things even worse than waxidermy

i've thought abt trying to self-employ as a 'record dealer' but frankly in nyc the cost of living is too high and the competition for records is too fierce. i think if i lived in new england or the midwest i could buy collections and sell enough online to make it happen.

if i put a weekly ad in papers around here i would get ten calls a day. two might pan out. but there is not a lot of competition for people willing to do the work. where i am. and everyone is very specific. i'm a generalist. i know how to make money on all kinds of stuff. the more you know the better off you are. i bought a classical collection at auction that NOBODY wanted for under two hundred dollars. i made probably....hmmmm....5 grand or more on them over time? maybe more. most people i know wouldn't have wanted anything to do with those records. ya dig? there are dudes who go around forever looking for rare soul or jazz or psych and come up empty most of the time. i don't have that kind of time. i need to feed my kids who eat, like, EVERY damn day.

with the store i've been here long enough to get decent walk in stuff and i don't have to go out and about as much as i did my first year. but i DO still go out and about and make occasional house calls. some people get sleepy and won't even do that. they just wait for people to come to them. if they've been around long enough and they are central it can work.

i mean i don't even do half the stuff i COULD do around here if i had the time. haunt auctions in mass and vermont and new hampshire. go to storage auctions. all kinds of stuff. i could easily feed off of other record stores within a hundred mile radius of me if i felt like it. but i don't want to.

the more you know the better off you are You're right, I wouldn't know what to do with most records. I just like hunting for the ones I like or think I could like, which is why I could never be a record dealer.

I just like hunting for the ones I like or think I could like

yeah i feel this -- even though i have pretty broad and open tastes, its definitely the rad jazz and freako-person records that are getting me out the door to hunt for shit. if i ever get more than casually interested in 45's or "dance music," id have a whole new world to discover, though... i guess that can wait til i have kids and dont have the chance to dance as much. DONT IT ALWAYS SEEM TO GO THAT U DONT KNOW WHAT U GOT TIL ITS GONE

the vast majority of people selling records are not getting rich. tefteller, craig moerer...that might be it.

I've bought records from craig moerer, never disappointed aside from what I paid, but it was worth it.

he sells so much stuff that you can actually get some really good deals from him. i'll look up a great weird record and he's the only person selling it and its not listed as selling anywhere so he just sticks a random price on it. so, he's good for unknown stuff. sometimes.