The early birds get the good vinyl.
At least they did at 9 a.m. Saturday when the doors of the Veterans of Foreign Wars building on Main Avenue opened to the first Durango Record Collectors Swap Meet presented by Southwest Sound.
The brainchild of Robert Stapleton, owner of Southwest Sound, the large ballroom at the VFW had a steady stream of both sellers and customers.
“We used to do these out in California, where I’m originally from,” Stapleton said. “I know that there are a lot of record collectors in town, and I figured why not give it a try?
“It’s a good turnout. I have no idea what to expect because it’s the first time we’ve done it,” he said.
Vinyl sales are definitely on the increase, Stapleton said, and while CDs still rule the roost at Southwest Sound, vinyl albums are the only items showing any kind of increase in sales.
Autumn Ward of Durango was in line before the doors opened. And when she left about 45 minutes later, her tote bag was full of new vinyl.
“I have a collection, it’s not very big,” she said. “I got some classic rock and some Ray Charles and Madonna, Buddy Holly, David Bowie. I’m pretty happy with all of them.”
With all the albums she did buy, there were some that were not to be found. “I wanted the Cardigans in particular today, but most of the records were from earlier than that,” Ward said.
Mark Short, lifelong Durango resident who boasts a collection of 16,000 to 17,000 records – so many, in fact, that he stores them in a garage – was at the meet as both a seller and shopper.
“I got my first records from Columbia House. I was 13, which was 1973,” he said. “We had a rental next door, and the people moving in there were from Indiana and going to college, and they decided to move in together. They decided they only needed one turntable, one set of speakers and receiver, and that’s how I bought my first system and started out from there.”
By about 10 a.m., Short had already amassed a stack of about 25 records from artists including Townes Van Zandt, Pink Floyd, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Frank Zappa and The Kinks.
And those seeking vinyl weren’t just Durango residents.
Butch Griffin, who has been collecting albums since the early 1980s and has “more records than he needs,” made the drive up from Aztec to check out the meet.
“I’m here to see what I might be missing,” he said, with no particular album in mind. “I’ll know when I find it.”
And while there are no immediate plans for another swap meet, Stapleton isn’t ruling it out.
“It just depends,” he said. “For me personally, doing it again would depend on having the kind of records to sell. It’s just a lot of fun getting the community together. Everybody here is here because they love records.”
katie@durangoherald.com
