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Consignment Shop Score

Haywood

Well-Known Member
Famous
I was in a consignment shop yesterday unloading some lawn furniture, when I happened upon their CD section and saw a sign that said Six Discs for $12. I ended up scoring 12 discs for a bit over $29 with tax.

The Cranberries: Wake up and Small the Coffee
The Fixx: Greatest Hits
The Pretenders: The Isle of View
The Pet Shop Boys: VERY
Tracy Chapman: New Beginning
Sarah McLachlan: Afterglow
Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue/An American in Paris/Piano Concerto in F
Seal: Seal
Mariah Carey: Greatest Hits
Marvin Gaye: Greatest Hits
The Commitments Vol. 2
The Cars: The Cars
 
It seems like a lot of people are dumping CD collections as they move exclusively to file-based music, which is a great opportunity for music lovers to take advantage and scoop up bargains.
 
Haywood said:
It seems like a lot of people are dumping CD collections as they move exclusively to file-based music, which is a great opportunity for music lovers to take advantage and scoop up bargains.
Agreed. I've been rooting through pawn shops and used music stores across Canada and the US for years now. Even London, Paris, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Hamburg, Singapore, etc., when I used to travel further afield. There's gold in them there bins!

I've spent hours on hands and knees going through those unsorted boxes of stuff under the bins. The more dust on it the less likely it's been picked-clean of gems.

The really big score is when you find the odd DVD-A or SACD mixed-in and priced like a CD.

I'm always on the hunt for a few specific "rare" CDs. No luck so far, but that's how it is with treasure hunting.

Locally I used to visit a dozen or so places once a year - and even then there was never a lot of new stuff from year-to-year. With the larger volume of CDs getting sold to pawn shops, it's now worth my while to go more often.

Jeff

ps. I almost always take my small laptop with me on those visits so that I can look to see if I have something already in my collection. One thing that really sets a store apart is if they have in-store Wi-Fi. I can then look up artists that I don't know etc. and do a little bit of research before buying. Guaranteed that I'll end up buying many more CDs from such a store since my default position is to NOT spend the money unless I know enough about the artist. I always point this out to store owners / managers.
 
I rip all of my music to Plex Media Server and I have a Plex client on my Windows Phone, so I can always check my phone to see if I already have something. I only own about 800 CDs, so it is not to the ridiculous point yet. I'm sort of hoping to ride the CD obsolescence wave into at least doubling my library on the cheap, even if I am pretty much going to rip 'em and forget 'em.
 
I've been a little bummed about my pawn shops the last couple of years or so. Basically, I think they stopped taking CDs at some point. So it's always just an ever smaller and smaller selection to pick from. I suspect many places just want to get rid of their CD stock since some are priced at only a dollar. I did finally pick up Nirvana's debut at that price... but mostly it's total junk nowadays.

Maybe the Goodwill and Salvation Army thrift stores will become a good place to score CDs in the future?

Traditionally these kind of shops haven't been real good for me on average. But I did get a Weird Al DualDisc and Smashing Pumpkins "Gish" for $2.00 each recently at Goodwill. And there's a Savers that opened up (it's a for-profit thrift store), but they had a pretty decent selection of CDs at their grand opening. $2.00 each, I think. Unfortunately, I couldn't really browse through it because there were a couple of ladies that were there first and seemingly never left.
 
JeffMackwood said:
I'm always on the hunt for a few specific "rare" CDs. No luck so far, but that's how it is with treasure hunting.

About the only somewhat rare find I had was a CD of the 1987 album by Ruffin & Kendrick (of Temptations fame). It's not so rare nowadays, but some years back it was often selling used for close to $40.00 and I found it at a pawn shop for a mere $3.00. I was really surprised to find it.
 
Once again Haywood has been the inspiration that led to a score. I'll explain.

Over the years I have probably dropped off the equivalent of a 5 ton truck full of used donations to the local Salvation Army Thrift Store. But I've never taken the time to go in and buy anything.

Inspired by Haywood's score, today I did.

For $4.95 (total) I picked up

Amy Grant - Heart in Motion
Sonny & Cher - The Best of Sonny and Cher
The Watchmen - In the Trees
Selena - Dreaming of You
Francesca Gagnon - Hybride

Sure I could have picked up copies of all of these from the library, but at $0.99 each what the heck.

And the last CD on the list above? What a find! I had honestly never heard of this Quebec chanteuse before - but as I've come to learn I have heard her sing. She's performed for Cirque (Alegria). Great voice. On Hybride she creates a language and sings the whole CD using it. Lots of pop, Latin, gypsy, Arabic, classical etc. influences. A real treat. And the cheapest (used) copy on Amazon right now is $19.99!

Thanks Haywood!

Jeff
 
I think I know what I'll be doing this week.


Damn you Haywood!




PS:

Haywood said:
I rip all of my music to Plex Media Server and I have a Plex client on my Windows Phone, so I can always check my phone to see if I already have something. I only own about 800 CDs, so it is not to the ridiculous point yet. I'm sort of hoping to ride the CD obsolescence wave into at least doubling my library on the cheap, even if I am pretty much going to rip 'em and forget 'em.


Just curious.....How many do you have to have to be considered ridiculous?

I've seen Plex Media mentioned more than once here, but can't remember if it can work with Android and/or with the Squeezebox.
 
Other "score" source: local library.

Ok, so I've borrowed hundreds of CDs from my local library system over the last year or so, and have a couple of hundred more (many just-released and about-to-be-released titles) cued-up on hold. However today I noticed that at my local branch not only do they sell off "used" books (some from their collection but just as many that are donated) but donated CDs (and DVDs) as well.

Not a big selection of CDs to choose from but still picked up five:

Josh Groban - Live at the Greek (CD + DVD)
Bruno Walter and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra - Dvorak Symphony No 9 "New World"
Bill Haley and the Comets - Celebration
Lynn Miles - Slightly Haunted
Mariah Carey - #1's

The middle three I really wanted and added the other two to eat up the rest of the $5 bill that I had in hand.

I plan to visit a few more branches over the coming weeks.

Jeff
 
there is a thrift shop called 'Savers" around here that has used everything.

Last weekend I picked up the 3 disc soundtrack from The Bands Last Waltz for $2.49.

Also a few Tom Waits and Moody Blues.

They were $2.00 a few weeks ago.
 
Yesfan70 said:
I think I know what I'll be doing this week.


Damn you Haywood!




PS:

Haywood said:
I rip all of my music to Plex Media Server and I have a Plex client on my Windows Phone, so I can always check my phone to see if I already have something. I only own about 800 CDs, so it is not to the ridiculous point yet. I'm sort of hoping to ride the CD obsolescence wave into at least doubling my library on the cheap, even if I am pretty much going to rip 'em and forget 'em.


Just curious.....How many do you have to have to be considered ridiculous?

I've seen Plex Media mentioned more than once here, but can't remember if it can work with Android and/or with the Squeezebox.

There are Plex clients for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Linux and Roku, as well as a desktop client. It also supports DLNA, so it works with most Smart TVs, networked receivers, PS3s, Xbox 360s, etc. Sadly, it does not work with the Squeezebox, because of the proprietary nature of the Logitech Server technology. Plex will stream lossless, but most devices cannot use the stream and it does not transcode music. That and the fact that lossless is a gigantic pain (due to lack of device support) lead me to switch my library over to 256k AAC and 320k MP3. I honestly can't hear the difference 90% of the time anyway and this lets my family access the music library from our smartphones, tablets, computers and Roku boxes.

I also have several hundred movies ripped from Blu-Rays to 720p .mkv files with DD 5.1 sound, which are accessible anywhere we have internet access. That's the great thing about Plex, you don't actually have to be at home to access your content. As long as your media server is running, your stuff is available anywhere you have an internet connection.

Plex Media Server will run on Windows, OSX or Linux and can also run on several Intel Atom based NAS devices. That combined with DLNA support and the huge number of client apps across most of the major platforms makes it really hard to beat as an overall media management solution.
 
Thanks. What I would like is the ability to stream Flac to my systems, whether it's the HT, my Jeep's system, or just my phone and a pair of earbuds. The ideal would be having my entire collection on Flac and be able to access it anywhere.
 
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