Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

skot was saying on the record store thread that his brother used to do overnight lock-ins at his store, so it's not a new idea, apart from the bit about giving people a bed

a few years ago some guy bought like 500 LPs and 12s off me cos he was stocking up his vinyl guest house. hope he wasn't planning on selling them for money though, cos they really were complete dogshit

Don't worry he abandoned the guesthouse idea and shifted his energies to a more breakthrough concept called "vnyl.org"

a lot of my best scores had been because the owner "specialized" in something that wasn't of much interest to me, and therefore neglected what i found interesting

the whole point of digging is that it's fun because of the uncertainty of what you might encounter

and if their entire collection is already listed on discogs then it doesn't seem very fun to me

a lot of my best scores had been because the owner "specialized" in something that wasn't of much interest to me, and therefore neglected what i found interesting

Ha yes, that is very true! But you can't always count on finding good things in those stores, and if there's a £250 minimum spend at stake, you do need some sort of guarantee that you'll find a fairly substantial chunk of things you're into

i've known a couple folks who have done overnight lock-in/sleepover digs and must confess i've never really understood the point, aside from the fact that they were DJs who kept overnight vampire hours anyway. if it was done up like a really cool space where you could hang with your friends and listen to records all night i can see it being fun, but this "hotel room" just looks like a mattress on some lofted plywood and a couple cheap chairs in a corner, plus you can't play music after midnight? no thanks.

if i wasn't completely broke i'd definitely be into it. rummaging through 10,000 records that you've mostly never heard before, no real time pressure and you can bring your own beer? i'd be like a pig in shit tbh

it sounds really fun in a dorm sleepover kind of way, i’d definitely enjoy taking drugs and doing this if I could also listen to the records

My 17 year old coworker told me yesterday she spent $100 at Goodwill and I was like right on, hope you got a nice coat or boots or something. Then she told me she bought a “Grease vinyl” for $30.
Goodwill in on the grift!

$30!

Thrift stores are vinyl grift stores now. My local has all their LPs at $4.99 -- it's the cheapest in the area. But it's all dollar bin fodder.

$30!!! I had to zip my lip

That's an actual crime being committed

onfg

sorry OMFG

Sealed early pressing, I hope.

you guys haven't heard Grease? proto-punk band from Milwaukee, only released one record privately in '76, $30 is a steal!

For $30 I'd want a hot stamper so hot the vinyl's melting on my turntable and running into the mechanism.

It's electrifyin'

i'm in a 'thrift scored records' group on FB where the rule is you can only post reccords you found in a thrift store and so many people complain their goodwills and thrifts have started jacking prices on albums to insane prices. Lots of $80 beatles records in terrible condition in locked up cases.

have often found stuff on my wantlist on Vinyl Pimp's discogs account but the whole thing of "spend £300 and stay in my hotel for free" they blurb under every entry squicked me out.

good setting for a murder mystery imo

like Clue but all the murder weapons are things like "unstable Ikea Kallax"

Speaking of Goodwill getting in on the grift, have you ever checked out shopgoodwill.com? Some Goodwill stores sell stuff that never even makes it to the record bins if they think it will command a higher price on the internet. Nothing is graded, so it's a bit of a gamble.

I've tried it a couple of times with mixed results. One time I bought a lot of funk/r&b records that included a decent copy of Innervisions, but a Sly and the Family Stone's Greatest Hits that had huge skips all over side B. Another time though, I found a sealed copy of the first Warpaint EP that turned out to be a rare, colored pressing.

https://shopgoodwill.com/categories/records-8-track?p=1

dang i had no idea -- this is kind of blowing my mind!

they do it with books as well

A 2013 article on Watchdog.org reported that Goodwill's tax returns showed that more than 100 Goodwills pay less than minimum wage while simultaneously paying more than $53.7 million in total compensation to top executives.[41]

yah they suck

i figure everybody knows, but yeah. still better than Savers!

what's worse -- Salvation Army or Goodwill?

i think SA bc iirc they are openly homophobic as well as being stingy w workers
Goodwill sounds simply stingy?

and greedy!!

yeah SA def worse

Down by the riverside is NOT bound to be a better ride than what you got planned.

i am pleased that i only hear the Bangles version of that song in my head

yeah when i worked at goodwill some years back, i was always the first one to go through records, pick out the good stuff, and send it off to shop (which was our shorthand for the shop goodwill processing facility). they track which stuff comes from which donation sites and the places who consistently send in stuff that sells get paycheck bonuses; only ever about $30 every six months, but hey!

this also explains why you'll hardly ever find anything of any interest in the record bins in the stores.

protip: if you're into jewelry, shop goodwill could be a literal goldmine.

also yeah: i am definitely a disgruntled former employee

So, I guess my days of donating to Goodwill are over now

sidebar attesting to gw's overall shittiness:
the local chapter here was found intentionally making payroll mistakes only on the checks for employees with developmental disabilities. it was never said out loud, but the implication was that they targeted these employees because they were less likely to notice.

it amounted to several years worth of this practice and over a million dollars in stolen wages.

I went to the Goodwill nearest me only a couple of times, they carry probably about 20 records at any moment and it's basically all along the lines of completely trashed copies of stuff like flower drum song or Eddie rabbitt's greatest Hits Volume 2, definitely not priced to move.

I like to donate actually decent stuff to independent thrift shops (like one for the SPCA) and scads of questionable shit to Value Village (aka Savers). They manage to sell, like, coax cable. At least there's always a steady supply of it on the wall.

this thrift “chain” in my area is pretty cool, 100% of profits go to HIV prevention

https://outofthecloset.org/

I don’t know about vinyl, though, never found any cool discs digging thrift stores, possibly born too late

yeah we have St. Vincent De Paul for a good local org

my best thrift score in recent memory (i.e maybe 5 years ago) was a Mothers Of Invention album, the Buckingham/Nicks S/T, Miles Davis Quiet Nights, and T Rex Electric Warrior all together.

we have a local SVDP too, actually two. i agree that it's good people. also the scores there are way better across categories

yes that score above was at SVDP, also the time I found a stash of like half a dozen mint Brazilian 45s from 1970-72, Veloso etc

Not quite getting what this is, exactly, but it probably belongs here: http://repress.qrates.com

― a full playlist of presidential sex jams (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, August 15, 2016 5:11 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not quite getting what this is, exactly, but it probably belongs here: http://repress.qrates.com

if i'm reading this right they'll straight up bootleg anything?! wtf

― andrew m., Wednesday, November 2, 2016 4:20 PM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

"QRATES gives artists, labels and brands the tools..."

It's aimed at artists and labels, not just random people. How much checking they do is open to question though.

― koogs, Thursday, November 3, 2016 4:46 AM (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

not going qreat...

https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/s/inBLbNHOsx

https://www.reddit.com/r/VinylReleases/comments/18lkvuz/just_a_reminder_do_not_buy_from_qrates/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzkCDvkveh0/

original url doesn't work so i'm having trouble understanding what this is

It was service that pressed to vinyl anything you sent in to them (copyright be damned).