The Record Store Years 16) The Art of Buying

A memoir of 25 years (1975-2000) spent working in the world of records & music in Seattle, with occasional side trips into writings on Led Zeppelin and other adventures from my musical life.

With the importance of buying used product to the business and the policy that everyone on the staff be a buyer, a lot of time was put into training. In those pre-internet days, there was no Discogs.com or central source of information where one could find the details, value and sales history of any given LP at a moment’s notice. The closest thing was a hard-copy publication known as the Schwann catalog which came out on a monthly basis with all new LP releases listed, and a voluminous loose-leaf monstrosity called ‘PhonoLog’ which listed (theoretically) every LP released since about 1940 and was updated regularly, on yellow pages that got trashed as customers leafed through them.

Above: Schwann’s monthly update catalog with all the releases of February 1974 (left), and the unwieldy beast that was PhonoLog.

Consequently, it was important to have as much of that kind of information in your head as possible. Having a good broad-based music knowledge was primary, but there was much about the record business that many music lovers never thought about and needed to be taught in training, for the most part via oral tradition. Assessing vinyl condition was important of course, but things like knowing which labels were ‘budget’ lines with a lower list price, how an original issue of an LP differed from a reissue, what a test pressing was, how to identify an import or a pirate – how to identify a pasted-over Beatles Butcher cover (!) – were all essential for a good buyer.

I was personally trained to buy by original owner Steve, who was a true music lover and an excellent buyer, and I loved learning the process and made a good pupil. I have always had a great head for trivia and details when it comes to records, such as how many copies of a given title we might have in stock at the time and how many we had sold in recent memory – important details to keep in mind when making bids. I was also enthusiastic and personable, and found it easy to develop good customer service skills, and thus became an expert buyer of used product in fairly short order. In the early days other people on the staff would often ask my opinion before making a bid themselves, even though they had been there and buying longer than I had.

Roy was also a very good buyer, and later on employees like Dick, ST and Scott took the process to new heights, eventually leading owner Jim to coin the phrase, ‘The Art of Buying.’ Jim had a tendency towards grandiosity (not always a bad thing, mind you) and I initially laughed at this concept – but in truth there really was an art to the process - it was not something that everyone could master to the level that the best of us could.

Above: The Art of Buying being practiced by ST sometime in the early ‘80s at the original U-District store. This view of the front counter is from the office loft window, from which one had a birds-eye view of over half the store. The manager’s desk was right next to this window and it was a perfect spot for me to keep an eye on things and jump down to the counter if something exciting was going on.

The nuts and bolts of the process were basically having a good handle on our current stock, the sales potential of any given title, and the ability to accurately assess the condition of a record, tape or CD. The ‘art’ of the process came in the way one interacted with the customer, and how one made them feel about their records and the offers you were making on them. The policy of dividing up a buy into stacks by price helped of course, i.e. “I can give you $2 each for these, $1.50 each on this pile, and $1.00 each on these,” etc, but it was also important to make them feel good about the transaction as it progressed, so when the final bid was tallied, they were likely to accept it.

I would often chat with sellers about the music they brought in (and I did the same with buying customers), mentioning how much I liked a particular LP, or asking them if they’d heard the newest album by one of the artists whose album they were selling. Friendly chit-chat generally went a long way and coming across as confident and knowledgeable was important, especially when it came to justifying your offers. The reasons would usually have to do with how many copies of a used title we already had in stock and the old ‘supply and demand’ rule, or with the condition a specific record was in.

This could be tricky because people usually thought that they kept their records in good shape, but vinyl is a fragile medium and we had to be pretty picky about what we called ‘mint,’ or ‘very good’ condition. Telling someone that you were offering them a lower price because their records were not in good condition was sometimes a delicate line to walk without insulting them, and some people were more understanding than others. Occasionally a customer would refuse our offer and walk out with their records, but that didn’t happen very often.

Sometimes a seller would come in with something that was collectible, and as with all top-priced used product we would make an offer that was around 40% or 50% of what we would sell it for. In those pre-Ebay/internet days most people had no idea if one of the items in their collection was a rarity, and when the stacks were divided up and the first thing you said was, “I can give you $15.00 for this album, $2.00 each for these, $1.00 each for these, etc.” they were surprised and of course pleased that you were making them an honest offer based on the market value of the item.

I can think of two specific instances where someone came in with a stack of old records, and in it was a copy of the Beatles Yesterday. . . and Today album with the famous ‘Butcher Cover’ hidden by the innocuous ‘trunk picture’ that Capitol records pasted over it to eliminate the offensive image. To identify this cover one has to know what to look for, and in the late ‘70s a ‘paste-over’ Yesterday. . . and Today (as it’s known) was worth between $100 and $200. When this was explained to the customer and we offered them $50 or more for the item, they were generally blown away, and delighted to sell it. We sold several butcher covers over the years, and the market value of this item has gone up so exponentially since then I have kicked myself a few times for not buying every one I saw for $100 in the late ‘70s and hanging on to it.

There was also at least one instance where a less-experienced buyer on the Cellophane staff failed to identify a ‘paste-over,’ and offered regular price for it - $1.50 or $2.00. Management went over all the incoming buys after they were made (a process known as ‘approving the deals’) and would catch the error, explain it to the seller, and re-price the album. This was regrettable but an honest mistake, and it didn’t stop us from still pricing the item at its market value.

NEXT: The Advent of The Melt

Below: How to spot a ‘Butcher Cover’ (Images provided from the book The Beatles Story On Capitol Records by Bruce Spizer, www.beatle.net, where many great Beatle publications can be found. Used by permission).