Category: Music

050226 • Thrift Store Finds

Found a few things for next-to-nothing that were very new, such as three expensive, recent books, and two newer classical cds… usually classical cds are rare after the year 2000, but today I found two of them, one was 2011 and the other, 2019! I don’t think I’ve ever found a classical cd that new, and it was also a double-cd, and of a very appealing nature, Bach transcriptions for piano! Amazing that I was able to find it.

I have three general kinds of cd categories when I go to thrifts:
1 – The older, cheap, generic collections or releases.
2 – The big, or boutique labels up to the year 2000.
3 – Any non-generic post 2000. (The most rare to find at a thrift)

If one goes to Amazon, most of the cds there are exactly what doesn’t make the thrifts, and never will. Anything new isn’t out in enough volume anymore to be found. I’m thinking it is a better use of time to get box sets, that package cds into more compact forms of storage, are far cheaper as a box set per cd, and are all new and clean. Plus, you know what you are going to find, wheras thrift stores, the case could be broken, most are scuffed up or have cracks in them, and the cds could be immaculate, but easily, not immaculate. And you never know what you are going to get. Trying to piece together an entire set, or artist’s complete work… that is an ongoing task that is often never completed.

The John Williams collection is from 2011, and has three discs for the price of one! For one dollar!

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But, if I’m at a thrift, it doesn’t hurt to pick out the few gems that might be there. At a dollar apiece, the price is right!

As for the books, one of them was from last year and sold for thirty dollars new! There are no bad selections here, as usual. The Diary of Vikenty Angarov is the oldest book I bought, and one I’m never going to see in the wild again; these memoirs of former Gulag or other death camps are always of intense interest. The Endurance is a true story recommended to me about a year ago, and this book has a lot of really good photos, of which I am surprised they survived considering what all of those explorers went through.

Hero of Two Worlds is about Lafayette, a guy who is always overlooked when I read about the American Revolution. It looks to be a smooth and very interesting read.

122725 • Thrift Store Finds

To Crown The Waves and Soldiers of Destruction are books that are not common at thrifts, so I was fortunate to get them. The Napoleon book was under a dollar, and the Lions of the West is a great topic, the heroes and villains of westward expansion.

The DVD In Enemy Hands is a submariner war movie I’ve never even heard of, it is amazing that I even pulled it off the shelf as the name is so generic.

The Brahms Symphony by Claudio Abbado is the the second I have by this conductor. It is difficult to pick this kind of title out of all the common ones that look just like it.

Händel: Medley aus “Apollo e Dafne” HWV122

Classical music has a seemingly infinite volume of pieces to discover; I ran across this video on Facebook today and as it turns out, I have an album with the entire composition that was buried in my large library (although it is digitally in my iTunes/Music, ripped from the cd and ready to go). This video brought it out to the front, a wonderful piece to hear.

It is one of those many albums I bought years ago in volume at the thrift store, library sale, or something like that and never really listened to. That is the beauty of a library, there are treasures within just waiting to be discovered.

Winston Churchill’s Take On The World Wars

I’ve come across many books by Winston Churchill, who wrote a lot of volumes, but up to now I haven’t purchased many of them. Considering his involvement in both World Wars, I should have been reading his works long ago.

These aren’t the super-expensive, leather-bound Easton Press reprints (that I would prefer), but rather are the Folio Society versions that are still of a higher quality than the average new book. I’m very glad to have these, although at some point I’d like to get the leather-bound Easton Press versions.

092725 • Thrift Store Finds

Picked these up today, a dollar apiece. What a deal! I actually picked them out on Tuesday, but they weren’t half-off, but they were exactly where I left them, and today were now half-off. The two Mozart CDs by BIZ sound great. It is difficult for me to find classical I don’t have already at a thrift store, but it can still happen.

The Dr. Seuss book is substantial and is very detailed into his life and work. The World War II book appeared pretty standard, but the illustrations are terrific. Vikings and the Patton book are great additions to the library as well.