R Small wrote:
“Can anyone recomend a good mail order firm that will take orders over the phone? My local record stores, Tower Records and Olson’s Books and Records, have gone out of business and I’m a little leery about giving out my credit card number over the internet.”
I’ve had great luck lately buying used CDs from Amazon.com. I buy the ones listed in “very good” or “like new” condidtion, and bought a lot of CDs for under $5 each. I’ve had no problems, and buy only from sellers with high positive feedback.
Vinnie Kilduff’s “Boys Of Blue Hill” is 100% whistle, with a few guest accompanists. One of the very few recordings made which I’d rate as good as Mary Bergin’s recordings.
Actually, the risk of using your credit card over the internet is actually probably somewhat less than the risk of using it over the phone. Most reputable retailers will encrypt their web connection for payment (using secure http, which you can see in your browser’s address space by looking at an address starting with https://.). In contrast, phone communications are in the clear and not that hard to intercept (Especially if you are using a cell phone or a cordless).
The big risk that the internet brings to credit cards is that the computers in banks that store the credit card info are connected to the internet and are sometimes broken into by hackers… unfortunately this risk exists simply by having the card.
Yeah, I guess I should just get used to ordering over the internet. Have a wide selection that way. I did find one company that takes phone orders and has a decent selection of Irish and folk music–Lark in the Morning. I ordered some CDs by Mary Bergin and Micho Russell.
OK… Thanks to you all, I compiled this list of artists:
Bergin, Mary
Breathnach, Cormac
Finnegan, Brian
Green, Alex
Gunning, Carmel
Hardy, Phil
Hughes, Brian
Kilduff, Vinnie
Madden, Joanie
McHale, Mike
Moloney, Paddy
Novick, Billy
O’Briain, Donncha
O’Donoghue, Brid
Russell, Micho
Ryan, Sean
Smyth, Breda
Whelan, Gavin
I found some reasonably priced ($5 - $10) used CDs on Amazon.com and ordered them. However, I was amazed at the price of some used ones, running up to $70. Some of those may be no longer manufactured new, but others had used prices much higher than new prices! I’ll be adding to my collection in the coming months.
