Friends,

I was ruminating in another thread about the old "cut out bins" in record and discount stores where you could rummage through hundreds of LPs and maybe discover some hard to find collector's item at a bargain price. I thought it might be fun to have us share what we feel was a great find; a real collector's item we found the old fashioned way - by searching for it in stores or happening across it in some other more or less random way.

Sticking to the cut out bins, I remember when growing up in Detroit finding all the out of print titles that were listed on the album insert sleeves. For example, that was when I first found out there was a Workshop Jazz label, or that there were out of print albums by the Miracles, Marvelettes or Vandellas which I didn't know about.

I remember even calling Motown [[when they were still in downtown Detroit) and asking how one could find the old albums. Of course, they had no idea!

My first "epic" discovery was finding the cut out bins at a department store called Federal's. Federal's was a store similar to the more recent Mervyn's. They had clothing, housewares, and of course records. I think the first time I found they were a great source for old records was at the Federal's on Grand River and Oakman a few miles from downtown Detroit. The albums were strangely priced at $1.67 [[how did they ever get to that number!). It was there I found the early albums by the Marvelettes such as "Please Mr. Postman," "Greetings We're the Miracles," "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" by Gaye, and many other early titles. To me it was like finding something akin to buried treasure. Of course, they were all brand new, sealed copies.

What's your favorite story about how you found something rare that you had looked for, or perhaps never expected you might find?