News

Vinyl fans began lining up at 8:00AM in front of the Lincoln Center Plaza home of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts for a 22,000 LP sale. The records were culled from the collection of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound.

The records represent decades' worth of unsolicited donations made to the archives over the past few decades. The last such sale was held in 1984.

Of course I had to go. So I drove into New York City and arrived at 11:30AM. By that time the line stretched down the plaza and just before the doors opened it had gone much further back and well over a bridge leading to another section of the Lincoln Center Complex.

I ran into Jeff Joseph, of Joseph Audio who had arrived early in the morning. I didn't try to glom onto his spot on the line. When I returned to the end of the line I ran into a WNYC-FM intern reporter and asked for some microphone time. I hope what I said made it to air.

By the time I got into the sale there was not much worth buying. For one thing, Mr. Joseph the speaker designer had grabbed bags full of whatever good records were there, which was not too many. It was mostly very old mono classical records—not that there's anything wrong with those—but it was not what I was looking for though I did buy two mono Mercury Living Presence records just because they were there and so was I. Actually there were dozens of them and dozens of great RCA's—all mono.

I soon found out that the sale's organizers had let Academy Books and Records in a day early to pick through the collection and take much of the good stuff. Unfair! But I understand their point, which was that by doing that it helps support a good used book and record store.

New records are being brought out throughout the sale in order to let everyone have a chance to find some treasures. Friday they will be stocking the shelves with great titles from the Vanguard catalog and some others. Ditto Saturday, so it's all a matter of luck and timing.

I spied a box of what looked like "premium" records as I was paying a buck each for the two mono Mercs I'd bought and I asked about them. The guy guarding the front door said I could look through them and make offers on anything of interest. I found among a box of RCA Living Stereos and Mercury Living Presence treasures (most of which I already owned) a mint FR1 copy of Fiesta In Hi-Fi (Mercury SR90134), that I didn't as well as a Poulenc RCA Soria box that had been recorded in France. I made offers that were accepted for both and at least walked away with a few good scores, especially since Popsike.com has the Mercury recently selling for hundreds of dollars, which is far more than I paid for my copy!

So if you're in the upper West Side of Manhattan Friday or Saturday, pop in. You might find some great records. I wrote "might". I know you'll definitely find a lot of junk too!