Purchases Today

[JBS]

I do so admire your dedication! You are starting to remind me of Herbert Somerton Foxwell whose massive collection of business and economic books formed the basis of the famed Goldsmiths'- Kress Library of Economic Literature; he reportedly said:  "I have often regretted not buying a book, but I have never regretted buying one." Substitute "Naïve Vivaldi CD" for book and you have a (likely) Madiel quote! About Foxwell, "Over time he became ever more insatiable, sometimes buying whole collections, and not merely single volumes. He came to regard it almost as a moral fault to miss a desirable purchase." Keep up the good work!   

Hmm, I could certainly adopt that as a motto.

I started buying the series when it was only 15-20 volumes in. I only had to buy one used and another one I had to get from Taiwan: even that early Naive was letting some volumes go out of print.

[JBS]

An order from HBDirect (Arkivmusic's other website)


(I liked their Opus 77 recording)

H/T to @Andre
But why stop at just one?  The last one has a bonus.



This was part of the sale, so of course...

Contents and Erards used on the back

Finally, ordering this DVD turned out to be the cheapest way of getting a recording of this opera because it's 50% off. It does say something about the work when the Tutto Verdi project couldn't come up with a fully staged performance.
(And adding it on got me to the free shipping minimum.)

[Brian]

I like the Maxwell Quartet Haydn a lot and just listened to Opp. 71 and 74 last week. We are in reverse situations, I don't own Op. 77 and may not buy since it's a short opus and I have the Auryn.

The Giacometti Rossini is near certain to join my collection at some point. I wish Channel boxes were presented better; from what I hear they are pretty bare bones on presentation.

[JBS]

I like the Maxwell Quartet Haydn a lot and just listened to Opp. 71 and 74 last week. We are in reverse situations, I don't own Op. 77 and may not buy since it's a short opus and I have the Auryn.

The Giacometti Rossini is near certain to join my collection at some point. I wish Channel boxes were presented better; from what I hear they are pretty bare bones on presentation.

With the folk song material, the Opus 77 CD has a total timing of 60'46".

[hopefullytrusting]

I sometimes wonder why I like this forum so much, and it is because compared to you I am relatively sane when it comes to my purchases, lol.

Love all you lunatics!

[Madiel]

I sometimes wonder why I like this forum so much, and it is because compared to you I am relatively sane when it comes to my purchases, lol.

Love all you lunatics!

I was sane when I started here. It's taken some years to get to be like this.

[Madiel]

Only one purchase today.



Though I've plotted out several more for the next couple of days if things pan out. I'll be navigating a website in French in the morning...

[hopefullytrusting]

Unless there is an absolute steal, these will be my last purchases for a little bit (need to actually listen to the things I buy, lol):

[Madiel]

I've spent nearly all day on You Know What.

It's involved tables of comparisons, currency conversions, and dealing with parallel websites in French and German where sometimes the price for the same thing is radically different. In one case 30 Euros different.

I got so bamboozled that I made what I thought was an expensive slip-up. But it's only going to cost me about 4 dollars, so not so bad. For some reason Armida always slips my mind.

I had one bargain disappear overnight while I was sorting myself out, and now I'm not sure if there is another copy of the same volume for a decent price.

I've bought a few brand new sealed copies, when the price was okay (including when it ended up that sealed was cheaper than second-hand, I'm not sure if that's because some people are asking absurd prices or because some people don't quite know the "value" of their new copy). I've bought some second-hand opera boxes on listings that clearly show/describe the state of the outer cardboard box and it's reasonably good. I've bought some second-hand opera boxes sight unseen on trust when the price was a complete bargain in comparison to any other option, so hopefully that pans out.

Pictures to come when I've cleaned up my last several ones... except for the case where I've asked a combined postage question because eBay does not work well on currency and taxes once there's offers and haggling involved.

[Madiel]

Bought today. Hopefully they all come through and the ones I haven't seen pictures of are decent, I've got some protection on that.


 
 

[Mister Sharpe]

The eclectic results of a visit to a CD (and book) shoppe this afternoon; some are new, some used (how I managed to live all these years w/o du Pré on the Delius Cello Concerto I'll never know)  :

[Mister Sharpe]

The tail-end of my mini-extravagance this afternoon :

[Madiel]

When you make 16 different purchase orders over 3 days, the shipping notifications come in thick and fast. And in some cases I can't tell from the email WHAT is being shipped. Or from where.     

[JBS]

When you make 16 different purchase orders over 3 days, the shipping notifications come in thick and fast. And in some cases I can't tell from the email WHAT is being shipped. Or from where.     

Does the Australian mail have a service like the USPS Informed Delivery?

It includes a dashboard that keeps track of anything with a USPS tracking number addressed to me, and shows locations so at least the "from where" question is answered.
On some occasions I find out about a shipment even before I get the email notifying me about a shipment.

[Madiel]

Does the Australian mail have a service like the USPS Informed Delivery?

It includes a dashboard that keeps track of anything with a USPS tracking number addressed to me, and shows locations so at least the "from where" question is answered.
On some occasions I find out about a shipment even before I get the email notifying me about a shipment.

Yes, the Australia Post app works brilliantly at least for things posted in Australia - it gave me 2 alerts this morning and automatically added the packages to my app because my phone number is in the package information. But even that doesn't help when I have 3 or 4 different packages coming from Brisbane! 

Using it for things posted from overseas is a trifle more inconsistent. However, I now know I've got 3 different packages on their way from France. At least one has a tracking number and I'll see if Australia Post will recognise it.

[Madiel]

Bought today. And I think this might be it for now, everything that's left is from "a bit pricey" to "you've got to be kidding me"**




If everything comes through (and Presto confirmed one I had a question mark over, but I'm sceptical about a couple from Europadisc), that's 54 volumes out of 73 published.

**A lot of the hardest volumes to find are not the oldest ones, but around volumes 30 to 60. I suspect that fewer copies were made as the series went on, and copies tended to go more to people who were dedicated to collecting everything. So there are fewer up for sale.

EDIT: Actually there might be one more, depending on whether a discogs seller gets back to me and tells me good news about the cardboard slipcover...

[Roasted Swan]

Unless there is an absolute steal, these will be my last purchases for a little bit (need to actually listen to the things I buy, lol):

to the bolded - EXACTLY my problem too!!

[Mister Sharpe]

When you make 16 different purchase orders over 3 days, the shipping notifications come in thick and fast. And in some cases I can't tell from the email WHAT is being shipped. Or from where.     

I wondered about that very thing!  There's something to be said about the pleasure of enjoying the chaos of plenitude, but you might want to keep an Excel or other spreadsheet on your orders to keep everything aboveboard.  And congratulations on your wise purchases!

[Madiel]

but you might want to keep an Excel or other spreadsheet on your orders to keep everything aboveboard

It's in Word. 

They were all okay once I could click on some links. But there was a slightly crazy period as Australians were getting started for the day and Europeans were winding down for the evening.

It's now 20 orders in total, with notifications of some sort arriving for 9 of them (including 8 today). And in the list I've got how much each order cost me (including shipping and taxes), and noting what date I ordered and what date they say they shipped (as always, some people tell you they've "sent" the order when they're at the point of creating labels and nothing's actually moved yet). Plus where it's coming from so I've got a better idea of timeframe. So far I've got Australia**, France, the UK and USA. Eventually I should get a couple of things from Germany and Greece.

I've done similar things before, but 20 orders at once is definitely a new peak.

**It's very weird that I've got several orders all coming from Brisbane, and a couple of volumes from Melbourne and that's it. Clearly, Sydney is full of the sort of uncouth people that don't listen to Vivaldi. But I really didn't think Brisbane would do the heavy lifting.

[hopefullytrusting]

to the bolded - EXACTLY my problem too!!

And I am always finding new composers (or new pieces) that I've not heard of that gets in the queue because of convenience (YouTube), lol.

I have resigned myself that I will never scale the mountain of my digital media, lol.