On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, phillip holmes wrote:
I have a "second wave" theory that my older buddies agree with. I'm 33
(almost exactly 33 1/3!). My best music/audio/DIY buddy is 65. Nearly
all
of the decent record collections will be on the market again. People
don't
throw things like record collections in the trash anymore. They're much
more motivated to make a buck off of the dead guy's junk.
In my experience, this may not always be true.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have found some rather rare materials
in church thrift stores and at the Salvation Army resale shops. Ok, maybe
not the dumpster, but, given away with little thought to their value. Two
weekends ago I had a call from our local public library. They maintain a
store where they sell donations they don't want. Needless to say, they
don't want 78s. I went there and took a look at a collection that
contained some of the very early Columbia sets...ok, not all of them are
treasures...but...I recommended pricing...and said I would call my
collector friends so they could come by and look. The shop decided that if
they hadn't sold in a few weeks, they would mark them down to 5 cents a
disc. Many places don't see the value in putting stuff up on ebay.
How much is it worth to someone to lug home 10,000 78s and put them up,
one at a time, on ebay. For some people, sure, it is worthwhile, but
consider how much one has to know about such things to make it worth their
time financially.
Yes, I would agree with you that many folks are more aware of the
potential value of things, but as so often happens, a person in the family
dies, and the rest of the family knows nothing of what grandpa collected.
Plus they are overwhelmed with a house full of old newpapers, his
collection of beer cans, old family photographs, etc. Those that do estate
sales may know the furniture, but often they don't know the records. If
they have enough sense, they will call in someone who does know, but, from
what I have occasionally found in estate sales, they don't always do that.
Karl