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My collection of Sarah McLachlan CDs—great voice and great recordings.

The Beatles' butcher album first stage pressing for $5 at an estate sale back in 1982. I really love people who don't know what they have!

It was a cut-out digital master called Marbles by a group called Software in 1981. Not at all like the band that is now called Software. Gordon Giltrap's Perilous Journey comes in a close second. Why wouldn't anyone buy cutouts? Used, I can understand—sometimes they turn out to be in lousy shape, but a cutout is the last pass before it goes into oblivion. Some of my best LPs were cutouts.

Regine Crespin.

Just picked up the three Mandrake Memorial CDs used for $7 each. Can't find them anywhere and just stumbled across them the other day. A pleasant surprise.

Black Sabbath: Live At Last.

In 1968, I found a perfect copy of the 1962 or so recording of Wagner's Parsifal, conducted by Hans Knappersbusch. Fine sound and a strong cast made for many wonderful hours of listening over the years. It was the price that really sparkled though: two bucks per disc. There it sat among all those country and pop albums just waiting for me. I call it an act of God.

Good used music usually seems like a needle in a haystack to me. It's mostly undesirable or scratchy vinyl or CDs, and I've got as much of that as I need. My best bargains seem to come when record stores go out of business, which looks like it is happening with disturbingly increasing frequency.

Tough one, but I'd have to pick the shrink-wrapped copy of the extremely rare Wunjo by Giles Reaves that I've seen go for as high as $40 on eBay, for $3 in a pawn shop in Phoenix, AZ.

A friend whose a factory Rep found a new in the box Sleeping Beauty moving coil phono cartridge. He sold it to me for $50. Now thats a friend!

Anything clean at 50 cents or under is a great find.

Dan Dyer's (vocalist for Breedlove) first solo release, Of What Lies Beneath, for $4.88 at CDNow used/new marked out barcode!

A whole box of 40 Largo Records (a German label ) for only $72 including shipping on e-Bay.

I bought a used Dave Mathews band disc for $3. I think it was an excellent buy. My best find(s) are any new CD that has more than one or two listenable selections. The last dozen or so new purchases have resulted in maybe 15 selections worth listening to. Classical music is always a good find, as I can generally play and listen to the entire CD.

The one that comes to mind first is a copy of Harry Belafonte's Belafonte at Carnegie Hall: The Complete Concert (Living Stereo LSO-6006). I'm not sure if it's an original pressing (how do you tell?), but it sure is mint! There are only one or two ticks to be heard from the four sides. Nothing that a proper cleaning couldn't fix, and I could almost use the cover as a mirror it's so well preserved. When I picked it up at a yard sale, it still had the cellophane on it! All this for a staggering .25 cents. Canadian!

Actually, it was the old Warner/Reprise loss leader samplers from the sixties. Where else would I have heard Captain Beefheart? And I got 'em used.

A pristine sealed copy of the Stills/Young Band LP. Wheeeee! Four bucks Canadian!

Ofra Haza's Yemenite Songs was the first or second CD I bought, and still one of my faves. She had an amazing set of pipes.

Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, hands down. By the way,(no pun intended) I ONLY buy used/cutouts.

I am a addict when it comes to looking for used vinyl in thrift shops, at flea markets, retail strores, or any other source I can find. I have now aquired a somewhat large collection. There are alot of "bests" in my collection, so it is difficult to pick one. But one that does come to mind is the copy of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars that I found at an indoor flea market I have been haunting since last fall. Of course this is a well-known album to many but for some reason I had never heard it before. What a great album. After the first time I listened to it, I wondered why it took me all these years to pick up a copy. Not only was the music great, but it was a fantastic recording. Some "audiophile" albums I have listened to have not sounded as good. Buy a copy if you don't already have one. I waited far too many years to do so.

Several months ago, before I had read up on the recent Mercury Living Presence reissues, I was on my knees under a fold-out table table in terrible light shuffling through boxes of LPs in a junk shop and I found several near-mint Mercurys: The Tchaikovsky 1812, Chadwick Symphonic Sketches, and Rachmininov Piano Concerto #2, at $3 or $4 each. Like a complete idiot, and in ignorance of its importance, I passed up the Leroy Anderson Vol.2 because of the lite titles and corny cover art. ARGH! I may also have passed up the Starker Cello set, but I have to be remembering that wrong, yes? Please tell me I am remembering that wrong, I did not see the Starker set there! It can't be.

I had been looking for a good copy of RCA LSC-2473, the Brahms String Quartets with the Festival Quartet, for a long time. Copies regularly sold on eBay for over $100. Then, one day I opened my browser, and there it was: Buy It Now, $12. Sold! It turned out to be a very nice copy, too, one of the cleanest early RCAs I've ever owned.

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My first good amp was an Aragon 2004 (almost brand-new) bought from a high-end store at 60% of list. Great sound - good to look at.

I worked in a record store in late seventies and early eighties, and sold a lot of cutouts on vinyl but was just reminded of one the other day. They played here. The Vibrators' Pure Mania. Great punk! Another other would be Robert Gordon's Rockabilly Boogie.

SOME OF MY FAVORITE BARGINS OR CUTOUT BINS IS ALL THE LASER DISCS I FOUND AT A VERY LOW PRICE. THEY ARE STILL AROUND TOO.

John Simon's second LP The Journey for 49¢ at Woolworth;s on Long island. Honorable mention: Bunny Wailer's Blackheart Man for 79¢ at the EJ Korvette going-out-of- business sale in King of Prussia, PA.

Joe Jackson's Live in New York. Fantastic album for $7 (used).

An RCA Shaded Dog Scheherazade (LSC-2446) with 1S 1S stamp numbers. Paid $1 at a flea market. Nobody believes me until they see it.

I'm one of the lucky ones who found a copy of It's a Beautiful Day at a tiny little record store back in college around 1977. It was near-mint perfect and I got it for $2. Now, worth quite a bit more. I cleaned it, played it once to check it out, then simultaneously copied it to both cassette and reel-to-reel, vacuum sealed it, and there it has stayed ever since.