The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I’m curious whether there are stores and thrift/charity shops in your area where you’re able to find decent-sized selections of 78s for sale.

If so, where are they?

The reason I ask is because it’s been years since I’ve seen decent-sized amounts of 78s for sale anywhere. Every once in a while, I’ll find an antique shop that has a stack of 78s for sale, but it’s always a small stack.

But if there are still retail spaces with regular hours where people are buying, selling, or donating, I’d love to know about them (especially if they’re in Chicago).

I've heard of "Dusty Groove" in Chicago -- https://www.dustygroove.com/browse/78_rpm/

In the UK the rise of on line selling has driven the traditional junk shop to the point of extinction. We do have charity shops (called goodwill shops in the USA) but many do not accept donations of records. I and my fellow collectors who live locally donate our unwanted records to the few who do. The fact that they sell tells us that there are other collectors locally who are unknown to us.

epigramophone wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2024 4:56 am In the UK the rise of on line selling has driven the traditional junk shop to the point of extinction. We do have charity shops (called goodwill shops in the USA) but many do not accept donations of records. I and my fellow collectors who live locally donate our unwanted records to the few who do. The fact that they sell tells us that there are other collectors locally who are unknown to us.

Last weekend I purchased a Columbia Model 10 portable (shown in a separate thread I started) which I collected from Hereford. With it came several boxes of good clean condition 78's, probably all from the one same source. Interestingly, the seller was a record dealer (vinyl LP's) with a shop but he had no use for either the gramophone or the 78's and couldn't sell them to any of his usual passing customers.

A friend of mine has 78s in his space at the Early Owego Antique Center,and he has them.edisonplayer.

OrthoFan wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2024 9:21 pm I've heard of "Dusty Groove" in Chicago -- https://www.dustygroove.com/browse/78_rpm/

Thanks—this is a great shop that apparently has corners that I haven’t explored!

https://vintagemusiccompany.com/index.html. The Vintage Music Company in Minneapolis. I've been in southern MN several times but never found the time to drive up. Supposedly the only record shop in the US that sells solely 78 (and cylinder) records.

Few record shops in the UK seem to have them. There is the Birmingham record fair, where I believe the number of 78 dealers has declined. On Saturday I was at the Music and Video Exchange in Notting Hill, west London. They had two boxes of 78s, plus a pile on the counter. Similar to what they had when I visited earlier this year. A record store in Brixham, Devon, had a good selection when I was there last year. The Greenwich junk shop has loads of 78s, but they aren’t organised at all, so a bit of a pain to go through. It seems unusual to find them in charity shops either.