[78-L] Gene Autry Okeh set, Estate Sale protocol...

[Glenn Longwell]

The last couple of weekends have been good to me with finding a lot of records.  Not all worth buying but there seems to all of a sudden be more to choose from lately.  Comes and goes I guess.  Luck of the draw as they say.

I picked up a small collection today that had the Gene Autry Okeh K-1 Cowboy Songs set.  There was also several more Gene Autry Okehs in 10" binders.  Since the set doesn't say which records belong in it, which 4 catalog numbers originally came with this set?  

So here's my question about protocol at an estate sale (garage sale, tag sale, yard sale, whatever you want to call it).  When I first got to the estate sale today the first thing I saw was a cart full of records, mostly LPs with a few 78s.  The guy says he has a bunch more back in the garage.  So I follow him, he mentions something to his mother, who's house he's clearing out, and I chat with her for a minute before searching out this guy who's pulling records out of the garage.  Somehow, I didn't take full notice of everything I walked by as I went from the top of his driveway all the way to the garage.  Five minutes later after I decide to make an offer on all the records and he accepts I take note of what some guy agreed to a price on ($10) and was about to hand money over for.  It was a small key wind cylinder machine.  Pretty sure it was a Columbia Q, along with a horn.  I was pretty mad at myself for making such a "rookie" mistake and
 missing it.  So here's the moral dilemma I was thinking about.  What if I cut it on that transaction and offered the woman taking the money that I would pay more, after they agreed on a price and he was about to hand her money?  Has this ever happened to anyone?  I didn't do it and would hope that no one ever does that to me so I'm thinking I did the right thing.  Any thoughts?
I talked with the guy I bought the records from that I wished I had seen that and he even said I should have bid higher on it and started a bidding war.  He had no clue what it was. Then he took me into his basement and showed me a Victor Granada machine that was in bad shape so was basically a parts machine.  There's still another floor to go through and have another sale and he thinks there may be more so I may not have completely lost out on possible interesting phonograph stuff.

Thanks for letting me ramble on.

Cheers,
Glenn


www.majesticrecord.com