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don't really use the computer that much. They prefer to see an actual printed list in the mail and so

we send them one every month and they bid from that.

BiTS: You find something in somebody else's list then and what then is the process? Do you go and
see it, or do you just ask people questions about it?

JT: You mean if I want to buy something?

BiTS: If you want to buy something, yes.

JT: People call me all the time because they all know that I buy rare records and expensive records
and all that and so they call all the time trying to sell me something. Nine times out of ten, they
don't have anything really great. They have records, but they don't necessarily have great records,
so a lot of stuff I don't even go look at because it's just not what I'm after and I have so much now
with a half a million records on file, so I'm a little bit picky in what I go look at, but people do call
all the time and I do go to a few record shows across the country, to some of the bigger ones and
then I still get calls from people with collections of things they

find in old buildings or old barns, or whatever and
sometimes those are real interesting and sometimes
they're not, but that's how it comes about as far as
being able to buy stuff.

BiTS: Tell me something about I imagine your still
greatest find, 'Alcohol and Jake', Tommy Johnson.

JT: Well, that's not necessarily my greatest find. I
wouldn't say that. That just happens to be
[chuckling] one of the more expensive finds. No,
probably the greatest find was the Paramount
advertising files, which didn't include any records. It
was simply advertising material and photographs, but

it was the original company files, and it was stuff that
nobody had seen ever in 80 years, if then and so I guess I
would consider that my best find of things. As far as records go,
the Tommy Johnson was just simply expensive. Now it's not the only expensive record I've ever
bought, by any means, and it's not the most expensive record I've ever bought. I've bought records

for more than that one [chuckling]. I don't want to go into too much about all that, but there are a
few records that I have paid more money than I paid for the Tommy Johnson, and they weren't
publicly sold. They were privately sold to me. I bought the Tommy Johnson record because it's a
significant record. I already had a copy in beat-up condition. Pretty beat-up condition, but this one
was very nice condition and there was no nice condition copy of that record known to exist until
that one popped up, so I got in, I guess, a bidding situation with that or bidding war, or whatever
you want to call it and I wound up winning it for $37,000, but again, that's not the most expensive

record I've ever bought and probably not the rarest. I have other things here that are one of a kind,
that there are no other known copies of. With that Tommy Johnson, there's two or three other
known copies, it's just that they're not in great shape.

BiTS: Just take a step back for a moment, the Paramount records that you thought was one of the
great things that you found, is that the source of the wonderful pictures that you put in your
calendar every year?