed overlooked these records in the past.

My friend found these records in a charity thrift store(Salvation Army, I think), for a half-dollar a piece. He's sending them on to me, as he isn't intrested in late records or novelties, and he owes me bit after a trade for a bunch of Indian Head OkeH discs.

SO.

I suppose that even things that I find interesting , jaded 'though I may be, occasionally appear in thrift stores!