Here’s a story: I’m never in Pennsylvania, so when I had to go there for work last week, I made a point of visiting the legendary Double Decker Records in Allentown for the first time. Pretty good shop - I found the McCartney bootleg I posted the other day and this. I’ve searched for the UK white vinyl variant of Simple Minds’ 1984 classic “Sparkle in the Rain” for decades, so I was thrilled to find it and for a very respectable $20, which is the average price on Discogs. I snatched it up and took it home, of course. When I gave it a spin, I noticed that the $20 price sticker was dated just the day before I found it—it had just gone into the racks. And then I flipped it over and found ANOTHER price sticker—this one from Goodwill, dated for only one day earlier than the other sticker and, most importantly, for only $1.99. An enterprising collector spotted this at Goodwill and flipped it (or a Goodwill employee tasked with pricing spotted it, tagged it super low and flipped it, which is what I think really happened). Even though I paid $18 more, it’s hard to get irked. I would have—and did—pay $20 to get an album I’ve looked for for years; I definitely never would have gone to a Goodwill during a once-a-decade visit to Pennsylvania; and Allentown is not exactly high on its heels, so that $18 difference is money going directly to a store and a flipper with moxy, who no doubt could use it. No matter how you slice it, everybody wins.
