The record that started this was in a box at a church sale. Warped sleeve, no inner. Someone had written a name on the label in ballpoint — not the artist's name, a different one. The person who had written it was not the person who made it.

That's the thing I couldn't stop thinking about. Someone owned this record and wrote their name on it so no one would borrow it and not bring it back. They wanted it enough to mark it as theirs. Not for display. Not for investment. For the private act of being able to put it on whenever they needed it.

The record didn't survive because it was discovered. It survived because one person needed it enough to protect it.