Well I finally did it, I left the house. When my wife and I found out we were having a baby I made plans to not make plans for all of 2024. Normally I go out digging for a week once every couple months, but with a newborn I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that, so I didn’t. And then I felt like I couldn’t even after we got the hang of everything around the house. The problem was inside myself and didn’t have to do with my wife or kid, I just felt weird about leaving, I put a lot of pressure on myself. So last friday I dipped my toes in to see what happened.
I had been speaking with Steve Foehner about buying some records and since it’s within a half days drive it was the perfect test trip. The night before I got the feeling I always get, the same feeling I used to get as a kid on christmas eve, excitement in my belly about what’s coming. I woke up early and headed south to West Virginia, stopping at Waffled House for breakfast and a couple goodwills along the way.
It turned out to be a nice day, the weather hit the high 50s and the sky was clear. I ended up at Steve’s around midday and had a great time. He had some boxes picked for me to look through and I ended up buying all of them, as usual. He’s always looking to move things along and I’m always looking to get more, so it’s a good pairing. Visiting other collectors and dealers is one of my favorite things about collecting because we all have different things we like and something to say. Steve is a real music lover, he listens to every record he prices and can recall the song if you ask him about it. I can’t even recall some of the songs I’ve played on my show.
The real prize of the day was the most well known rare country record. Steve had a copy of Psycho by Eddie Noack he had mentioned to me online and I wasn’t really looking for it. I have some bootlegs and the price it usually goes for is enough for me to buy a few boxes of unknown country singles. However when he offered it for what I thought was a very reasonable price I decided to go for it, I wanted to have a copy someday anyway, so now I do.
Another exciting thing I got there was a box of instantaneous discs Steve had been holding onto for quite a while. Like many collectors out there, he had them because they were unique and thought someone should save them eventually, which is my exact plan with my acetate project coming up soon. So now I have another 75 or so discs for that.
After buying 5 boxes of records there I hit the road for Huntington. Steve told me about a record store there that would have more country gospel LPs than I could shake a stick at. Unfortunately when I got to town I found the store being cleared out by a number of people with trucks. The owner had sold the contents via auction and I just showed up on pick up day. So I went down the road to the Peddlers Mall, an antique mall I’d gone to in 2023.
It was the regular stalls of stuff until I got near the end and I found a few boxes of records on the floor. From there I ended up with a dozen or two country things from the area and a couple 45s. Nothing amazing, but for a dollar each they were well worth it. After being gone for over 12 hours I decided it was time to head back.
I hit a goodwill on the Ohio side of the river and found a really great bunch of bluegrass and gospel LPs for a dollar each before heading out of Huntington for Cleveland. Waffle House was my stop for dinner and at about 11pm I landed home with some cool records and a nice day under my belt.
It felt great to be out again although it’s different now because even though it was only one day I missed my family a lot, and I doubt it will get easier, but I also love digging so I’m going to have to do it.
Cheers
Franklin