the big guy.Sure enough these boxes are untouched, I could see that the way the records sleeves had bent depending on what had been stacked on top of them.The boxes are sorted into country, rock and soul, so I grab first a box
labelled soul and begin to search, after about 10 or 12 boxes I come to the conclusion that he has mostly 70/80's stuff, and the odd sixties here and there. Motown singles, just thousands and thousands, all shapes and sizes, after 6 hours I've only got hold of about 40 singles, and feeling a trifel let down. I have never seen so many Chi-Lites records,
must have been 10.000 copies of "Oh Girl". To get to one box I had to move three others. So not such a good day, however me pal calls me and suggests I switch to the Pop/Rock boxes, seeing as he predicted loads of Brunswick, MGM, Mercury, etc, and had been right, nothing to lose and over I switch , but again its all recent stuff. So come wednesday I've bought only some 230+ records, those from the sixties tended to be things I suspect he'd bought from private collections, they had names in biro on the labels, that kinda stuff. So I then see what I can do about buying 10/20.000 in one lot, he wants 20 cents a go and we wanna pay 10 cents, so no deal there, although we hope that will change. Well he has 500.000 singles but 98% are from the seventies or eighties, the other 2% are Motown and the odd 6t's stuff.
So to conclude I think I went thru about 150-200.000 singles in 5 days,its amazing, I got into a sort of rythmn cum trance, flicking thru about 50/60 per minute, setting aside those I didn't know, then checking these
off against a list I had. I know I've left some stuff behind, but I don't think there are too many Frank Wilsons or Adantes there.What I did find was Jimmy Clark Sweet Darlin, Saphhires Slow Fizz, Poets She Blew a Good thing, Etta James, etc, that kinda stuff ( if anybody's interested I've put the whole lot on an excel file ).

The trip cost me a total of $700/£436, air fares $212 ( used me air miles ), car $150, hotel $136 ( stayed 2 nights with a friend ), gas etc; $25, records $176.

The conclusions I've made are this :

Anyone doing this seriously must have a fundemental knowledge of whats what, I clearly don't, I left stuff there and lost time checking off against a list.I know nowhere enough to get a good lot, unless its real cheap and I buy everything that sounds soulish.Check out your sources before you go, ask if they has 6T's stuff and what percentage of total that is.
Try not to let on that what your after is rare or worth anything, the fact that I made a special trip over got this man suspicious.Be prepared to search thru every box, that last one may just contain that 3rd copy of Frank Wilson.

Don't pay too much, I haggled like a Turkist market vendor. This bloke knew, that I knew, that what I knew was worth more than I was paying,trouble was he didn't know, what I knew, if you know what I mean.
All the above may seem rather obvious, but its crucial. Question is -are there still unknown sources still out there, maybe in smaller towns like Kansas City or Springfield or outer-outer suburbs of large towns like Chicago or Detroit. KTF has members living in these towns what do they think, what's their experiance ?Would I do it again ?, too true, I'd have to convince my wife that the costs justified the return, but I really enjoyed going thru all those records, I'd had a particulary tough September & October at work, it was a sort of therapy, and there was always that posibility of pulling out a plum.Apologies for length of this posting, it actually was rather more of an adventure than it sounds, but thats for another day.

Chris L