Upcoming vinyl album sale in Tallahassee will feature 10,000 records. Here are the details
The Community Thrift Market’s upcoming three-day vinyl sale should be on the radar for record collectors and music fans.
With the help of a hefty donation from the son of a cherished buyer and seller, who remains anonymous, the nonprofit organization will be holding a 10,000 Record Album Sale from Friday, June 16, to Sunday, June 18.
The first day of the sale will be held noon to 5 p.m. and the first dibs of the LPs will be at a set price of $20 each. The second day's hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with records at a set price of $10 each. On the last day of the sale, which will be held from noon to 4 p.m., albums will be on sale for $5 each. Volume purchases are also being considered.
The sales will be conducted in a large space so shoppers can spread out and dig. With four members on staff and open space, the market hopes to avoid any pushing or shoving that can occur with shoppers.
Market manager Karen Loewen said the large collection features a bit of “everything, every genre.”
The collection — mainly curated from purchases at the iconic Vinyl Fever shop that closed in 2010 in Tallahassee — will not be organized by category, nor has its content been deeply examined, so the sale spree will be first come, first served for all consumers.
“Early rap, rap, old rap, funk, classic rock, classical, country, gospel, jazz,” were the genres Loewen remembers from browsing the collection.
Some notables are several albums of funk legend, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Tallahassee resident George Clinton, and a soundtrack from Romper Room, a television series for children that ran from 1953 to 1994.
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Loewen said she and the staff made a few other notable discoveries.
“We found four that were worth over $100 and multiples that were $75 albums,” Loewen told the Tallahassee Democrat.
While there is no exact monetary value to put on the collection, Loewen says that even at $1 apiece, that’s a great amount to invest back into the capital city.
The Community Thrift Market is a nonprofit organization in support of Tallahassee Action Grants. It helps generate financial support for other nonprofits in the capital city that may not have their own funding mechanism.
Sale teasers quickly generate interest among collectors, curious
One genre found in the collection that is consistently on shopper's lists at the Community Thrift Market is classic rock vinyl.
A study in 2022 by Music Watch, a company that conducts marketing research and analysis for the music and entertainment industry, found that classic rock, hip hop, rap, and country are the top categories for listening and purchasing for baby boomers to Generation X, with Gen X’ers being the lead purchasers of new vinyl within the last year.
Vinyl has made its comeback and even surpassed CD sales for the first time since 1987, according to a 2022 report from the Recording Industry Association of America Revenue Statistics.
“Young people are really starting to get into vinyl. They’re buying record players too,” Loewen said while helping a customer with a purchase.
That’s likely one reason it didn’t take long for the market’s sale to generate attention among collectors.
Up to 500 people have responded to the market’s Facebook posts, stating their interest and inquiring about the location of the sale.
Sales location to be announced online
In order to keep “crazy” collectors from snooping around and sniffing out the vinyl, the location will not be released until the week of the sale on the business’s Instagram @Community_Thrift_Market and Facebook page @CommunityThriftMarket.
The only detail the business has released is that the location will be “east of town between here (the store,) and Lake Monticello.” The market is located at 652 Capital Cir. NE.
The albums currently are stored in a climate-controlled environment to ensure their protection and to avoid crowding the store with 4-foot piles.
Leftovers from the three-day sale will be available for purchase in the thrift market along with the rest of its existing vinyl offerings.
“We will turn around and invest in the community. All the money that’s made will be reinvested into grants,” Loewen said.
Democrat writer Kyla A. Sanford can be reached at ksanford@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Community Thrift Market offering 10,000 vinyl records during 3-day sales spree
