Diy | Medonna Arts and Crafts

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Album Paper Piecing

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Album Paper Piecing

What was that thing where you would get like 10 albums for a dollar or something?

Weird question...I doubt I'll get an answer
I don't have much information
all I remember is that this is how I got my cd's when I was a kid in the '90s
My dad would receive these stamp-like things with album covers on them, and you could cut out the cds you wanted and stick them to a piece of paper or something and mail it into some place and they would send you all the albums you wanted for really really cheap...
I know that's vague, but that's all I remember
and it's been plaguing me! haha
I want to know what it was and what the catch was...there had to have been a catch. Right?

Did anyone else do something like this?

I think you might be talking about Columbia House. They were one of the first ones to have a "club" you could join to get music or movies at some absurdly low introductory price, and they often marketed with those stamp catalogues. They were later taken over by BMG, who probably kept some of those same ways of doing things.

As to the "catch", it's kind of complicated. The simplest explanation is, you had to buy a certain number of cd's or movies (Columbia House did VHS too) at "list price" during your membership, which usually meant they'd make their money back on you (and then some) for the "cheap" cd's/tapes.

With movies at least, there was a second money-making scam involved: the company would let you know about a special release movie and gave you a few days to decide whether to buy it or not. If you said yes in the time frame, you got it at a discount. If you said "no" in the time frame, they didn't send it. But if you waited to long to say yes or no, they automatically shipped it and billed you at full list price. Obviously some people would not respond in time and would get stuck with the bill. I don't know if there was an equivalent arrangement with cd's.

Wiki has a more detailed explanation - here's the link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_House#Membership

Dave Gahan Tribute (Depeche Mode). One of the Greatest Performer and Sexiest Man Alive.