Collecting and purging

If you've been following along over the last few months, you'll notice something of a theme to my posts. Restoration and purging. Most people who move on occasion tend to rid themselves of the stuff that clutters up their lives each time they change locales - easier to get it gone than to bother packing and moving it only to have to contend with it at the new place.

I haven't moved.

Period.

When I moved out of Mom and Dad's. I moved here and here I've stayed. Hence, when it was required of me to "move out" over the summer to refinish the hardwood floors, it was my prime opportunity to do that all-important purging. It's taken a great deal more time than I had anticipated to move in again - more importantly, to get settled. If you've never done it, let me tell you it takes a great deal of time, energy and mental focus to methodically go through every scrap, every bit and to save only that which is of value enough to keep. In the end, it's worth it, every minute of it.

I may have mentioned it in previous posts, but I don't remember posting photos... I collect vintage audio. Specifically, pieces that have contributed to my life in some way. Each piece I have has a story that relates to my life.

A few weeks ago I was poking around on E-Bay. I've used other local buy-and-sell services, but I've never bid on E-Bay. I thought I'd give it a try. One night I was surfing around and found an inexpensive piece. I thought it might make the perfect test pilot piece. I set up a Pay Pal account, placed a bid and waited out the six days until the end of the run. I won the bid and paid for my piece.

Today, it arrived in the mail - my first E-Bay purchase: $11.00!


The seller noted that they package their items really well and that it may affect the shipping cost slightly, but that they've had great success with buyers receiving their items undamaged.





Inside the flap, before I even got to the packaging, was a letter thanking me for my purchase and reminding me to please re-visit the E-Bay site to rate the seller. Love that marketing!



Several layers in, here it is!



Ta Da! One JVC KD-A33 Cassette Deck! I know this excites you!! "A cassette deck??", you ask, "but... why???"



Remember the vintage audio theme? Shown here is another piece I bought earlier this year on Kajiji.

And remember that I said each piece I collect has something of a history with me? This particular cassette deck is the one I first learned to DJ with back in... perhaps I'd best not say...

OK, 1982. Yes, back then we used cassettes. "What's a cassette??", you ask? You can look it up here if you don't know. Back then I was getting my feet wet in the audio world. The fellow who owned the DJ company that I would later model mine after owned these JVC cassette decks, or more accurately, the KD-A55 which also had lights behind the cassette door and little LEDs in the play, pause, record and FFWD and REW buttons, otherwise, identical.

The Yamaha EM 200 mixer shown here is also from the same era. It is the mixer I learned to mix on when I was 12. I found this one on Kajiji back in January. A fellow who lives in Winnipeg had it and agreed to bring it to Calgary on his way through to Fernie to go skiing. The transaction went down in the Mountain Equipment CO-OP parking lot at 9:00 PM the day after I returned from my coconut cream pie adventures in B.C.

I'm currently restoring a set of speakers that were matched to the Yamaha mixer. Eventually the house will be outfitted with speakers in each room, all vintage pieces.

To everything there is a story.