Records at Goodwill

I remember around ten years or so ago I would some good vinyl bargains at Goodwill every once in a while. I found copies in good shape of AC/DC-High Voltage and Let there be rock, Iron Maiden-Powerslave, Black Sabbath-s/t,Judas Priest-Point of entry, Ted Nugent-s/t, Y&T-Black Tiger,Ozzy-Speak of the devil and others. However in recent years my local Goodwill's record selection has certainly fallen in quality. Either that or someone swoops up the good stuff before I can get there. I check out the records at the closest Goodwill every time I go there, but it's always like a selection of the worst music made in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Recently a friend told me the Goodwill store near him always had good records.Today my daughter had a birthday party to go to. Since I didn't have to stay my son and I went to the Goodwill store my friend mentioned. Sure enough I found a copy of Aerosmith's Rocks in great shape for a $1.79. Glad to see that not every Goodwill store's record selection looks like the yard sale of some musically clueless oldster.

The best bargains

As a companion piece to my post yesterday I thought that I would share a few bargains I got on vinyl because fortunately I didn't let them all get away.

The greatest yard sale ever-There is a yearly community yard sale/flea market thing at a nearby town and years ago it was better than it has been in recent years. In the spring of 1992 I stumbled upon one house on the strip of yard sale places that was back from the others and I think people skipped it because of that. That mat helped me because it was hours after the even started but this place had boxes full of albums. I didn't have a huge amount of money, but I did get Judas Priest's Sad wings of destiny on picture disc, Ozzy's The ultimate live picture disc, Grim Reaper's Fear no evil, AC/DC-Put the finger on you 12 inch single, Alice Cooper-Killer and Montrose-s/t. The picture discs were $3 a piece and the others were a buck a piece.

In the early 90's a lot of stores thought vinyl was on the way out so in 91-93 I picked up a lot of stuff cheap. I remember going to one store and buying a number of Twisted Sister, Dio, WASP, Venom and other 12 inch UK singles for .50-$1.00 each. Many of them were new and still sealed.

In 1989 a mall store was clearing out lots of metal on vinyl and I got King Diamond's Abigail and Slayer-Live undead on picture disc for like $4 each.

I am sure there were others, but those are some of the best ones that come to mind.

The ones that got away

This is about albums not fish. Now I first if I had not been such a lunkhead in the 80's and I had bought just a 1/3 of the things I bought on cassette on vinyl instead then I would be very happy. Instead I invested way too much into a very poor format. However that's not exactly what this topic is about. This is more about albums I saw at one point and could have had them for fair amounts new, but I passed on them and never ended up with them later on either. Here are a few I remember.

Guns and Roses-Live like a suicide
I saw this on vinyl at a mall store in probably early 1988 for like $8. I had it in my hands and put it back for Kreator's Endless Pain. Okay musicly the Kreator album is much better, but as far a rarity I made the wrong choice and could kick myself because I never saw that on in a store again.

Iron Maiden-Flight of Icarus
Lots of places had those Maiden twelve inch singles. This one was at a local store for $4.99 in 1985 I think. Again I had it in my hands and had just enough money for it, but I think I wasn't that big into vinyl yet so I passed. It was gone the next time I went back to that store.

Mercyful Fate-Curse of the pharoahs
I saw this for about $8 at a Sound Waves in 1987 and instead bought M.O.D.'s USA for M.O.D.
So I passed up a rarity for a goofy joke album.

Quiet Riot-Metal Health picture disc
I could probably get this for an okay amount if I wanted it that bad and if I combed eBay for a while. Not all that rare, but it was during a going out of business sale and I could have gotten it half price which would have been $5. That was all I had on me so I waited until I got paid a few days later, came back and it was of course gone.

Anything you regret missing out on?