Your biggest (gasp) Mosiac order?

[tranemonk]

We should hide all these from any spying spouses....

Just placed my last order of the year... incl... Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions, Johnny Richards, Duke Pearson and Patton... $300... (NOW I'm really done... I'm not looking at their web page until Jan. 1 2007!)

[jazzbo]

My biggest one was a long time ago. . . at one point the Quebec and Green and McLean and a few others were all going into "Running Low" and they sent out a little booklet of "endangered sets" and I think I ordered all of them at once. It cleaned out my then meager bank account and my wife wasn't happy when she discovered it but she got over it. That "getting over it" paved the way for my eventual fiscal insanity in the next decade. . . .

[king ubu]

Hmmm, my first order was just the TKM set. Then I got hooked. Being in highschool back then, I had some jobs during holidays, and usually determined what amount of money I'd spend on jazz CDs... I proceeded to make two or three orders that had each around 6 boxes in them - but back then, there were many more smaller ones (Jacquet, Fuller, Thad Jones). Anyway, those first orders included (going from memory): Basie Live (Studio was gone already), Hamilton, Giuffre, Jacquet, Woody Shaw, Hill, McLean, Rivers, Ellington Capitol... this was also before I had a credit card, so the expenses for those annoying money orders were pretty high and I decided to do larger orders. Custom guys were not eyeing things that closely back then (late nineties) and believed the scaled down slips Mosaic included, so I was paying much less than I would today, for such larger orders. Also I always went for the surface shipping option (less damaged jewel cases - once they "forgot" that I sent money, several hundred $$ from a student (!)... and sent the order by airmail and almost all jewel cases from the TrueBlue part of the order were completely cracked and missing all teeth etc... so surface was my choice, always).

Nowadays, with customs much more annoying (they once even hold one package back and made me send in the "true" slip from Mosaic - suckers!), Mosaic no longer offering the cheap surface shipping, and money generally used more for living than for leisure, my habits changed a bit and I usually only get sets that are running low, nowadays. If there's two at the same time (like the Vee Jays), I get two, otherwise I get one at the time (O'Day, Rich/James etc). And I even managed to let a couple go without buying them (Herman, Freshmen).

[king ubu]

Oh, and let me add that I'm very happy I made those huge orders! For a long time, I had to spend almost no money on Mosaic, since I got the running low ones earlier... good move, for me, since after high school ended and I started to study at university, money was more than short for a time.

[brownie]

My first orders were the biggest ones. Did not keep traces of the various shipments but I had the packages sent in from Mosaic to my company's head offices in New York back in those vinyls days. A friend there simply added the boxes to the daily mail shipments to Paris.

This enabled me to get those Mosaic sets in less than a week and it bypassed custom duties.

One package would have the Basie Roulette studio box, one of the Commodore boxes and another set!

The system lasted for several years to everyone's satisfaction (specially mine until the computers took over

[sidewinder]

The one which cost me most in custom duties (they must have done it by weight ) was the vinyl shipment for Miles 'Silent Way', 'Bitches Brew' and 'Complete 60s Quintet' boxes. I think I might have squeezed a Select in as well, can't remember..

Ah - now I remember. I squeezed the Stanley Turrentine box in as a filler !

Edited June 16, 2006 by sidewinder

[BeBop]

I suppose it would have been "The Complete Mosaic Records Jazz and Blues Reissues on Mosaic Records" set. What the heck, I never wanted to have kids anyway.

[king ubu]

I suppose it would have been "The Complete Mosaic Records Jazz and Blues Reissues on Mosaic Records" set. What the heck, I never wanted to have kids anyway.

[Ron S]

(NOW I'm really done... I'm not looking at their web page until Jan. 1 2007!)

Then you're going to miss Moaic's announcement next month of "The Complete Wynton Marsalis Sessions: Any Label, Any Time, Anywhere," with a special reduced price for those who preorder by the end of August.

[tranemonk]

Now you HAD to go and tell me that right???? Oh well Who NEEDS a good credit rating anyway!! (And FYI Ron... I suspect I have a few Mosaic won't have...!!!! )

(NOW I'm really done... I'm not looking at their web page until Jan. 1 2007!)

Then you're going to miss Moaic's announcement next month of "The Complete Wynton Marsalis Sessions: Any Label, Any Time, Anywhere," with a special reduced price for those who preorder by the end of August.

[Ken Dryden]

I just imagine a cartoon with this caption:

"And this wall of shelves is for my Mosaic jazz boxed set collection, that's why there isn't any furniture in my house..."

[sidewinder]

I just imagine a cartoon with this caption:

"And this wall of shelves is for my Mosaic jazz boxed set collection, that's why there isn't any furniture in my house..."

How true !

[andybleaden]

Oh boy I remember mine.....it was when I had finished selling up the LPs and had enough left over to go bonkers at Mosaic! ( I had stashed mosaic fund away as I had so much US cash from Ebay sales (pre Paypal in the UK then !) that I sent it across in a small envelope and also got one repeat buyer to pay me in credit at mosaic .....so I thought I had been strict enough for too long and got the Andrew Hill, Hank Mobley, Elvin Jones and I think one other (cannot remember) ...all I do remember was selling the LPS had been a real and I mean real loss. So they were ordered up and the very nice people put total value $20 and they snuck in past customs Nya nya nya na na!

What a lovely box that was!

Never felt as rich since......the thought of sending several bundles of cash now gives me the shakes...uninsured....I also sent similar amounts of $ to Mundo jazz and Early records in Japan...in a magazine!!!

We have come a long way with Paypal and the like really since then ( i never even had a credit card then!)

[Rooster_Ties]

This past February I bought two of the larger sets (Mobley and Turrentine), plus four Selects (Amy, Patton, Tolliver, and Carmell) -- all on the same order. I also got half-a-dozen Conns on the same order, because they were $5 off on each one when you bought one or more of the big Mosaic boxes. The total damage was something a shade over $400, if I remember right.

I'm sure I won't buy another Mosaic set of any kind for at least 2 or maybe even 3 years.

[Dan Gould]

I guess I've been fortunate in that I've always gotten the Mosaics I've wanted without ever feeling like I was running out of time and had to order more than one at a time. In fact, I am not certain but its possible that I never actually have ordered from Mosaic - I've just made a habit of asking for a Mosaic box each Christmas, so Mom is the one who's done the ordering.

I guess the biggest order would be the one my Mom made a couple of Christmases ago - I asked for the Gerald Wilson and a Select but for some reason they also shipped the Mulligan CJB. I felt so guilty about how much Mom had spent that I insisted on sending the Mulligan back, even though she was prepared to pay for it.

[TheMusicalMarine]

Back in June 2004, I, in my foolish youth, succumbed to a significant amount of frenetic pre-deployment purchasing. Along with maybe 1200 dollars spent at Tower, I bought and recieved from Mosaic in the span of several days the following:

Complete HRS

JJ Johnson

Kenton Presents

Elvin Jones

Johnny Hodges

Joe Pass

Johnny Smith

Shank/Cooper Select

Brookmeyer Select

Needless to say, I'm happy with the sets but that was a bit too much to digest at once, and I've more or less laid off Mosaic since then.

[kh1958]

Ordering each volume of The Complete Commodore set (one at a time).

[B. Goren.]

My first Mosaic order was the biggest: Rivers, Andrew Hill & Trisiano-Marsh-Konitz.

If I remember correctly, it was in 1997.

Since this order, too many $$$ exchanged hands between me and Mosaic....

[mikeweil]

IIRC my biggest was three at a time - Sam Rivers, Blue Mitchell, and Chico Hamilton - to get them before it was too late.

What ubu said about Swiss customs now applies to Germans, too ...... will order only one set that is an absolute must at a time, when they are running low. The Mobley, I suppose, will be the next.

[BruceH]

My biggest single order came to $700. Never again!

[Chuck Nessa]

My largest order was the first. Lps of Albert Ammons/Meade Lux Lewis, Thelonious Monk and the Gerry Mulligan quartet with Chet Baker.

Alway bought one at a time after that.

[paul secor]

I don't think that I've ever ordered more than one at a time - that's all the listening I can handle in one period. So - I guess that makes my biggest order the Miles & Gil set - 11 LPs in one box.

[LAL]

Coming up - 11 Selects, a single, the Columbia small groups and a dozen or so booklets of OOP sets.

Should I throw in the AEC Nessa set from True Blue?

[Hot Ptah]

I ordered the two Basie Roulette sets (live and studio) and the T Bone Walker set, in one order, with the permission of my wife.

[woofy]

In 2003 I purchased Johnny Smith, TKM and Stitt in one haul. For some reason I had too much money that month.