Here's some of my techniques:
Look for covers. It's not that reliable but if there's a crazy ass cover there's bound to be crazy ass shit on it. If there was an album cover with a load of hippified white guys on it with long hair with bongos and guitars in front of a spaceship i would probably cop it. Images on the back also give shit away. is there an image of a serious looking lady with an afro and wearing an Africa chain with a group full of brothers with percussion instruments? Look for words as well such as 'band', 'quartet, 'experience', 'group', etc.
Look for tracks. This is useful on those corny moog and James Last records (there's a lot of dope Last though). Is there a cover of Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition?' If there is its bound to have a different sounding version of that break on it.
One IMPORTANT bit of advice I offer is going away from the beaten path. There's loads of diggers in city centres such as Bristol, Manchester, etc murdering the charity shops. Go into little towns where nobody goes, go into the suburbs, go into rural areas. If you stick to city centres then you're competing with more people. Beware of hipsters too. skinny little white kids with shitloads of money. The old men diggers are busy as well. Out early all the time with no life. usually not a threat as they go for rock (Floyd, Stones, etc), Northern Soul, well known artists and old boy jazz.
Again: know your competition. It's unlikely any of us will be in your city. Diggers who dig for samples are hard to find and there aren't that many tbh. The people you will most likely be competing with are: hipsters, old men with no life, Comic Book guy types, old men who collect northern soul and related nostalgic shit from back in their day and DJs and audiophiles.
Foreign shit is good too. In the UK we are lucky. There is a big Eastern European community and a big Jamaican, Indian and Pakistani community. You get all sorts of shit in charity shops. Places with diverse communities are cool. BEWARE though because with some foreign shit it is really well known in those countries. What we think is obscure Russian soul might be pop music in Russia. Go into the lil local charity stores. Those are a priority. Regional and national ones come last.
subvertbeats wrote:
Only in some charity shops these days....about 7 or 8 years ago, some of the bigger charity shops (eg Oxfam), at least in their bigger stores started to have pricers price their vinyl according to rarity and demand before it went out on the shop floor. The smaller shops generally still cool though. Definitely still the best place for bargain banger material if you look hard enough
Some charity shops are **** money hungry ****. Especially big charities like Oxfam. An important bit of advice i can give is that Charities as businesses just like any shop. they are out fir money and do not care for you like Tesco.
I don't get some charity shop pricing. Some are just asking for too much. They're charity shops ffs. Some Hire people with music knowledge (probably old men who love northern soul or old boy jazz) to go in and price up vinyl. For example: I wanted to look at vinyl they had at back in a charity shop (Kirkwood) in Huddersfield, but they were really uncomfortable about me going. They insisted to wait a week till 'Glenn' goes in, puts them out and prices them up. **** looking for anything they can get their hands on. Most are run by old ladies who are always confident that their records are worth something which 80% of the time isn't the case
They talk of vinyl being investments with talk like 'that's worth something' but real heads don't give a ****. It's all about the music for us.
Go in each charity shop with low expectations. It's hard when you first start out because you imagine very place being a gold mine.
