Minnesota Vinyl Collector Scores 100,000 Decades-Old Mint-Condition Albums
Imagine being a vinyl collector and discovering the entire stock of a record store that closed its doors in 1984. That’s what happened to Bob Sheely, the owner of the Hopkins, Minnesota record store Mill City Sound. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Sheely discovered 100,000 unopened records in a West Texas basement somewhere, immediately spending $100,000 to buy them all up. “It took everything I had to keep it together,” says Sheely. He’s had to build a whole lot of shelving in his own store’s basement just so he’d have someplace to put them all. And while there’s plenty of crap in there, there’s also a whole lot of treasure. Sheely says that he’s not going to start selling them just yet; he’ll have to take time to curate them. He also wants to expand his own store’s layout. And right now, you can keep up with Sheely’s progress on Mill City’s Facebook page.