Boston, Dear Old Boston - Fenway Choralites

My great aunt worked for The Boston Music Company for years and I found this record in her attic when she passed away. It seemed interesting so I held onto it but life being as it is, other things captured my attention and this record was largely forgotten in my collection for the past few years.   

Grrl Pickers recently stumbled on a really great Facebook page called "Dirty Old Boston" and I scanned these images to share on thier page. Another fan of the Dirty Old Boston facebook page  mentioned that she had seen a listing on eBay that was offering this record for $1,000, that got my attention real good and I took the time today to look into the details of this unusual little record. 

 

I stopped by Bay State Coin on Bromfield Street in Boston because I know they sell a lot of local sports stuff, they made me a small token offer but couldn't tell me more about the record and without knowing more I was hestitant to sell it. What if it really was worth hundreds of dollars? I had to know more...

On my way home tonight I stopped by my local 'record heads'  at The Randolph Music Center (North Main Street, Randolph, MA) and even tho they were unfamiliar with this specific recording, they were LOADED with all kinds of super information about where it may have come from. 

  I will be researching this record further based on the great info I got at Randolph Music Center but the bottom line is, 

as neat as this record may look on the surface, 

  it has absolutely nothing to do with The Red Sox and/or Fenway Park. 

Thus far, it seems that this record was locally produced by someone who made a bunch of these sorts of recordings for political campagins etc. and is worth approx 20 bucks, tops. 

 I can't complain having gotten the record for free, (I paid about 12 bucks for the sheet music on eBay about 2 years ago but with my Great Aunt's connection to The Boston Music Company, it was worth that to me and probably worth a lot less to others) and as much as I don't want to hurt a fellow eBay seller, I feel real sorry for anyone who pays anything more than two bits or so for the copy that's being offered currently on eBay. 

I'm disapointed to not be striking it rich with this one but we already knew eBay is a buyer beware enterprise and the information gathered today will help us be better pickers/buyers/sellers in the future and anything that helps us do that, is priceless to us and hopefully to others as well.         

  My camera ran out of memory so this is just a snippet of the song but as far as I know it's the only audio of it available online: 

     

Record Collectors Guild - Web site pick of the day

Absolutely wonderful web site and message board full of any and all information you ever wanted to know about buying, selling, collecting and preserving records of all types.

   Record Collectors Guild

A lot of record enthusiast sites contain information about just one certail time period or meduim (just 45's, just LPs, 78s only etcs...) this site contains information about EVERYTHING. From you favorite record to the needles you need for a vintage machine, this site has it all.

    Two thumbs up from the Grrl Pickers, The Record Collectors Guild is a site well worth checking out!

                    

Tip of the Day - Reselling Reigonal Free Magazines

Grrl Pickers just sold a recent copy of The Phoenix magazine for five dollars on eBay. 

   The Phoenix glossy magazine is a new rehash of the old Boston Phoenix newspaper, both versions of the publication are/were available free in large quantities all over Boston. 

   Perhaps 5 bucks in profit isn't anything to write home about but the fact that we picked up a recent issue for free and sold it in just a few weeks to a buyer 6 states away, we're pretty excited.

    The issue that we sold had a Mitt Romney cover story and an inner story on cult photographer Bunny Yaeger so we suspected that with big names like that it would be of intrest to someone and are glad to find that we were right.

    Issues of The Phoenix magazine are so plentiful around Boston that back issues have no real local worth but through the magic of eBay, we have found that items we can get free on any local street corner have the potential to sell for 100% profit to folks located elsewhere.

     Every major city has it's own slew of local free publications and depending on the poularity of the subjects of published stories, Grrl Pickers are willing to bet that just about anyone can profit from the free publications available in their area.

         100% profit works for us, hope this is a helpful tip for others as well.

                          : )    : )

Grrl Pickers site of the day: antiquedress.com

Stumbled across this site today:

antiquedress.com/

    The prices are a little to rich for us but the one of a kind Hollywood treasures are fun to look through and we love learning more about well made vintage pieces.

    A fun site to spend a Sunday afternoon window browsing!

Far beyond twitterpated...

We finally got on the bandwagon this week and joined Twitter.

    Not really sure how it offers anything different from Facebook but it has been fun looking up interesting folks and seeing what they are twittering about. I guess it's kind of like Facebook "lite", you get the info but don't have to scrawl though a million cute cat/puppy photos to get it. 

    So far, we like it but it remains to be seen how useful it's actually going to be for us.
        (or just yet another distraction that keeps us from posting new items in our shops and doing more productive things, like the dishes perhaps...)

  Anyhoo...

      Twitter did offer us one GIANT thrill the first morning after we set up the account.
We had randomly followed a handful of people we find interesting and then logged off for the night,  the next morning was like Halloween Eve and Christmas Morning all rolled into one to find we had one follower, it wasn't our parents or even a close friend,

 it was freakin' CLIVE BARKER!

      ("CLIVE freakin' BARKER"?, Just where do the rules of writing say the 'freakin' should go in a proper sentence? I'm not sure...) 

     Now,
        we didn't just fall off the turnip truck and we know that Mr. Barker is most likely hard at work on a new novel, painting, film, canoodling his squeeze or petting his dogs.
     The man himself likely has very little time left in his fascinating life to wonder what a couple of strangers halfway across the world are up to in their little basement running a vintage resale business.
    It is highly more probable that his agency is behind the Twitter account and we were actually followed by a junior level assistant who was too tired to realize they we're clicking on our account to follow (we were officially followed by his account at about 3am Eastern time).
    No matter to us, as many who have done business with us can attest, we're not proud and our official motto should actually be,
     "We'll take it!"   

        We are still completely stoked to be able to say with all honesty,

                  "Clive Barker was our first Twitter follower!"

    If absolutely nothing else comes from this Twitter thing, that all by itself made the small effort of starting the account totally worthwhile.

       We are genuinely twitterpated over this development and could ride this high at least another week or 2 if not for the rest of our (well, at least Laura's...) lives.

             Good times, good times...

                         

PS. Also of intrest, blogger spell check dictionary has no record of the word "Twitterpated", they really should update thier dictionary. I mean, Bambi was relased in like 1930 or something, get with the program spell check...   : )
    

Handcrafted Wine Gobblets added to our Etsy shop!

New items are being added daily to both our eBay and our Etsy shops in preperation for the upcoming gift giving season. We are especially proud of this item as they were handcrafted

 by Grrl Picker, Lacy Berman. 

Great for wine, tea light candles, fill with candy or a gift card, the mind boggles as to how many awesome gift ideas this one item brings to mind! 

More great vintage and handcrafted items being added daily, shop early for best selection! 

: )

                              -Laura 

   

Tip of the Day - Fancy Schmancy Tape

While wrapping a package just moments ago I stumbled on a solution to a problem that has been daunting me ever since I started selling on line and mailing out packages on an almost daily basis.

Namely, the horror that is cheap tape.

   I love fancy brand tape, it's thicker, it sticks better, it doesn't tear into skinny little strips that make the whole rest of the roll 'not quite right', it's just all around awesome-tastic in every aspect except one.
    That is,
       it costs nearly 3 times (and sometimes more than 3 times) the price of cheap dollar store/job lot tape.

    Til today I have had an arsonal of tape for every occasion hanging on my tape rack,
   (old coat rack nailed to the wall next to my desk but that's a tip for another post...)
    but now,
        LO!
    I have discovered that it is not actually the fancy schmancy tape that I have coveted for special use through the years, it is actually the fancy schmancy dispenser that has been my faithful friend!

    I still love the plaid brand tape, it does actually rock like no other for larger packages more loaded with fancy things but for basic shipping needs, taking the dollar store tape and sticking it in the old used up fancy dispenser works perfectly!

   I don't need thick tape to make sure an address label stays put or to tape down that metal latch on a large envelope doesn't cause my package to get torn to shreds by some automated mail sorter at the post office, cheap thin tape works just fine for that purpose if I only could get it to stop shredding into strips of odd widths and just come off the roll smoothly...

   Tah dah!

       Fancy tape holder refilled with dollar store tape!

   Note the cheap tape sticking up jauntily ready for use and not sticking to the wrong side of itself!

   Yep, me and my brain are feelin' pretty groovy right about now...