This will be the first in a series in which I categorise & elaborate on, the different types of 'crate diggers' (i.e - people who hunt through boxes of second hand records in charity shops, car boot sales etc). Please note that in these articles I am talking about scenarios that involve records being sold very cheaply (e.g - old fashioned charity shops that price all the albums at one low 'standard' price - 50p or a pound or whatever) & where records aren't sorted or priced according to 'rarity' or how 'collectable' they are. Therefore, some forms of record collecting behaviour (such as taking a very long time examining the condition of an individual record) that would make sense at a record fair or expensive record collector's shop (where you might be paying a lot of money for one record) just come across as really anal & mean spirited when transposed into the world of ultra cheap (50p/£1) records.
The type of crate digger I will write about today is what I call The 'One At A Time' Man (& yes, it always is a man, & a man of a certain age - in his 50s or 60s). This type of crate digger is the worst pain in the arse for anybody who wants to flick through a box of records. Normally, at a car boot or charity shop, if you spy a box of a few dozen L.Ps, & somebody's going through them, you know that the box will be free to look at in a few minutes. You can casually browse through some other stuff, & very shortly the person flicking through the box will be finished, and then you can get in & browse through to your heart's content.
Not so with The 'One At A Time' Man. God knows how long he's been going through that box before you even got there, but even if when you arrive, it looks like he's getting to the end of the box, you can still abandon all hope that you'll ever get a chance to flick. On one occasion, there was one of these men half way through a box of albums at a car boot. I decided to have a look round the adjoining stalls then come back. He was still in that box of records. I then went round the entire car boot (& this was Nottingham's biggest car boot sale, & I went through about fifty boxes of albums). When I came back again, he was still going through that same box of a few dozen albums.
Waiting for these people to finish can also lead to you feeling really awkward, as you end up just hanging about, which makes you look a potential shoplifter. Having worked in a charity shop, I know that people who hang about for inordinate periods of time are very likely to be shoplifters (waiting for the moment when the till assistant goes backshop, so they can steal something & run off).
The other week I was in a charity shop & there was a 'One At A Time ' Man in the record box. I looked through all the clothes, and he was still there. I then went through all the books, and he was still there. I went through all the c.ds, the videos & dvds, & even went through all the clothes again, and he was still at it. leaving me nothing to do but hang about in the middle of the shop, imagining that I had a huge neon sign above my head saying "Watch Out ! Potential Shoplifter!"
He just kept pulling out this one album (the soundtrack to the BBC 'Colditz' TV series), taking it out of it's sleeve, looking at it's condition, putting it back in it's sleeve (which he struggled to do, as it had one of these old fashioned polythene lined inner sleeves), putting the L.P back in the box, flicking through a few more L.Ps, then going back & pulling the 'Colditz' album again, & going through the whole process once more.
Eventually, he got it out one more time, & then spent an eternity poring over the vinyl's condition, rubbing his finger over every tiny speck to see whether if it was a dust particle or a one millimetre surface mark. Even standing a few paces away, I could tell this album was in excellent condition (& at 99p was a bargain).
I'd now been hanging around in the shop for about 15 minutes, (& had long since run out of stuff to look at), & there he was still fiddling around with this one bloody L.P (& goodness knows how long he'd been at it before I'd even got there). All this time waiting to get into a box of records that I knew from experience would probably take me only about a minute to flick through.
There's an unwritten code of good etiquette & consideration for other record hunters, which is, when going through a box of records, if you come across something that you think will require some time to examine - do not stop & do that half way through flicking. Instead, pick out the records that 'require examination', place them on the side of the box, finish going through the box, then stand away from the box (thus leaving it free for someone else to look at) & then examine all the records you've picked out for 'possible consideration', perhaps popping some of them back in the box once you've looked at them.
However, this dreadful old man had clearly not finished going through the records. He had left a gap between the albums at the point he was 'up to' so any attempt by me to barge in would have been met with the inevitable 'I haven't finished looking at these yet'. Also, he was holding this bloody 'Colditz' album right over the box as he examined it (sometimes even placing it flat on top of the other records) making it impossible to get in there.
Eventually I could stand it no more. Partly to alleviate my awkward feelings of hanging about the shop so long doing nothing (& to therefore signal to the staff that I was not a potential shoplifter) & partly out of my frustration at this man's anal & inconsiderate behaviour, I just started loudly having a go at him - "Look mate, just buy the bloody thing. It's only 99p, and the money's going to charity". "But I like to look at the condition of records first, before I buy them" he replied, looking like I'd hurt his feelings. "So do I" I said, "but it only takes a few seconds to look at the condition of each side. How much time are you going to devote to looking at the condition of a 99p record ? If you enjoy looking at the condition of records so much, then just buy it, then you could take it home, & have a great Saturday night in, staring at the vinyl for hours & rubbing your fingers over it." (at this point, I could hear the shop assistants laughing). After that, I just gave up on waiting, & left the shop.
While this is only one anecdote out of many, I'm sure most seasoned crate diggers will have come across this kind of character, and like me, will have ended up pulling their hair out in frustration at the eternity these people take to go through a few dozen albums.
The reason I call these people 'One At A Time' Men is because of a unique peculiarity of the way they go through a box of records. Most of us can flick through records very quickly. I don't mean the physical action per se, but instead that mental process that allows us, in a split second, to decide whether or not an album is worth stopping to look at. We build up a 'memory bank' that works instantaneously, allowing us to immediately recognise an album that we know we're not interested in (for instance, charity shop staples such as Jim Reeves or James Last, or perhaps certain genres that don't interest us - for instance I tend to 'flick past' classical records or 1980s pop & heavy metal).
This 'instant recognition' (followed by the 'flicking past' action) works so quick it takes less time than it would even take to read the album's title. If you're a long time crate digger, you probably only give about a second or less to each L.P before flicking past it to the next one (especially in charity shops, where chances are you're lucky if you'll find a single L.P that interests you). Likewise, if there is anything good / interesting in any of these boxes of records it will instantly leap out at you, no matter how fast you're flicking.
Not so for The 'One At A Time' Man. They'd don't 'flick'. Instead, every single bloody L.P has to be individually lifted up & stared at, slowly reading the title, & often looking at the back sleeve, before putting it back down again, & moving on to the next one. This is why I call them 'One At A Time' Men They can't 'flick past' one single bloody album. Every single record has to be stared at, pulled out & examined.
Do the maths here. Even if somebody just devoted 30 seconds to looking at each album, that means it would take them a whole hour to go through a box of 120 L.Ps (probably the amount in the average charity shop's carboard box). Ask yourself - how long would it take you to flick through ten dozen L.Ps in a charity shop, and the answer is probably two or three minutes (at most).
I'm all for musical eclecticism. I buy music from so many genres & so many different eras, but in truth, it's only very rarely in a charity shop that they'll be a load of records where anything is worth more than one second's attention of your flicking time (on a few extremely rare occasions, an unusual or 'speciality' collection has come in, but even on those very rare occasions, I can still get through these much quicker than The 'One At A Time' Man takes to go through a load of bog standard Jim Reeves & James Last L.Ps).
So, what's going on mentally for these 'One At A Time' Men (as they can't possibly be so musically eclectic that every single album in a box of bog standard charity shop L.Ps is of so much potential interest to them that each L.P requires so much of their time) ? I have two possible theories to explain their behaviour.
My first possible theory is that they've just been out of the 'Record Hunting' loop for so long that the 'Instant Recognition' mental ability that I described earlier just doesn't work for them. Maybe they've long since got rid of their record collection (or stuffed it in the attic / garage) & this is their first foray in decades into the world of record hunting. Maybe they just haven't kept up with music for decades, and that's why every single album is some kind of strange enigma to them, that needs to be picked up & examined carefully, in order to familiarise themselves with it & take it in. They're like people who've just landed on an alien planet, where everything is new & strange & requires their attention.
Confronted with each L.P, they need to slowly go through their 'memory banks' to search for some shred of recognition. I sometimes wish there was a device by which one could monitor & hear their 'inner dialogue' as they painstakingly pore over each album.
I imagine if you could hear it, it would go something like this -
"Now, let me see. .... What's this album ? ..... Who's that bloke on the cover ? ..... I'll read the title here .... 'Paul Young - No Parlez' .... No, that doesn't ring any bells .... Who was he ? .... Let me think now .... No, I don't remember him .... Perhaps if I look at the back sleeve, I might recognise a song title .... Let's have a look .... I need to put my glasses on now ..... Where are my glasses ? ..... Oh, there they are .... Now, let's see .... 'Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home' .... Now that was a hit, wasn't it ? .... But who did that originally ? ..... Let me think now .... No, I can't remember .... It was some Motown artist, wasn't it ? .... but no, I can't remember .... Anyway, what's this next L.P ? ..... Let's see .... It's a Jim Reeves one .... Now, do I like Jim Reeves ? .... Let me have a think about this ...... hmmmm .... Yes, I think I do like Jim Reeves ...... Now, what was the name of his big hit ? ..... Let's have a look at the back cover ...... No, it wasn't any of those ..... Now, what was the name of that song he had ..... Let me think ... etc"
My second theory (which is somewhat related to the first) is that these men don't have any intention of buying anything (they might not even have a record deck anymore). Instead, they view the box of charity shop records as the equivalent of a 'museum exhibit' that they can happily hog for an hour or two, as they take a trip down memory lane (especially as, being men of a certain age, most of the albums in there are L.Ps from 'their era'). So they happily whittle away an hour or two staring at the back covers of Jim Reeves L.Ps, trying to remember what his 'Big Hit' was ('something about a dog, wasn't it ?').Then they'll toddle on home & tell 'the wife' all about it, how they spent a 'an enjoyable two hours reminiscing' whilst going through a box of old L.Ps, and how they were completely bewildered by the fact that, all the while they were doing this, there was a young person standing right behind them, coughing loudly & going bright red (as if they were frustrated about something, but goodness only knows what they could have been frustrated about).
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