Rusty- The Shop Mascot

Today we have our Favorite Guest Poster Back-  Eric, from Eric's Vintage Corner.  

See his first post and learn a bit more about him here. 

One of the best evolutions of our family business so far has been me being put in charge of selling records. I have always been naturally drawn to the music collections at the sales we go to and now I have (almost) almost free reign to take home massive amounts of vinyl. I’ve been putting in the time and effort to get good at selling records and have high hopes for myself, our business and my own personal record collection. 

I now have my own Etsy shop called VinylStandard, complete with a banner ad and 12 records for sale. I gets hardly any views and I’ve sold nothing. Additionally I have another 12 or so records on eBay at any given time. I have sold many of these and am told that I ship with care. I’m hoping to work my way up to getting around 100-200 records online at once and to do this I’ll need inventory. 

When the door opens to a sale, I’m going straight for the music and some of the time I feel like I know what I’m doing. Sometimes I buy a ton of records that I just can’t sell, but I’ll chalk that up to growing pains and learning experiences. I feel like my potential to excel in this position is great. Record hunting is tough, but if we’re going to sale’ing every weekend, I’m going to make the most of it. Not to mention, it’s nice to have a more defined role in this thing; whereas I used to consider myself the custodian, driver, delivery man, motivational speaker of Nell’s Vintage House, etc. now I’m playing a big role in the real action. 

So far my best record, as far as my profit, has been an old Ray Charles 45 that I got about $65 for. I paid nothing for that one. The woman who sold it to me assumed that 45’s were worthless and at the time and just gave it to me. I really had no idea if they had value, at that time I was just picking up records for myself. That was a while ago and at this point there are a handful of similar occasions which will make for good guest posts in the future. For now, this post, in my own long-winded way, will be about where our new shop mascot Rusty came from.  

J and I had a decent record grab from an estate sale a few mornings ago. At least we left with a lot of records. Out of a pile of 50 records there were one or two gems that will at the very least make up for what I spent (I hope) and there were a few keepers in there (Nina Simone, Ray Charles.)

Last Weekends Record Score

After we went home and sorted everything out I decided my time would be best spent surfing (actual surfing, not internet surfing). On my way out the door, I remembered that there was another sale that was towards the ocean so I mapped it out and headed over there in my boardshorts. A solo run… Turns out they had a sizeable record collection for sale that belonged to a former DJ. I picked out some pretty cool records including a bunch of Hawaiian LPs (I can never leave a Hawaiian record behind; Hawaiian records and Surf-rock, I need them all.)

The man running the sale noticed my selection and offered me a sneak peak at the mother lode: a garage full of records that the family hadn’t sorted through. As wonderful as this sounds, it’s also a little nerve-wracking. I don’t want to keep overloading the house with records that I’m really just not sure of. But when someone says I can look through the private collection, who am I to say no. 

Surprisingly, I didn’t really find anything fantastic in there, or any time I did I was told it wasn’t for sale (Beatles, Pink Floyd). A new problem started to develop; I had about 20 records for myself and nothing for J. I know better than to go to a sale and not come home without something for J.

I scoured the entire house, inside and out and there was nothing. I even sent her photo’s of everything I could find there, but was nothing any good. This is when stress and panic starts to set in. I knew there had to be something, just one thing, any sort of vintage object, but there was really nothing. Nothing until….

As I was paying for my records after giving up on finding a non-record object, the seller pulled out Rusty from god-knows-where. Rusty has springs for legs, a fan for a body and rusty mesh for ears. His motion is lifelike and I can’t wait for the next small earthquake just to see him dance. He is always happy and his rust color matches our actual pitbull’s red tones. 

Thanks for reading my guest post and now, for your enjoyment, here is Rusty;