Taketo Shimada, 25, whose long black hair and rectangular dark glasses shadowed his face, stood at the entrance to Space Age Bachelor Pad, a record and odds-and-ends store in Greenwich Village, and appealed to the store's owner, Larry Fisher: "Do you have anything for me?"

Fisher's face fell. He had forgotten to bring in his suitcase full of 1940s and '50s hard-boiled fiction paperbacks for Shimada to inspect."I have a very zenlike philosophy on collecting," Fisher said. "I keep it for a while, I cherish it, and then when someone comes in to ask for it, I bring it in and sell it. You know why I do that? Because I've got a lot of stuff."

Space Age Bachelor Pad, named after a slang term for schmaltzy mood music from the '50s and '60s, was formerly Dayton Records, a dusty space where dozens of unsorted records were stored in milk crates and sold for $1 to $3 each. Fisher took over two months ago, and while the tempting prices haven't changed, the records are now on shelves and reasonably neat, divided into genres.

Fisher, 35, who also owns Wild Wants, a similar store, previously sold merchandise at the 26th Street flea market. He buys from private sellers, often purchasing the entire contents of a house, and at storage room auctions.

"A lot of people think I didn't know what I'm doing because I keep my prices low," he said. "My whole thing is turnover. I don't consider this an antique store at all." The back of the shop is reserved for records and the front for toys.

All done scavenging, Shimada, rebounding from his setback, shuffled to the counter with a copy of "Claudine" by Gladys Knight and the Pips with Curtis Mayfield, a record he said he had seen elsewhere for $60. Proudly holding it up, he said, "Here it's two bucks."

- Gia Kourlas

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