I have to be in the mood, but I'll do some digging and grab records that look crappy if the price is right and perhaps they will clean up well. Great example is this weekend, I saw a copy of Parliament: Mothership Connection in the dollar bin at a record store. The cover was taped on one side and someone had drawn on the back of it. No inner cover and the record looked to have a layer of grime all over it. But, for a buck I grabbed it on the off chance. Got it home, scrubbed the heck out of it, dropped the needle and.... Played quiet and clean. So the cover's a bit rough, but for a buck a great playing copy of a great album. I do get tired of digging through the piles of crap at thrift shops, where about 98% of the records are garbage. But, if you stick with it you eventually come across some buried treasure. I've been wandering thrift stores for years, mostly just come across some run of the mill stuff that I grab cheap, but I do recall one day a couple years back running across a pile of Blue Note, Riverside and Prestige jazz titles, all original pressings a bit dusty but otherwise in good shape mixed in with the Herb Alpert and Montovanis. Of course, that's the 1 in a 1,000 bit of luck and not everyone is interested in spending time digging to get lucky now and then. I mean, my time over the years and years is surely worth more than I found on even the best of finds. But, if you enjoy it and happen to spend time in thrift stores of flea markets anyway, you can come up with some special finds hidden in the dust.
I'm gearing up to do some real digging sometime down the line though. I was just in Chicago and a friend told me about a record store in the rougher part of town that has a ton of obscure NOS soul records upstairs and a basement that is nothing but a giant pile of vinyl all strewn randomly about, lifted a few inches off the floor to prevent water damage but much of the place is supposedly covered in mold and mildew and grime. Apparently it is not uncommon for people to show up with face masks and goggles before descending into the basement to dig for a couple days at a time. Something down there must be worth it. The guy that told me about this place is a 45 collector though so I'll have to find out if the place has enough 33s to be worth it too or if it is mostly just a place for 45 hunters.
