by Cousin Geoff: 

Justin and I usually acquire our records that we sell by buying large, complete collections from people.  Often times someone will bring in a box or boxes of records without having looked at them or played them in 20-30 years.

We’ve found all sorts of things tucked inside the sleeves, long forgotten about from the previous owners.  There’s been receipts of various sorts, including bond and stock statements.  We’ve also found on a few occasions an adult magazine or two hidden inside a thick jacket (I’m guessing it was a record that the wife would never play).  There’s been old photos of people that we have stuck up on the wall of the shipping room.  There was once a map to a secret “freak” party, with intricate details drawn out about the illegal activities that would be there. 

We’ve also found poems, letters, postcards, and other writings scrawled on scrap paper, and stuffed hastily inside or in between records, some of which I’ve been tempted to send in to Found magazine.  (The founder of found, Davy Rothbart, is a fellow Ann Arbor native, and played on my Ultimate frisbee team a few years ago).  There was once an African-American arts/theatre magazine from 1935 with a Langston Hughes piece inside, and also the 10th anniversary program of C.L Franklin (Aretha’s dad) as the minister of his church.

What else?  A signed Elvis impersonator photo still hangs on the wall, as does the photo of a hippie high school sweetheart couple circa 1973.  And yes, twice we have found pot, squished up in an old baggie inside a jacket, the distinct smell long since evaporated, aged completely beyond possible use.