The phone call did not sound like much. A man in Milwaukee said he had a couple hundred 45s, white label promos, and he rattled off a few famous artists. Nothing too spectacular, thought the record dealer on the other end. He had no idea he was about to buy what he now calls the best record collection of his life. The dealer behind @webuyrecordsusa tells the whole story, and it comes complete with a blizzard, a cold storage locker and a lantern.

It was the winter of early 2019. The day he arranged to see the records turned out to be a massive snowstorm, with about two feet of snow in Milwaukee. The seller was kind enough to say he could stomp a path down the alley to his garage if the dealer could make it. He had a four-wheel-drive car, so he went.

The seller led him to a basement. Boxes were on the ground everywhere. He could see label runs, with stacks of Chess and Motown sleeves, ten, twenty, thirty or forty of them in each box. Then he looked up and saw huge stacks of manila envelopes with record company logos. They appeared to be unopened, press mailers from the 1960s, the size you would use to ship promotional 45s.

The First Dip Into the Boxes

He sat down and reached into a random box without looking. Out came Willy Hutch on Dunhill, which he describes as a huge Northern soul record. He reached in again and found multiple copies of L.V. Parker, another great 1960s Northern record. That was enough. He told the seller it was a great collection and he wanted to buy it.

The seller said there was more where that came from. He had been cleaning out another place and bringing records to his house. The dealer made a smart decision: he did not make the deal that night, because he did not want the seller to keep stringing things along as more records turned up. Instead, he told him to go back, get every last 45 and bring them all, and then they would make a deal.

It was a sleepless week. The dealer says he was freaking out, worried he had blown it. Then the seller came back with a handful more boxes, a second blizzard hit on a Sunday afternoon, and they haggled it out. It ended up being the most he has ever paid for a record collection, and he says it was well worth it.

A Furnace, a Stove and a Fair Deal

There was a human side to the deal, too. Because of that second blizzard, the seller’s heat had gone out, and his stove had broken, among other things going wrong around his house. The cash from the sale was a big help to him. The seller told him how he got the records: he had taken them from the curb at a client’s home, where an older woman was throwing them out. They were headed for the garbage or for this man, and luckily he saved them. As the dealer puts it, he got a new furnace and a new stove out of it.

Ninety Minutes in a Cold Storage Locker

With the deal done, the dealer rented a storage locker just for the collection. But he had just welcomed his second son, Theo, so he had almost no time. About once a week, he would get maybe 90 minutes to go through what turned out to be 8,000 to 10,000 45s. The locker was cold and had no electricity, so he brought a lantern and a little portable record player.

What he saw was fascinating. This was the collection of the program director at the legendary Milwaukee AM soul station WAWA, the person who decided what the station played and what it did not. Record companies sent him free copies hoping for airplay, and airplay sells records. The boxes were a snapshot of the mid-to-late 1960s: Northern soul, garage rock, easy listening, pop and jazz, all mixed together.

That mix taught him something. When you look at the music without the filter of time and collector snobbery, he says, those genres were far more connected than people think. The same labels were putting out easy listening, country, garage and soul. Many of the biggest Northern soul records, he points out, have sweeping sections borrowed from easy listening music, and the other way around.

Along the way, he found plenty of prizes. One was a Beatles promo 45 with a picture sleeve, in one of the best conditions he knows of, and the most expensive item in the lot. He also mentions a Chicago soul record he wishes he could buy back. There were also Midwest garage picture sleeves, rare Northern soul records and doubles and triples of favorites, including ten copies of the L.V. Parker.

The Moment That Changed Everything

As he got to the last box, a melancholy feeling came over him. All the records he had dreamed might be in there, but were not, weighed on him. He realized that this was about as good a collection as he would ever find in Milwaukee. Alone in the locker with a lantern, it was a depressing moment.

Then he decided to look at it differently. He could say it was all downhill from here, or he could ask what he could do to make something like it happen again. His answer was to cover more ground than Milwaukee. The most logical step was Chicago, about 100 miles south. He started another business there with a friend named Brian, and he says they have found a lot of good records since. They have gotten close, though not quite to the same level. He calls that moment at the end of the collection pivotal, and an argument for optimism.

If You Find a Box of Old Records

You may never stumble into a basement like this, but plenty of people have old records in a closet. Here is how to handle them:

• Check the labels, not just the covers. The dealer’s treasures were white label promos and small regional labels. Promotional copies can be sought after.
• Keep them in order and in boxes. Store records upright, away from heat and damp. Stacking flat can warp them.
• Look at the whole collection. A single box may hold surprises, as the first random pull did here.
• Do not rush to sell. The dealer made sure he got every last box before he bought. If you are selling, ask a few dealers for opinions and compare offers.
• Be fair. Many of the best stories involve a seller and a buyer who both walked away happy. This one ended with a new furnace and a collection that changed a business.

Next time you see a box of old records on a curb or at a garage sale, take a look. As this story shows, it might be your best day.

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