On Friday night I biked home via the lady's house to check out her 'old records'. I held my breath and stepped into her lounge where I saw a box full of 78's and a plastic bag of 45's. I was gutted about the 78's. I don't have a gramophone anymore and don't see any real value in them. As I flipped through them I did see that they were all in their original HMV sleeves - some great titles like 'Blueberry Hill' etc. There were some big names and I'm sure I saw some Elvis in there. But still, not for me.
One thing I did notice was a few of them were on the TANZA label which, being a diligent Kiwi, I realised had NZ in the name and thus must be made in New Zealand. Later on in the weekend I read up on TANZA and realised that there are quite a few titles out on TANZA including the first wholly-produced single in New Zealand music history called 'Blue Smoke'.
Looking through the 45's there was a very strange array of titles. Sometimes you can pick a persons taste by looking at what they have in their collection. This collection seemed like they'd just bought whatever was on sale. But, the highlights for me were the Viking 45's, La Gloria 45's (one in its original paper sleeve), a New Zealand pressing of 'Love Me Do' by The Beatles, a Johnny Devlin 45 in it's original picture sleeve (been reading about him and his place in New Zealand rock history in 'Ready To Fly') and a New Zealand pressing of an Elvis Presley track.
Were they scores or epic proportions? Doesn't feel like it. But I still picked them and others up for $20. I still can't decide whether to chuck them up on Trademe and see if I can make my $20 back or just hold on to them for swaps etc. I'd appreciate any ones advice.
I gave the lady some helpful advice about the 78's. She wanted $2 each for them which I'm sure someone would pay - There's an antique dealer in Greerton, Tauranga who sells 78's for $5 each so told her she should give him a bell. But I kinda regret not looking for 'Blue Smoke' amongst the TANZA discs. I would've liked to have that in my collection. I'm thinking I'll give her a call in a couple of weeks to see if they're still there.
Have a gander at what I picked up here:
Feeling a little bummed, I woke up early and trudged to the Sallies Book Fair to peruse the records. When I got in the hall (no door charge FTW) I realised pretty quickly there were no records on the floor. I had a little poke around the CDs and Sci-Fi books and then asked the volunteers where the records were. They promptly told me that they never have records and I should go across the road to the Sallies shop. I told them that I was there last week and they told me they had all been shipped over to here for the record fair.
So, I went back to the store and went through my story. One of the ladies said "Oh, there are a few out here you can look at" and handed me a couple of LPs. Nothing of note unfortunately. She then told me that that was all they had - the rest have probably been chucked out.
I left the store and the fair feeling pretty dejected and promptly went home and sorted out my entire 45 collection and shed about 30 discs. It was all I could do to make myself feel better.
Luckily there were a lot of non-record related highlights during the weekend. But I'm getting this feeling that the record gods are telling me to focus on and organise what I already have. So that's the plan of attack for now.
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