What are the honest odds?
Low, and that's the point rather than the problem.
The bins are full of the records that sold in the largest numbers, because those are the records the most people owned and therefore the most people eventually donated. Ten copies of the same three albums in one shop is normal. Nothing has gone wrong.
What makes digging work is volume and patience. You aren't looking for one legendary record, you're flipping a few hundred sleeves and expecting almost all of them to be ordinary. The one that isn't will be something you weren't looking for, in a box somebody priced by weight, and you'll find it because you kept flipping after the boring part. Anyone selling you a shortcut is selling you the wrong thing.
Which records are worth looking for?
Patterns, not titles. Learn these four and you can read any bin in the country.
Original pressings behind familiar covers. The single most useful habit is checking the pressing on albums you think you already know. A famous cover has been printed on that album for fifty years, so the sleeve looks identical whether the disc inside is from the first run or from a reissue pressed last year. The label and the run-out are where the difference lives, and half the people flipping past it never turn it over. First pressing vs reissue is the full version of this check.
Small labels and private presses. Records made in small numbers by people paying for the pressing themselves, local folk, brass bands, church choirs, jazz groups selling copies at gigs. Most are ordinary. The exceptions are sought after precisely because so few exist and almost none survived in good condition. The tell is a label you've never seen with an address printed on it rather than a company logo.
12 inch singles and promos. The 12 inch bin gets skipped by people who buy albums, which is exactly why it's worth a look. Extended mixes, dub versions and remixes that never made it onto an album live there. Promo copies, usually marked as not for resale and sometimes with a plain white label, were pressed in far smaller numbers than the commercial release.
Anything you can't place. A sleeve with no barcode, a label design you don't recognise, a language you can't read, a catalogue number in an unfamiliar format. These are the records that got priced as filler because nobody in the shop could look them up either.
What separates a common copy from a scarce one?
Small print, mostly. The differences are real and they're all readable in the shop.
The label. Company logos change, and record labels changed theirs regularly. The design in the middle of the disc, the way the company name is set, the colour of the label and where the text sits around the spindle hole are all dated features. Learning the label variants for two or three companies you buy from often is a better use of an evening than memorising titles.
The catalogue number. Printed on the label and usually on the sleeve. Prefixes tell you the country and often the era, and a number that doesn't match the sleeve is worth a second look.
The run-out groove. The etched or stamped text in the smooth band between the last track and the label is the closest thing a record has to a birth certificate. Matrix numbers, lacquer cut letters and the initials of the engineer who cut it all live there, and they distinguish pressings that look identical everywhere else. How to read matrix numbers explains what each part means.
Sleeve details. Textured or laminated finishes, gatefolds that later editions dropped, a printed inner sleeve, a poster or insert that should be there. Missing inserts change what a copy is, and their presence in a charity shop bin is genuinely random.
How do you check a candidate on the spot?
Condition first, pressing second, in that order every time. Getting excited about a pressing before you've looked at the disc is how people carry home records they never play.
Get the disc out and into the light. Tilt it so a light source skims across the surface. Hairlines you can see but not feel are usually fine. Anything your fingernail catches will be audible. Check both sides, and check the first track of each side in particular, because that's where a stylus that was dropped badly leaves its marks.
Grade it before you decide. Say the grade to yourself in the standard terms rather than in hope. Vinyl record grading explained has the scale and what each grade permits.
Check the sleeve on its own. Seam splits, ring wear, water damage, mould spots on the inner. A record and its sleeve get graded separately.
Then read the label and the run-out. Twenty seconds with your phone torch. If it's an early pressing, you'll know. If it's a reissue, it may still be a record you want, and there's no shame in that.
Check whether you already own it. In a shop, with a sleeve you half recognise, this is harder than it sounds. Stop buying records twice covers why memory is unreliable here.
A note on what things are listed for. Prices you see online are what somebody is asking on a given day for a specific pressing in a specific condition, not a fixed value, and a copy two grades down is a different proposition entirely. Treat every number you look up as a rough signal about one pressing, and never as a fact about the record in your hand.
Is there an etiquette to digging?
There is one, and it costs nothing to follow.
Put everything back the way you found it, facing the same direction, in the same divider. Keep your bag and your coat out of the aisle so two people can dig at once. Don't stand over somebody working through a crate, waiting. If you pull a stack out to go through properly, go through it and reshelve it rather than abandoning it on the floor. Ask before you dig through boxes that are clearly not out yet, and take no for an answer.
And buy something. Shops that let you spend an hour in the cheap bins are running on thin margins and goodwill, and the good ones are worth keeping open.
What counts as a good find?
A record you play. That's the whole scoreboard.
The best afternoons in the bins don't end with something scarce, they end with three records you'd never have chosen from a list, one of which becomes a favourite for reasons you can't explain to anybody. That's the return. The scarce find is a story you tell later, and it's fun, but it isn't the reason the habit sticks.
Whatever comes home, get it onto your shelf the same day. Cratemint is free on iPhone: anything with a barcode gets scanned and lands on your shelf with the cover full size, and the older pressings that make up most of a good dig get added by search. Anything the catalogue doesn't hold becomes a ghost entry with what you know written on it, so nothing you find is ever lost. Then log the spin, and the stats will quietly tell you which of your finds you kept playing. Cataloguing the day you buy is also what makes the next dig work, because your shelf is in your pocket while you flip.
So tell us the best thing you've ever pulled out of a cheap bin. Not the scarcest. The one you still play.
Cratemint is free on iPhone. Every feature, for everyone.
Common questions
Are there valuable records in charity shops?
Occasionally, and that's the honest answer. The cheap bins are mostly full of the records that sold in the largest numbers, which is why they're cheap. The finds that do turn up are usually early pressings of familiar albums, small label releases, or promos that were never sold in shops, and they turn up because whoever donated the box had no reason to look.
What records should I look for in the bins?
Patterns rather than titles. Original pressings hiding behind a familiar cover, releases on small or private labels, 12 inch singles and promos, and anything where the label design or the run-out text doesn't match the reissue you've seen a hundred times. Titles come and go, but those patterns hold.
How can I tell a first pressing from a reissue while I'm standing in the shop?
Check the label first, then the run-out groove. Label design, the company name and the catalogue number narrow it down, and the etched text between the last groove and the label usually settles it. It takes about twenty seconds once you know what you're reading.
Does condition matter more than rarity?
For most records, yes. A scarce pressing with a deep scratch across the first track and a split sleeve is a scarce pressing nobody wants to hear. Grade the copy in your hand before you get excited about which pressing it is, because condition is the thing that can't be fixed later.
What is the etiquette of digging through the bins?
Put records back the way you found them, keep your bag out of the aisle, and don't hover over someone else's crate waiting for them to finish. If you pull a stack to look through, work through it and reshelve it rather than leaving it on the floor. Shops remember both kinds of digger.
Is it worth digging if I'm not trying to find something scarce?
That's the best reason to dig. The cheap bins are where you take a chance on a sleeve you like, a name you half recognise, or a genre you've never bought before. A record you wouldn't have chosen and now play constantly is the actual return on an afternoon of digging.