Guest Column: Another Misadventure

I said I have more stories this week. Here’s another. But it’s not mine. This one comes courtesy of one of our loyal readers, who wants to be known, simply, as JazzBo Dave. This is his story:

I got tipped to a smaller collection that might be for sale down here in the Southeast.  I had a couple of pleasant phone calls with seller James. He was in his 80s, had lived all over the U.S. and had been collecting since the ‘50s when he was in college.  Immediately, the pre-screening light bulbs started to go off in my head.  There might actually be something there. 

The next phone call yielded more info.  James had about 350 records and was a huge fan of Big Band and Vocals and had traveled all over to see his favorites back in the day.  Ugh.  My prospects were dimming.  I had to explain to him that while yes, the music on these records was fantastic, my interest and the current state of collectability was low.  When pressed as to why, I explained that tastes change and likewise the laws of supply and demand are always in effect.  Benny Goodman was the Beyoncé of his time, selling millions of records which in turn are very common and easily found today.

He asked if I knew another collector who might want to buy them, and I had to say “no.”  He asked which local records stores might want to buy them. Again, I politely explained that in my opinion, these were $5 records in a store and the store was at best likely to only give you $1-2 each as they had to mark them up to make profit.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that record store bins are already chock full of Benny, Stan, Jimmy, Duke and the Count that hasn’t moved in 20 years, so the likelihood of any payday for him was small.

A few days later, he called back. After digging around he found about 30 records that were on labels like Blue Note and Prestige.  Would I be interested in any of those? Now the hard part. As anyone who has played the record collection purchasing dance knows, a little bit of information is essential. Too much and the seller figures out what they might be sitting on and the prices skyrocket.  I didn’t ask any more questions and said that yes, that would be more in line with my interests.  I quickly arranged for a visit to his home.

After getting permission from my lovely bride to withdraw a bunch of cash from our bank account (one needs to be ready to pounce and close the deal), I took to the road. I arrived on time and was warmly greeted.  As we walked through the house, James said that since our last call he had dutifully researched each record and developed pricing using the database on the Jazz Collector website.  My heart immediately sank.  Damn free and accessible information for the masses.  Up ahead on the sofa across the room was a bunch of records each with a yellow sticky note with what appeared to be pricing well into the hundreds of dollars.  James had a sly look on his face which I interpreted as “no one takes ol’ James for a fool”.  Now the really hard part of the collecting dance… dispelling him of the hope the JC database bore any semblance to what I personally might pay for his records.

Yet as I got to the sofa, I started to chuckle to myself.  There was a Dexter Gordon Go.  There was a Bill Evans Waltz for Debby.  But, you see, James, in his zeal to cash out, failed to actually look at the back of the records themselves.  So rather than having to explain the challenges of using the JC database of top prices,  I delivered an educational moment regarding what “OJC” and “DMM” meant.  Silly me for thinking that a newly educated collector like James knew that the presence of a upc barcode was a tip to the age of manufacture. The uninitiated best not dabble in the arcane world of www.jazzcollector.com.

All was not lost however.  I perused his shelves of mostly big band records and pulled out 10 vintage records I was actually interested in buying if the price was right—including an Art Pepper and a couple of New Jazz.  But ol’ James had the last laugh.  He said that he actually wasn’t interested in selling right now and maybe in a few years when he got closer to 90, he would give me a call.

I followed James out of the room, licking my wounds, rationalizing a wasted day by telling myself “If you never dig, you never find.”   As we headed past his TV towards the front door, my lizard-like ever-darting collector’s eyes spotting another stash. No, not a True Blue or a 1500-series Mobley or a Jackie on Ad-Lib, but a collection for someone with different tastes.  You see Jimmy loved his “jazz” but he really loved his xxx porn DVDs “azz”.