What to look for when buying record?

[Inigo]

If I'm in some dump flicking through 78's that are 50 cents or a buck or two, I still like the air of mystery of not knowing what it sounds like before I buy it. I know enough to know what I'm likely to like and the build up / anticipation is part of the fun.

Ahá...! The mystery of a new 78 you don't know anything about it, and the excitement of playing it for the first time has unequal!

[edisonplayer]

Just have fun. Collectors are their own breed. I was kind of turned off from serious collectors by the greasy-neckbeard-Robert Crumb types. But it's perfectly fine to buy valuable records, just not to enjoy them for their price over their musical quality; that's kind of dismissive of the artists & engineers that brought us the record in the first place.

It seems to some folks the rarer the record the better the content on it must be? I’m kinda jealous of guys who grew up in the 1950s like R.Crumb and Joe Buzzard. They grew up during a time when this type of music didn’t cost hundreds of dollars for a copy. It’s hard being a millennial collector with not a lot of money. The silent generation had it good when they were young and could get this stuff for peanuts when nobody cared about it.

Yes,like my late friends Jerry Donnell and Arthur Pare.Back when they were young you could pick up nice items for very low prices.Those were the days! edisonplayer