It is 5 AM, Do you Know where Mikey Fremer is?

I've got about 1500 LPs, a collection assembled over a nearly 40 year period starting in and after college. I mentally divide my collection into two categories: those LPs I bought new when LPs were available by the bushel in "Record Stores" and those LPs I bought since the late 1980s/early 90s, which tend to be LPs I bought used or at boutique prices from the many companies that still make "new" pressings, usually by mail order. My collection is about 85% jazz; the remainder is roughly 60/40 classical and rock. I like to buy used LPs in Tokyo, when I am there visiting our son, because the condition of the LPs is generally impeccable. I refuse any longer to buy ANY LP that has a scratch or glitch in the surface. I don't and never did collect "to own"; I collect to listen. I don't give a darn about the condition of the jacket, as long as the LP itself is mint. I have recently noticed that I cannot reliably recall whether or not I already own a particular pressing, unless it's by an artist that I know is insufficiently represented in my collection or not represented at all. So once in a great while I buy an LP that I already own. This to me is a sign that I have "enough" LPs. There is such a wealth of wonderful music in my collection that I don't feel compelled to binge at yard sales or second hand stores. Nearly all LPs available at such venues would not fit my strict criteria for purchase.

Yes, some dear friends of mine recently gave me their small LP collection. It has some great titles, early West Coast jazz that is lacking in my collection for example. I cleaned several of them and have been playing them. So far, two home runs - a Mulligan and a Benny Goodman, but the rest that I have so far played were unlistenable. I buried them at sea with full honors and a no-guns salute. Perhaps there are more gems in the small pile I culled from the group.