blast from the past
One of the things I love about used items is finding traces of a previous owner. It gives a sense of history to the item. If you're lucky, you'll find out what that person was thinking while they used the item. Take my copy of Stevie Wonder's classic 1973 album, Innervisions , the one with Higher Ground and Living For The City . Picked it up in a $1 record bin in Detroit a few years ago. There are two spots on the jacket where an earlier owner wrote information on when they purchased it, each spot with the same information (symbols noted in square brackets): Jag 5. LP #440. [circle with a dot in the middle] in [Omega symbol] (30th of Omega; 21st of August, 1975). [crescent moon] in [one wavy line on top of another] (just minutes past full). [an "I" with an arrow pointing right through the middle] rising (when purchased, appox. 17:15 E.D.T.) What do the symbols mean? Was the owner heavily into astronomy, astrology or a faith? What were the 439 other