# Dump shop bargain bin cd's - what are your recent finds?



## RobertJTh

We all know that cd's are on their way out, and nowhere is that more apparent than at your local friendly dump/charity shop, where cd's not yet share the same fate as VHS tapes (not even accepted anymore, go direct to recycling) but they're not far off.

Where I live there's a variety of these shops, and they have one thing in common; the 50 euro cents cd department. If you're lucky the have the classical stuff separated from the rest, but mostly it's an unsorted mess. No problem, searching for the proverbial pearl in a sea of mud can be rather time-consuming but it sure is fun, and often rewarding too.

So, what are your recent finds? Anything really unusual and exciting or just more filling for your cabinet, stuff you won't play but hey, it's dirt cheap, and it's classical? (That happens a lot to me when they have their "10 for 2,50" super bargain and you're struggling pathetically to find something even remotely classical among the rubbish, just to fill the quotum...)

Here's my latest bounty (from the last 2 months):

Bach - Kunst der Fuge - Amsterdam Bach Soloists
Balakirev - Symphony 2, Russia - Golovschin
Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique - Jansons
Berlioz - Requiem - Ormandy
Bizet - Carmen (highlights) - Ozawa
Boccherini - Flute Quintets op. 17 - Magnin, Janacek Q
Brahms - Symphonies 2, 3 - Szell
Britten - Ceremony of Carols - Hill
Dvorak - Symphony 6, Wild Dove - Ancerl
Dvorak - SQ op. 34, Terzetto op. 74 - Vlach Q
M. Haydn - Requiem - Zacharias
Mahler - Symphony 1 - Leinsdorf
Mozart - Arias - Kiri te Kanawa, Tate
Mozart - Arias - Battle, Previn
Mozart - Cm Mass - Marriner
Mozart - Hunt and Dissonant SQs - Emerson SQ
Mozart - Divertimenti - Amadeus Winds
Rimsky-Korsakov - Symphony 3 and Sinfonietta op. 31 - Anichanov
Schubert - Songs - Von Otter
Smetana - Ma Vlast - Wit
Tchaikovsky - Symphony 6, Romeo and Julia - Ormandy
Verdi - Luisa Miller (highlights) - Maazel
Vivaldi - Mandolin Concerti - Giardino Armonico

Boxes:
Bach - B minor Mass - Marriner
Bach - Weihnachtsoratorium - Harnoncourt (old one)
Beethoven - Complete Symphonies - Cluytens
Gluck - Orfeo - Gardiner
Verdi - Falstaff - Karajan

And a dozen or so of complation and recital disks that I'm to lazy to list...


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## Merl

Some nice stuff there. It's amazing the stuff you find in charity shops, etc. I've had some absolute crackers over the years from 20p - £1. My best haul though was actually free. A local woman was giving away 'some classical discs free to a good home'. I got there (5 mile drive) and she gave about 30cds (a few box sets) and 25 of them I've kept. One was the Haitink Schumann cycle that is usually pretty expensive and out of print. I'm currently negotiating for a rake of classical discs from a private cd seller who only wants 50p a disc and he's got some absolute crackers. If it comes off I'll be happy as Larry.


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## Manxfeeder

I picked this up for $13: 50 CDs of amazing recordings.


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## Kreisler jr

RobertJTh said:


> We all know that cd's are on their way out, and nowhere is that more apparent than at your local friendly dump/charity shop, where cd's not yet share the same fate as VHS tapes (not even accepted anymore, go direct to recycling) but they're not far off.
> 
> Where I live there's a variety of these shops, and they have one thing in common; the 50 euro cents cd department. If you're lucky the have the classical stuff separated from the rest, but mostly it's an unsorted mess. No problem, searching for the proverbial pearl in a sea of mud can be rather time-consuming but it sure is fun, and often rewarding too.
> 
> So, what are your recent finds? Anything really unusual and exciting or just more filling for your cabinet, stuff you won't play but hey, it's dirt cheap, and it's classical? (That happens a lot to me when they have their "10 for 2,50" super bargain and you're struggling pathetically to find something even remotely classical among the rubbish, just to fill the quotum...)
> 
> Here's my latest bounty (from the last 2 months):
> 
> ...
> 
> Dvorak - Symphony 6, Wild Dove - Ancerl
> Dvorak - SQ op. 34, Terzetto op. 74 - Vlach Q
> M. Haydn - Requiem - Zacharias


Some great finds!
If I had such a store nearby I'd drown in CDs, especially the "chaff" to get to 10 items. It is bad enough with a few orders at the commercial used vendors where one pays typically EUR 1-5 per disc.


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## Triplets

I have bought a lot of Brilliant Classics discs from Presto. The best finds were:
1) a set of “Gallante” Piano Concertos-essentially PCs by Composers who were known for other genres, mostly from the generation before Mozart
2) a 4 disc set of Concerto Grosso works from the Netherlands 
3) John Fields PCs

There are numerous CD resale shops around me, but they are all stuffy, poorly ventilated, and with the Pandemic and streaming, who needs it?


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## Rogerx

Second hand €45,00

just arrived .


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## mbhaub

Saturday I had time to pop in to an Estate Sale in an upscale neighborhood; you never know what you can find. Turns out the deceased was a classical fan to some degree. A large amount of the cds I already had. But I did pick up the 63 Karajan Beethoven symphonies for $4, an unopened Bruckner set with Wand on RCA for $5, and best of all a big box of the most popular Verdi operas for $10. What a deal!


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## Ganz Allein

So, not exactly an exciting discovery, but I got a copy of Gardiner's Beethoven Missa Solemnis at a second-hand shop in the Atlanta suburbs, with a sticker indicating it used to belong to Rev. Wayland Brown of Savannah. I googled him, and it turns out he was a former priest who died in prison after being convicted of sexually abusing two boys in the early 80s! 









https://www.wbtw.com/news/former-savannah-priest-admits-to-abusing-boys-dies-in-prison/


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## starthrower

mbhaub said:


> Saturday I had time to pop in to an Estate Sale in an upscale neighborhood; you never know what you can find. Turns out the deceased was a classical fan to some degree. A large amount of the cds I already had. But I did pick up the 63 Karajan Beethoven symphonies for $4, an unopened Bruckner set with Wand on RCA for $5, and best of all a big box of the most popular Verdi operas for $10. What a deal!


I need to start seeking out the estate and flea market sales. Too many vendors on eBay and Discogs looking to rip off consumers with ridiculous prices on used CDs.


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## KevinJS

starthrower said:


> I need to start seeking out the estate and flea market sales. Too many vendors on eBay and Discogs looking to rip off consumers with ridiculous prices on used CDs.


True that. Just when you think you found a bargain, you scan the mailing price and all becomes clear.

I had a good day recently at a couple of local thrift stores and turned up several decent disks for a couple of dollars each, among them:

Chopin - 14 Waltzes / Piano Sonata #3 on Sony Classical
Mozart - Complete Works for Horn and Orchestra - Naxos
Ravel - Daphnis et Chloé - EMI Classics
Puccini - Madame Butterfly (highlights) - DG


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## starthrower

I hit a local used bookstore today. Bought five operas for 22 dollars.

Bluebeard's Castle on DG Boulez, Jessye Norman, etc in Chicago 1998

Salome: Bohm / Vienna 1972 radio broadcast in good stereo sound.

Strauss: Die Schweigsame Frau on Orfeo 
Sawallisch 1971

Delibes: Lakmé on Decca, Bonynge with Sutherland, etc. 1968

Carmen: Solti with Domingo, Van Dam, Te Kanawa, Troyanos on London 1976


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## jim prideaux

I visited my old university town last Friday and went to the Oxfam shop. I was excited to find the Jarvi BIS recording of Tubin's 3rd and 8th (I am collecting the cycle on an impromptu basis when the opportunity arises) However having returned home I then realised I already had it! I now have to find time to return the said item which I will exchange (if still there) for either the Bohm Schubert cycle on vinyl or the HvK VPO Bruckner 8th on CD.


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## Merl

jim prideaux said:


> I visited my old university town last Friday and went to the Oxfam shop. I was excited to find the Jarvi BIS recording of Tubin's 3rd and 8th (I am collecting the cycle on an impromptu basis when the opportunity arises) However having returned home I then realised I already had it! I now have to find time to return the said item which I will exchange (if still there) for either the Bohm Schubert cycle on vinyl or the HvK VPO Bruckner 8th on CD.


Haha, Jim. I think most of us have done that now (it's our age)! My tale was from a week ago, when I found a used copy of Boulez's Mahler 1st (I've never had the cd, just had it digitally) so shelled out my 50p only to discover, when I got home, that the CD inside was a Best of Val Doonican. Lol. Usually I check this before leaving the charity shop but I was rushing to get home to watch the football. The last time that happened to me was when I bought the Batiz Naxos Scheherazade with a group of other discs from a charity shop and inside it was a Steps cd! Just recently, I did get the Batiz Scheherazade in a job lot of discs (for 50p) so if anyone wants an empty jewel case with inserts of the Naxos Scheherazade, you're welcome!








_Boulez's Mahler? _


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## RobertJTh

Hm... this Doonican fellow DOES look a bit like a young Pierre Boulez, so I guess the confusion is understandable.
But if he isn't the Boulez of Irish crooners, he must be the Webern... 40 songs on a single cd?


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## Animal the Drummer

See, that right there is Talk Classical in a nutshell - a parallel drawn betwen Val Doonican and Pierre Boulez. Priceless.


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## Merl

Animal the Drummer said:


> See, that right there is Talk Classical in a nutshell - a parallel drawn betwen Val Doonican and Pierre Boulez. Priceless.







Sometimes the worlds of Big Val and classical music collide.


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## Animal the Drummer

Brill. Many thanks for posting.

Is it unkind of me to observe that the music didn't seem to suffer too much from the arrangement?


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## RobertJTh

Found this at the local charity shop today. 3 euros!
I heard a voice "Zurück vom Ring!" but I grabbed it anyway.









Not the actual box, mine was opened but looked brand new otherwise.
I only had the Barenboim/Kupfer Ring on video so far, so this is a welcome addition.


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## mbhaub

Just today I happened to go into Halfprice Books and found the Schumann symphonies with Dohnanyi and Cleveland on London for $2. What the heck. Excellent recordings, fine performances. What a deal.


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## Merl

mbhaub said:


> Just today I happened to go into Halfprice Books and found the Schumann symphonies with Dohnanyi and Cleveland on London for $2. What the heck. Excellent recordings, fine performances. What a deal.


One of the best Schumann cycles out there IMO. Bargain, mbhaub!


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## pianozach

We like to visit both Thrift (Recycle) Shops, and Garage/Estate sales.

I find that around these parts the Thrift Shops ask $2.00/per CD, which seems a bit high, so I'll rarely close the deal on any CDs.

The Garage Sales and Estate Sales are a different story, usually $1.00/CD, and occasionally you can get them to "bundle" with another item or two, and will give a single price for the bunch.

My issue is that I can rarely remember what I've already got in my library, whether it's Classical or Pop. This weekend I came home with 8 CDs, and discovered I already had two of them (George Winston's December and Autumn).


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## Art Rock

Those are good albums though - you can give them to someone you like. 

Here thrift stores typically charge between 0.25 euro and 1 euro per CD. And sometimes much less, for boxes.


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## Rogerx

50 euro's for 60 disc' s


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## fbjim

Man, people will bargain bin anything these days.


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## Rogerx

You see it here, lots of streaming going on these days.


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## RobertJTh

Haul of the year here.
I visited my local thrift store today and was surprised to find a big collection of classical cd's, apparently all from the same previous owner, the vast majority being string quartets and other chamber music.
Lots of off-the-beaten-track repertoire too. Composers like Dittersdorf, Berwald, Francaix, Cherubini, Chadwick, Eberl, Bargiel, Fuchs, d'Indy, Farrenc, Dessau, etc...

145 cd's in all, I bought the whole collection for 40 euros. (About half a dozen cd's I already own I will return, they're not included in the pic).

Several dozens of brand new cd's too, in their cellophane wrapping. On the other hand, the Dvorak complete SQ collection had the infamous Foam Inlays of Doom. You, know, those soft sheets meant to separate the cd's in multi-cd boxes that tend to degrade over time and turn into sticky brown mush that ruins the label side of the cd's. Hope these are still playable (the backside of the cd's still looks pristine, so I guess they're fine). Tip: check your old boxes for those infernal sheets and remove them, even when they still look ok.


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## Manxfeeder

This one is at my local used CD store for $13. I have most of the recordings already, but it bothers me that there's a bargain out there that I'm not snatching up.


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## Merl

RobertJTh said:


> Haul of the year here.
> I visited my local thrift store today and was surprised to find a big collection of classical cd's, apparently all from the same previous owner, the vast majority being string quartets and other chamber music.
> Lots of off-the-beaten-track repertoire too. Composers like Dittersdorf, Berwald, Francaix, Cherubini, Chadwick, Eberl, Bargiel, Fuchs, d'Indy, Farrenc, Dessau, etc...
> 
> 145 cd's in all, I bought the whole collection for 40 euros. (About half a dozen cd's I already own I will return, they're not included in the pic).
> 
> Several dozens of brand new cd's too, in their cellophane wrapping. On the other hand, the Dvorak complete SQ collection had the infamous Foam Inlays of Doom. You, know, those soft sheets meant to separate the cd's in multi-cd boxes that tend to degrade over time and turn into sticky brown mush that ruins the label side of the cd's. Hope these are still playable (the backside of the cd's still looks pristine, so I guess they're fine). Tip: check your old boxes for those infernal sheets and remove them, even when they still look ok.
> 
> View attachment 167882


Great haul, Robert JTH. I still want the Prague Dvorak cycle on cd (I have it digitally). You have some absolute crackers there. Isn't it great when you get bargains like that?


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## RobertJTh

Came across this nice little box with Arrau's 60's Beethoven cycle, combined with piano variations and concertos. Another dump shop find, 14 cd's for 5 euros. Arrau is one of my favorite pianists but this legendary cycle was still missing in my collection.










A question though - this appears to be a Japanese edition of the Philips set, with Japanese text on the cd's and some misspellings on the cover and the individual wrappings ("KLAVIERSONATEN UNDKLAVIERKONZERTE" and " LES CONC ERTOS"). And the cd's don't have the usual Philips design, but are completely different.
Rather peculiar, almost looks like a bootleg. But the cd's appear to be gold cd's - can anyone confirm that the Japanese edition of this box used gold cd's?


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## wkasimer

RobertJTh said:


> A question though - this appears to be a Japanese edition of the Philips set, with Japanese text on the cd's and some misspellings on the cover and the individual wrappings ("KLAVIERSONATEN UNDKLAVIERKONZERTE" and " LES CONC ERTOS"). And the cd's don't have the usual Philips design, but are completely different.
> Rather peculiar, almost looks like a bootleg. But the cd's appear to be gold cd's - can anyone confirm that the Japanese edition of this box used gold cd's?


I suspect that it's a bootleg, but it's still a great deal...


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## pianozach

We love garage sales and estate sales, and we were at an estate sale a few weeks ago, on the second of two days, a half an hour before they were to shut it all down.

Now they just wanted the stuff gone, so they were making deals. 

I acquired a File-size box full of assorted CDs for $5.00. After I rummaged through, and saw a few CDs that I thought I'd enjoy (or live without . . . it didn't really matter to me), the transaction went like this; "I'll give you Five Bucks for the box of CDs". "Okay."

Done. I'm just now looking through them and downloading them to the computer, although the day we got it I started pulling out a half dozen CDs that are Steven Halpern music that accompany _narrated_ guides through "A Course In Miracles", which my wife thinks she could re-sell easily.

Some of the following are 2-CD and 3-CD sets

1 CD of photos of artist George Stuart's painted portraits of V Lenin
1 CD of a 2014 AA convention
13 CDs: Praise/Worship/Christian
5 CDs: "Historian Bill Wiemuth presents..." - 3 are steamboat related, The Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark Expedition

The previous I won't even bother with, but we may list the lot of Christian/Praise on an auction site later.

The next lot, I'll take a look at later to see if their worth downloading:

4 CDs: Voyage of the Spirit relaxation music - Bible themed 1. Creation; 2. Holy Grail; 3. Arc/Covenant; 4. Life of Jesus
9 CDs: Assorted Meditation (some guided) and Relaxation CDs
3CDs: Classical Relax/De-Stress/Meditation (assorted)

The rest I'll start downloading today, starting with the Classical ones:

4 CDs: Van Morrison
9 CDs: Assorted pop & rock

18 CDs: Assorted Classical

*Beethoven*: Sonatas 23 "Appassionata", 14 ("Moonlight"), & 8 ("Pathetique") - Silvia Capová
*Beethoven/Bruch*: Violin Concertos: Isaac Stern (Op. 61 w/ Barenboim/NYPhil; Op. 26 w/ Ormandy/PhiladelphiaOrchestra)
*Brahms*: Double Concerto - Stern, Ma, Abbado (with Piano Quartet, Op. 60 - Ax, Stern, Laredo, Ma)
Holst: The Planets - *Tomita
Mozart*: Violin Conerto No. 2 (plus Rondo K. 373 & Concerto K. 271a) - Cho-Liang Lin, Leppard/English Chamber Orchestra
"The Best of Wolfgang Amadeus *Mozart*" - Neville Marriner
*Mozart* for Meditation: Quiet Music for Quiet Times [Concertos, Symphonies, a Serenade & a Fantasia] - various
*Rodrigo*: Concierto de Aranuez, Tres Piezas Españolas, Invocations et Danse - Julian Bream
*Rossini*: 7 Overtures - Sir Neville Marriner
*Saint-Saëns*: Symphony No. 3 "Organ" - Michael Murray, Eugene Ormandy
*Richard Strauss*: Alpine Symphony - Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker
*Wagner* Greatest Hits - assorted excerpts by assorted conductors: Szell, Ormandy, Bernstein
*Wagner*: Overtures (Tannhäuser, Rienzi, Meistersinger, & 2 from Lenehgrin) - Klarus Tennstedt/Berlin Philharmonic
"The Italian Baroque Great Concertos: *Vivaldi*" - Kostyanaya, Boguk, Oshinakaev, Stang, Roldugin, Zalizajlo, Talipin, Tosenko

"Gargoyles & Chimeras: Exotic Works for Organ" - *David Britton*
"Favorite Classics"/London Symphony Orchestra - various assorted
*Karl Haas*/"Romantic Piano" - Chopin, Schumann, Debussey, etc. with commentary
"Music for Meditation: Vol. 1 & 2" - various assorted
"*Mozart* Morning Meditation: A Serene Serenade for the Soul"
"Open-Air - Live Berlin '90; Waldbühnenkonzert" - Barenboim/Berliner Philharmoniker - assorted
and . . . 
"Relax and de-Stress": The Apollo Chamber Ensemble performs psychoacoustically arranged music of Vivaldi, Mozart, Debussy, and more; selected and designed by Joshua Leeds, for Dr. Weil's Music for Self Healing


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## premont

pianozach said:


> *Beethoven*: Sonatas 23 "Appassionata", 14 ("Moonlight"), & 8 ("Pathetique") - *Silvia Capová*


A lovely recording which is far too little known.


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## RobertJTh

Today's dump shop haul, a mixed bag with mostly (partly rather obscure) chamber music, classic violin concertos (including the Grumiaux Berg) and Kleiber's Freischutz - which to my annoyance was another victim of the foam inlays of DOOM (after I scraped the junk off the cd's they still played well so I guess it's ok).
All this for the princely sum of 2,50 euros.


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## Merl

RobertJTh said:


> Today's dump shop haul, a mixed bag with mostly (partly rather obscure) chamber music, classic violin concertos (including the Grumiaux Berg) and Kleiber's Freischutz - which to my annoyance was another victim of the foam inlays of DOOM (after I scraped the junk off the cd's they still played well so I guess it's ok).
> All this for the princely sum of 2,50 euros.
> 
> View attachment 174265


Nice haul! Yes, those foam inlays are a nightmare. Ruined one disc of my Melos Beethoven cycle


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## Montarsolo

Can those foam inlays ruin a cd? The Aida (below) was completely filled with it. I washed the CDs under the tap to get it off.

I always look for classical music on LP. There is little point in looking at CDs. Always the same mess (three tenors, Andrie Rieu and a lot of Brilliant Classic CDs).
But in the last few years (since Covid?) I suddenly come across good CDs. There is a small thrift store near my office that has a lot of classic CDs on offer. Look what I bought last months for 1 euro per disc.


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## RobertJTh

Nice booty! Gotta love that Berwald twofer, some really nice Schubert - and I still love Barenboim's Mozart.



Montarsolo said:


> Can those foam inlays ruin a cd? The Aida (below) was completely filled with it. I washed the CDs under the tap to get it off.


The ones I got saddled up with so far (only DG boxes seem to be affected...) still play well, since only the label side gets "attacked". I'm still wary to play them in the car since the surface remains rather sticky, and I'm afraid it will affect the rubber rollers. I guess it's ok for regular cd players.
I tried white spirit once to get the stickiness off, bad idea since it dissolves the label printing. Water and soap seems to be the best solution.



> Always the same mess (three tenors, Andrie Rieu and a lot of Brilliant Classic CDs).


Tell me about it. That and old samplers, Pavarotti bootlegs, cheapo labels with mystery conductors from the Scholz catalogue... and of course Wibi Soerjadi.
But it's still amazing when you can find something good for 0,25-1 euro/disk. Just look at the price tag on that Winterreise. Someone payed almost 50 Dutch guilders (23 euros) for that single cd, back then!


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## Kreisler jr

Wow, I would have to get storage space if I lived near a store where I could get such discs for 50 ct... I am also hopelessly nostalgic for these 80s/90s issues like "Ovation" (even if they are weird/ugly), "Silver line classics" or that Philips baroque series with the fan (Holliger/Leppard holds up quite well and while I am not the greatest fan of I musici they had flair and recorded music like Locatelli that was often overlooked).

sticking foam inlays can ruin a CD but if you can get it off without too much scrubbing, the chances are good that the disc will be o.k. 
Even if there are visible traces it might play just fine. But note that the "label side" is in fact the more vulnerable! Because on the "playing side" there is a thicker coat or plastic that can take more scratches than the thinner label side.


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## Montarsolo

Hahah, I have storage space problems.....  My wife likes minimalism so that creates friction. And all those recordings are also in Spotify so sometimes I wonder why I buy them. Sometimes I already have a CD and I offer it for sale online for a small price. Zero respons. However, I do have the expectation that opera on CD with libretto booklet will be worth something someday.



RobertJTh said:


> Just look at the price tag on that Winterreise. Someone payed almost 50 Dutch guilders (23 euros) for that single cd, back then!


Yeah, I noticed those prices too. I remember that in the mid-90s a CD cost about 40 guilders. So these CDs are probably from before.

I'll test the Aida CDs tonight. I did see when I washed the dishes that there were stains in the CDs. Completely new to me that those inlays can damage a CD.


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## Merl

I used to be able to rely on a few local charity shops for super cheap classical cds however in recent years there's a local guy who's been buying them all up (they're 25p-50p a disc) and joblotting them on ebay or at car boot sales. I worked out that he's actually losing money on this and it's irritating cos I don't get many super-cheap bargains any more. Whenever I go to a different place I always pop in the local charity shops and I used to pick stuff up this way too but since the pandemic I rarely find any cds of interest.


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## Kreisler jr

Montarsolo said:


> Hahah, I have storage space problems.....  My wife likes minimalism so that creates friction. And all those recordings are also in Spotify so sometimes I wonder why I buy them. Sometimes I already have a CD and I offer it for sale online for a small price. Zero respons. However, I do have the expectation that opera on CD with libretto booklet will be worth something someday.


Not likely, too niche. The guide should be if they are useful or collectible to YOU. 
In the last two years we have seen how things taken completely for granted (infrastructure, providers, resources) can suddenly fail. CDs don't help if there is no power at all but they work with 1985 technology and infrastructure; They also seem to last very long, rather longer than computer harddrives.

(I personally don't like any kind of minimalism (I'd much rather have cosy cluttered living spaces than those that look like an empty parking garage) but I have no respect at all for the fashionable pseudo-minimalism that is utterly dependent on 24/7 high level infrastructure (for e.g. streaming) and cheap services (e.g. takeouts, food deliveries). That's not minimalist, that's just "externalising services" and becoming more, not less dependent.)



> Yeah, I noticed those prices too. I remember that in the mid-90s a CD cost about 40 guilders. So these CDs are probably from before.


In Germany there was a considerable span between more expensive stores and others; maybe CDs were even more expensive when they were brand new (ca. 1983-85); I don't remember anything from before ca. 1987, bought the first one in late 1988. But then it was between ca. DM 30 and 40 for full price, around 20 (17-24) for midprice and around 10 for budget. This didn't change much even in the early 2000s with the EURO, the main difference being that more and more was available more cheaply in boxes, twofers or other series.


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## GraemeG

The booklets are often in good condition, and a new jewel case can make all the difference to something 'like new'.


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## Montarsolo

Visit two stores today. 10 euro in total....


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## RobertJTh

Montarsolo said:


> Visit two stores today. 10 euro in total....


Some good stuff here., the only dud being Haitink's Sacre.
But Jessye Norman's 4 last Songs is stunning, one of the best ever.


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## Montarsolo

I have Strauss/Norman on vinyl. Great indeed!

The Midori cd is youth sentiment. Once borrowed from my violin teacher. I played this CD first today and it appears to be completely in my memory after 25 years.


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## Kreisler jr

I go the Musici/Scarlatti CD a few months ago. These are quite interesting pieces that seem all but ignored by the better known HIP ensembles; I think there is one recording of the 12 "sinfonie" on Brilliant but maybee out of print again. Musici (there is another disc with the other half of the 12 pieces) are a bit "slick" compared to more recent or original instruments but overall they do a good job.

That WSS is more a curiosity, the opera singers don't fit the roles well.. and I guess violin encores are o.k. for 1 EUR/disc


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## Montarsolo

Mmmm.... 

This week I bought Carmen van Solti from someone who lives in the same municipality. He sells several classical CDs online. Today I visited the thrift store in my hometown. Only 1 good classical CD. Suddenly I see the man I bought Carmen from. He is a volunteer in the thrift store. So he buys the good CDs himself to sell them online for a profit.

So I no longer have to visit my local thrift store.


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## Montarsolo

Be happy with me! We went shopping today as a family. We passed a large thrift store and for 7 euros I bought the following.

Vinyl:










CD's










And there is one less fan of Kathleen Ferrier on earth I think. I don't know if I'll keep these Ferrier CDs or resell them.


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## RobertJTh

I think the highlight of that haul may be Van Beinum's Brahms. One of the greatest Brahms cycles ever, and it has my personal favorite 1st.


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## RobertJTh

Apparently someone died and his/her heirs weren't Mozart fans.
So here's another dump shop find, the (almost) complete operas in classic DG/Decca/Philips recordings, which set me back 6 euros in total.
And best of all: no Foam Inlays of Doom!


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## Art Rock

Oh dear, got yet another version of the St. Matthew's Passion (Holland Boys Choir and Baroque Orchestra, Pieter Jan Leusink) the day before yesterday. It's a version with boys sopranos, so that is a first for me. And 3 CD's for 1 euro was irresistible.


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## Art Rock

Scored five CD's for 4 euro today in a nearby village.

_ETA: 2 euro actually for the five._


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## RobertJTh

Art Rock said:


> Scored five CD's for 4 euro today in a nearby village.


Tennstedt's "Wunderhorn" is my favorite version of that cycle. Popp and Weikl are wonderful.


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## Art Rock

Anne Sofie von Otter - I let the music speak (DG)
Míceál O'Rourke - Field's piano pieces (Chandos)

50 cents each in a thrift store in nearby Zwolle, yesterday afternoon.


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## RobertJTh

Art Rock said:


> Anne Sofie von Otter - I let the music speak (DG)
> Míceál O'Rourke - Field's piano pieces (Chandos)
> 
> 50 cents each in a thrift store in nearby Zwolle, yesterday afternoon.


Not a fan of egotripping singers, but the Field looks interesting, very rare repertoire. O' Rourke made great recordings of the regular nocturnes and sonatas too.


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## Art Rock

Two hours ago in a nearby thrift shop. The complete set (8 CD's) in good condition, for the grand total of 50 cents.


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## Merl

Art Rock said:


> View attachment 176427
> 
> 
> Two hours ago in a nearby thrift shop. The complete set (8 CD's) in good condition, for the grand total of 50 cents.


Swine, I've wanted that one cheap for a few years.


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## RobertJTh

Art Rock said:


> Two hours ago in a nearby thrift shop. The complete set (8 CD's) in good condition, for the grand total of 50 cents.


That's gotta be a new record, 0,0625 euros/cd...
But how complete is that Dvorak collection, Art? The old DG collection I bought recently was 9 cd's alone for the string quartets.


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## Art Rock

RobertJTh said:


> That's gotta be a new record, 0,0625 euros/cd...
> But how complete is that Dvorak collection, Art? The old DG collection I bought recently was 9 cd's alone for the string quartets.


It looks pretty complete except for the string quartets, which are absent. They come in their own box on Brilliant (Stamitz Quartet, 10 CD's), which I bought for much more - something like 10 euro - from amazon or jpc years ago.


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## RobertJTh

Another day, another haul.
Complete Satie with Ciccolini, Fauré and other chamber music, some big band Mozart and more Albinoni than I can probably handle.
20 cd's for 5 euros. The Wagner book (first edition, 1913) was 1,75 euro.


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## Montarsolo

Beautiful purchases! I myself never buy Brilliant Classics cd’s (saw complete Rachmaninoff symphonies with Maris Jansons today).

Then I will also show my purchases from today, 1 euro a disc. I had that Bach/cello CD on cassette tape as a teenager. Listened to it a lot, loved it. Only later - when I knew more about classical music - I found out that it is a performance with only 1 instrument. In my memory I was listening to an entire orchestra. So very nice to come across that recording on CD. 

Bottom right my first SACD CD ever.


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## Montarsolo

Ouch, that hurt a lot. I walked into a thrift store and someone had just loaded his shopping cart with at least 50 CDs of classical music. All the beautiful CDs were gone. Ouch, that was painful. If I had come half an hour earlier I would have had them all. Among other things, the Messiah with Pinnock that I am looking for.

Luckily I had bought nice cd’s in other thrift stores. Including the Shostakovich box for 5 euros.


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## Kreisler jr

The "Missa 1733" could be old enough for a smooth case... Is that a distinct recording after Harnoncourt's first b minor mass or is is just the first part of one of his recordings (ca. 1970 and mid/late 1980s?) of the complete b minor mass?
The Kondrashin Dvorak is very good and very highly regarded, also among audiophiles.

If I had such stores around, I'd probably end dying under collapsed CD shelves...


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## pianozach

Went to a "Free" Estate Sale a few weeks ago.

The descendants of the deceased went through their parents' house and took the personal documents and stuff they really wanted, then advertised for the giveaway.

I grabbed three CDs to download into my iTunes:










*Brahms Symphony No. 4; Toscanini w/ NBC Orchestra. *RCA Victor Gold Seal/BMI Classics

Oddly enough, the CD is labeled as *"Volume 9"* from the *Arturo Toscanini Collection*. Whatever.

As the *Symphony No. 4, Op. 98* is only 36+ minutes long, the rest of the CD is padded with 18 tracks of *Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 52*, and *Gesang der Parzen Op. 89/Song of the Fates.*

The Symphony was recorded in 1951, with the rest of the album recorded in 1948, although the cover photo of Toscanini was taken in 1968.

It includes a 32-page booklet, which includes a two-page tracklist, a five-page bio of *Toscanini* in English, followed by 5-page translations in German, French, and Italian. Then there's five pages of text from the songs.











https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ciYAAOSwZHtfEJz1/s-l500.jpg



*Mahler Symphony No. 1; Claudio Abbado w/ Chicago Syphony Orchestra. * Deutsche Grammaphon

Just the *"Titan" Symphony*, and a 12-page booklet with a four paragraph blurb about the symphony in four languages, AND a double-wide B&W photo of Abbado conducting, and the obligatory photo of Mahler. Album cover features a color photo of some feathers, and I don't see any connection between that and the Symphony.











*Mahler Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection"; Gilbert Kaplan w/London Symphony Orchestra. * MCA Classics

This is a 2-disc/2-booklet set in a "fatbox" jewel case, w/ a 68-page booklet broken into sections, so large that it has a table of contents:

*Cues and Timings, 
The Music and Mahler's Program, 
The Birth of a Symphony, 
How Mahler Conducted the Second Symphony, 
The Artists, 
Mahler's Autograph: A Facsimile* (photos of the handwritten first pages of each movement),
*Photos and Illustrations*, and
*Scenes from the Recording Sessions* . . .

_AND_ an _additional_ 68-page booklet titled "*Letters*" [Mahler's correspondence about his second symphony].

And the orchestra is massive as well, with *125 musicians* playing 139 instruments, and a *200-voice chorus*. It also features vocal soloists *Benita Valente* (Soprano) and *Maureen Forrester* (Contralto).

Oddly enough, in spite of the care put into the massive packaging, *Ms. Valente*'s first name is misspelled ("_Bentia_") on the album cover and booklet cover.

The 22+ minute *1st movement* (broken into 14 tracks, some as short as 19 seconds, with the longest "cut" well under four minutes) is on Disc One, while the rest of the five movements of the Symphony are on Disc 2 (broken into 28 individual tracks). Only the 5+ minute *4th movement* (the "*Urlicht*" from *Des Knaben Wunderhorn*) escapes slicing and dicing. I've never seen anything like this on a Symphony CD. Their explanation for this is that it is _"42 cues pinpointing movement openings, all themes, soloist and chorus entrances and a wide range of the symphony's musical ideas"_.

The album cover is a color photo of *Kaplan* conducting, evidently in mid-prepbeat, backlit to highlight his thinning hair, and a bright light reflected in one lens of his glasses. Very artistic, although it does make his hands appear to be quite small.

There's a lengthy bio for the conductor *Gilbert Kaplan*, which begins _"Gilbert Kaplan, a publisher by profession, has rapidly become one of the leading interpreters of Mahler's Second Symphony (*it is, in fact, the only work he conducts*)."_


Ah, good times.


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## pianozach

Kreisler jr said:


> I go the Musici/Scarlatti CD a few months ago. These are quite interesting pieces that seem all but ignored by the better known HIP ensembles; I think there is one recording of the 12 "sinfonie" on Brilliant but maybee out of print again. Musici (there is another disc with the other half of the 12 pieces) are a bit "slick" compared to more recent or original instruments but overall they do a good job.
> 
> That WSS is more a curiosity, the opera singers don't fit the roles well.. and I guess violin encores are o.k. for 1 EUR/disc


I think that *Scarlatti's* music is vastly underrated. Sure, in the baroque genre he's completely overshadowed by Bach, but then again, EVERYONE in the Baroque era is overshadowed by Bach.

Scarlatti's stuff just seems to be so very "unknown". My impression is that people hear one piece of his and assumed his entire catalog is basically the same thing.

Gawd, I love his keyboard works.


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## Montarsolo

Kreisler jr said:


> The "Missa 1733" could be old enough for a smooth case... Is that a distinct recording after Harnoncourt's first b minor mass or is is just the first part of one of his recordings (ca. 1970 and mid/late 1980s?) of the complete b minor mass?
> The Kondrashin Dvorak is very good and very highly regarded, also among audiophiles.
> 
> If I had such stores around, I'd probably end dying under collapsed CD shelves...


I didn't know the work. But is is BWV 232: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach's_Missa_of_1733
None of the CDs belong in a smooth jewel case. They are later pressings or editions from 87 or later.

I had bought a spare CD player at a thrift store. I tested this at home with the Dvorak/Kondrashin CD. I thought: what a fantastic CD player, what a sound! I put in another recording of Dvorak (Colin Davis) and it sounded a lot less. I wasn't aware of that Kondrashin recording but knew I was listening to something special right away. Then I read your comment here about this recording.


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## Montarsolo

10 euro at a thrift store today.


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## Montarsolo

Visited 3 thrift shops today. Zero interesting CDs. Quite a few LPs. 









Later I visited a thrift store in my own hometown and bought four CDs there. I thought the recording of Stravinksy/Boulez was recently mentioned here on the forum as very impressive.


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## Montarsolo

My most expensive thrift store CD yet. Because I drove past several thrift shops this afternoon with this as the only result. Lesson learned. I won't be driving around for it anymore. Only when I pass by.


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## RobertJTh

Montarsolo said:


> My most expensive thrift store CD yet. Because I drove past several thrift shops this afternoon with this as the only result. Lesson learned. I won't be driving around for it anymore. Only when I pass by


How dare they! 1,50 euro? What a rip off! 
Seriously, great performance, pretty much worth every penny.








Here's today's haul, 21 cd's for 5 euros. The complete Froberger, great music, I used to play it a lot when I was employed at a church which had a small baroque-style organ. Surprised to see such obscure repertoire at the dump shop.
That and old school Bach and Handel. Sargent Messiah #3 is nice to have (still plastic wrapped!), but I'm reading that his 2nd recording must be better.
The 1957 Mattheus by Van der Horst is justly famous. Vanguard claims that it's stereo, yeah no. Or maybe it's artificial stereo, dunno.

And regarding that little Wagner book from 1913 I mentioned in post #59. I only noticed today that it has a faint exlibris stamp on the front and a much clearer one inside, see pic. I was surprised to see that the book once belonged to Jacob Bijster (1902-1958), a famous Dutch organist and composer. Would be even better if it was autographed, but still nice to have.


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## Art Rock

Picked this one up yesterday afternoon. DVD and CD of organ music (mainly improvisations and chorale settings) by seven organists performed, recorded and filmed on the organ of the Bovenkerk in Kampen, 5 minutes walking from our home. That's 50 cents well spent.


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## Montarsolo

Just visited a thrift shop nearby. Never been there before because it's only open three short times a week. So it was very busy. But it was worth it.
I can still remember that Shostakovich / Jaap van Zweden was released. Full-page advertisements in music magazines. A pretty tough front for that time. Just checked, this CD was released in December 1996. I was 18 at the time. Now, 26 years later I have the CD (new in the package!) in my possession.


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## Merl

Those Melos Schubert quartets and Pavel Haas Smetana quartets are excellent discs. 😏


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## Montarsolo

Thanks. I remember the Pavel Haas / Smetena from this forum. Now listening to Mendelssohn's string symphonies. What a purchase! Beautiful music, beautifully played and excellent recorded.


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## Montarsolo




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## Montarsolo

3,- euros in total.


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## Montarsolo




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## RobertJTh

You're on a roll! Some really nice finds too.
Is that the Haitink Mahler 5 with the 15 minutes Adagietto?


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## Montarsolo

13:55 min


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## RobertJTh

Montarsolo said:


> 13:55 min


Mengelberg did it in 7 minutes, same timing as the composer in 1907. I guess there's some room for negotiation (and tempo doesn't say everything), but 14 minutes is really WAY too slow...


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## Montarsolo

Interesting you say that. I had already listened to the Adagietto before I read your post. While listening I thought: this is too slow, this doesn't match the music.


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## Montarsolo

Purchases today










And four old CD's with jewel cases with smooth edges and with the original Dutch guilder price: f 46,50. Converted to today's purchasing power, that is € 41.35


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## Montarsolo

Thrift store.


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## Merl

Montarsolo said:


> Thrift store.
> 
> View attachment 179935
> 
> View attachment 179937
> 
> View attachment 179936


That recording of Ma Vlast is a stonewall classic and is usually pretty costly secondhand. I was lucky like you, Montarsolo, and picked it up dirt cheap


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## Montarsolo

Merl said:


> That recording of Ma Vlast is a stonewall classic and is usually pretty costly secondhand. I was lucky like you, Montarsolo, and picked it up dirt cheap


Which one do you mean? The one with Kubelik or the one with Bělohlávek?


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## Merl

Montarsolo said:


> Which one do you mean? The one with Kubelik or the one with Bělohlávek?


Kubelik


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## Kreisler jr

I thought the Kubelik was very common because it is so famous and I also got a cheap copy years ago 
The Chailly is or was rare, I think. I recall being interested in that one and scratching it from my wishlists because too expensive.


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## Montarsolo

6 euro’s at a thrift store


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## Merl

Kreisler jr said:


> I thought the Kubelik was very common because it is so famous and I also got a cheap copy years ago
> The Chailly is or was rare, I think. I recall being interested in that one and scratching it from my wishlists because too expensive.


About 10 years ago it was an expensive disc but looking today you can pick it up secondhand for a really cheap price, so you're right.


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## Montarsolo

Thrift store cd’s last week


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## RobertJTh

Some bottom of the barrel scraping. I found a couple DVD's (Twin Peaks season 1 box and "Tipsy Turvy" by Mike Leigh, about Gilbert and Sullivan), and I needed some more stuff to fill the "10 for 2,50" quotum.
But it's still good, I guess. Schubert with Brendel, some nice and obscure chamber music (looking forward to those Andrée and Karg-Elert pieces) and Callas' Tosca. Wonder if that's a pirate release - isn't the original on EMI?


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## Art Rock

Yesterday we visited one of my cousins, who lives in Rijssen, a small town in the Dutch Bible Belt (we live in a bigger city in the Dutch Bible Belt). We took the opportunity on the way back to drop into the local thrift store. As usual in Bible Belt towns, such shops have a good collection of religious organ CD's, and I scored three for 50 cents each.










*Martin Mans improvises based on religious melodies and Sunday school songs (STH Records)*










*Dick Sanderman plays chorale settings (BR Records)*

This was actually recorded on the organ of the Bovenkerk in the town where we live... a 5 minutes walk from our home.

The third CD does not feature on the internet, so no picture - chorale settings on various organs in Rijssen bij various organists.


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## composingmusic

Not quite a dump shop, but the institution where I did my masters has a great music library. Sometimes they do library sales and I've managed to pick up some great scores and CDs from there.


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## Montarsolo

Error 404


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## Montarsolo

Bought these second hand CDs yesterday. This time not in a thrift store but in a record store (pop music) and antiquarian bookshop. 1 to 3 euro’s.


















Last purchases of this year. Bought this afternoon in a thrift store for less than 3 euros.


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## Oakey

For €1 each:

There were some more 80s classical CDs but these were scratched, so I did not buy these. I know 80s CDs don't sound as good as 90s remasters, but I like the 'vintage' aspect of these early releases, as they were really a premium product back then. When I was a student, there were 2 classical music stores in my city (long gone of course). I regularly passed by but never dared to go in (even though I already started to listen to classical music in those days) as I found them too elitist for me as a slightly alternatively looking student (they had listening booths and everything). Usually there was not a soul inside the dimly lit store, the doors were always closed and the CDs displayed in the shop window had prices I could not afford. It was not unusual for a 2 or 3 CD DG opera box to be priced well over fl. 100,- (Dutch guilders) which was a massive amount for me in those days. The Mahler #9 one would definately have been such a release (I think it's from 1984, which makes it the oldest CD I own I guess).

The Mendelssohn one was recorded in the late 50s so I did not expect much, but I really enjoyed that one in terms of performance and sound quality and was surprised to hear that it was a stereo recording.

The Preisner requiem was an excellent discovery as well.


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## RobertJTh

You got some real gems there!


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## Montarsolo

Nice new purchases! Mendelssohn/Munch is legendary for its recording quality!

I remember in the mid-90s the classic CDs were still expensive. As you can see on the photos in this topic, I have many second hand 1980s CDs with the original price on them. Perhaps second-hand CDs are only interesting for those who had to work a whole Saturday for them at the time.


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## Kreisler jr

In the mid-1990s full price CDs were still expensive but compared to around 1990 the selection of good mid/budget CDs had grown exponentially. And I think there were also more sales. I was at university in the US in 1995-96 and bought lots of CDs because esp. full price was so much cheaper than in Germany (or France or almost anywhere in Europe) but I was happy to see that when I came back I could keep buying because there were lots of good affordable options and sales. It was, of course, no comparable at all to the super cheap boxes of the last ca. 15 years. A 10 disc box for DM 80-100 would have been considered a very good deal in the mid-late 1990s because a comparable box (like e.g. all Beethoven piano sonatas or quartets) would have been at least twice that around 1990.
I think the industry got away with these high prices in the 1980s because people were so fascinated by the new technology and the typical middle class buyer of CD (and esp. classical music) was reasonably well off at that time. (This didn't necessarily help teenagers and students, though.) Just think of what some people were willing to pay for home computers in the late 1980s...


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## Art Rock

When the weather is reasonable I often take the bicycle in the afternoon and go to a local thriftshop (15 minutes each way) for exercise. Most of the time there is nothing of interest, but today I got a CD of Chopins concertos by Nikolai Demidenko and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Heinrich Schiff on Hyperion (not the Helios reissue shown below):










I always liked these concertos, and I always thought that the CD of them in my collection ( István Székely, Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Gyula Németh, Naxos) could be bettered. Well, we'll see the coming days (reviews of the Hyperion CD look good). Anyway one euro well spent.


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## Montarsolo

This year I bought just over 300 discs secondhand. For less than a euro per disc. It's a lot. I can't buy 300 CDs again this year. I have to be more selective. I will therefore be getting rid of some of the purchases. I've listened to most of them.


















I was most happy/surprised with the CDs below.

boxes









Baroque









Mozart









Beethoven / Schubert

















Mahler/ Strauss / Dvorak


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## Art Rock

Hummel: Missa Solemnis / Te Deum (Naxos)

Visited two thrift shops in Friesland yesterday on a daytrip. My wife found some nice old tea cups, I came away with one CD that I do not have and looks interesting (50 cents).


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## Rogerx

Montarsolo said:


> This year I bought just over 300 discs secondhand. For less than a euro per disc. It's a lot. I can't buy 300 CDs again this year. I have to be more selective. I will therefore be getting rid of some of the purchases. I've listened to most of them.
> 
> View attachment 181885
> 
> View attachment 181886
> 
> I was most happy/surprised with the CDs below.
> 
> boxes
> View attachment 181887
> 
> 
> Baroque
> View attachment 181888
> 
> 
> Mozart
> View attachment 181889
> 
> 
> Beethoven / Schubert
> View attachment 181890
> 
> View attachment 181891
> 
> 
> Mahler/ Strauss / Dvorak
> View attachment 181892



Marktplaats perhaps although much work.
Erratum
I did do a quick look, the Uchida/ Mozart going for high prices, so who knows, good luck.


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## Montarsolo

I have sold something via Marktplaats but hardly any responses and it yields little profit. I also have many live recordings of operas from the past that I want to sell.


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