I've just returned from my local Oxfam shop rather disgruntled. Browsing through their CDS I found a Nimbus recording of three Beethoven Overtures with The Hanover Band and Roy Goodman, priced at £7 for 23 minutes running time.
I politely suggested that this was a bit excessive, and that I did not think that this recording was a special rarity or unobtainable. The reply to this was that if I didn't like the price I need not buy. Neither of the people behind the counter had the foggiest idea about the music, but told me that they had a lady "specialist" who did the valuations, as I suspected by checking prices on Amazon. Another customer supported my argument and took a picture of the offending disc on her phone with the intention of checking the price when she got home
Amazon have a long list of Hanover Band discs, available on CD or as downloads. Goodman recorded all the Beethoven Overtures, so I imagine this single was intended as a sampler. I found it a long way down the list at £7.99 new, so Oxfam were definitely trying to overcharge a second hand item that in any case few would be tempted by.
I regularly buy both CDs and LPs from this shop, and don't usually complain, but the arrogance shown on this occasion gives me pause for thought
As it happens, way back in the sixties before the commercialisation of Oxfam and the huge proliferation of charity shops, I used to help run one of their first shops in Hampstead, so it pains me to see such poor customer care in an enterprise that I still admire.
I politely suggested that this was a bit excessive, and that I did not think that this recording was a special rarity or unobtainable. The reply to this was that if I didn't like the price I need not buy. Neither of the people behind the counter had the foggiest idea about the music, but told me that they had a lady "specialist" who did the valuations, as I suspected by checking prices on Amazon. Another customer supported my argument and took a picture of the offending disc on her phone with the intention of checking the price when she got home
Amazon have a long list of Hanover Band discs, available on CD or as downloads. Goodman recorded all the Beethoven Overtures, so I imagine this single was intended as a sampler. I found it a long way down the list at £7.99 new, so Oxfam were definitely trying to overcharge a second hand item that in any case few would be tempted by.
I regularly buy both CDs and LPs from this shop, and don't usually complain, but the arrogance shown on this occasion gives me pause for thought
As it happens, way back in the sixties before the commercialisation of Oxfam and the huge proliferation of charity shops, I used to help run one of their first shops in Hampstead, so it pains me to see such poor customer care in an enterprise that I still admire.
He said that Bernstein, Karajan and Colin Davis didn't sell. Foyles took those off me.
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