Not so much buying as helping out a friend's widow, June.
I lightly touched on her contacting me last month and relating that my friend, her late husband, had left instructions for a lot of his old audio gear. I was a part of that list.
I had sold him a Dual 1229 turntable and a vintage Pioneer preamp many years ago. he wanted them to go back to me.
Wow! So when I managed a couple of weeks later to arrive at her house, she had a room full of old audio gear to be rid of. She expected me to take it all.
No way! I drive a Chevy Traverse, not a moving van.
Anyway, last month I managed to sell some of his old gear to music associates we both knew, THAT DAY and she ended up with $2200 dollars in cash she had not expected.
She gave me the entirety of his left over, after everyone she knows picked through it, album collection. It amounted to twelve banker's boxes of LPs, two of CDs with about sixty or seventy LPs in each box to haul away.
Needless to say, I have not yet made it through that huge stack of stuff yet.
Back to the future of now, she called me again Friday before Easter and asked if I could do something with all these other boxes of records she found.
Now, understand, it has been about one year and it has taken her this long to get herself into a place where she can deal with all this.
On the phone she just said if I can just take these away, too, she would be so grateful. "You like old records, right?" She is preparing to sell the house and did not even know this room was full of his stuff, too. It is their basement where they kept the Christmas tree, Easter, 4th of July and raceday decorations.
This time it was not all banker's boxes, but some old milk crates, a few hand hewn wooden crates, a few big beer boxes, but the whole thing amounted to eighteen more boxes of LPs and a few CDs. This is not like some thrift store find, but the last of a true music collector's keep of his most treasured items, those he kept separate from what others were privileged to hear.
I had about 2200 LPs in my own collection when this started, but now with all this stuff from his collection, my collection has doubled and I have only barely looked at it all, except to notice that I am a lucky man.
Most of what everyone else picking through the collection before I even knew it was going to be mine was just the "bubble gum" or the easy listening Paul Anka and Tennessee Ernie Ford type garbage.
The music I like was left behind.
Most of what was left was old rock, very old jazz, a lot of classical. I pulled a handful out of one box and found all three early Bloodrock albums in one grip. Another box I grabbed four Rubber Soul, three magical Mystery Tour and two White albums.
This is going to take a long time and I think of my old friend with every look in the direction of where I have it all stacked.
All told, a car full of electronics and albums on the first trip, including a pair of Klipsch Heresy II, Advent bookshelf, Crown amps, Kenwood receiver, etc, made me quite happy. All old stuff, but cool old stuff.
Happy, not only for the cool find, but just to be helping her out. This has been difficult for her. All of us, but her most of all.
This second trip to finish removing his "legacy" from her home is going to double my LP collection. The entire back end of my car was stacked full and a Traverse is no small horse.
