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I've been a pretty avid dollar bin prowler for the past few years until moving to a place that had absolute shit in the dollar bins or none at all. I must admit, I've bought some atrocious looking records in there, for example Killing Joke's first LP with scratches all over it...but it ended up playing fine. I think it's worth the risk a lot of the time. I've also found a decent amount of rare records that were in excellent condition in dollar bins, but I happened to live near a store with a great dollar bin. CDs as well, for example sealed copies of Butthole Surfers' "Psychic...Powerless," Caspar Brotzmann, Dead Machines, and many similar finds. The quality of dollar bins varies greatly however depending on store and location, which I'm sadly learning now. A lot of records that I'd thought of as dollar records are $4-$6 here in no better shape. Some stores just have too much stock and use that as a way to get rid of it. Also, they take chances on stuff they've never heard of. Other stores just buy what they know, so it's great if you want to pay $40 for a Stooges record, but not so much if you're hoping to find any of the more obscure records you've been look for at a cheap price.
For a while that store was a great way for me to take chances on stuff I'd heard about or even that only looked interesting...and I think I actually made money in the long run selling the ones I ended up not liking. On the other hand, it's left me with a backlogue I still haven't gotten through. Maybe it would have been better to buy one great record for every ten dollar-bin records, but some of the stuff I ended up coming across was worth it for the discovery. I'm not as picky about condition though...I'm at a point where I'm moving around too much to keep stuff in pristine condition, and my criterion for the vinyl itself has always been how well it played...some of those big white surface scratches are almost inaudible. I'd drive myself crazy worrying too much about condition, half of the 'new' mailorder stuff is a far cry from mint. I'm also willing to sell or give something away if I make a mistake. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that all dollar bins aren't just a bunch of rotting Kenny Loggins records.
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