I love flea markets. And used book stores. And used record stores.

I used to love thrift stores, but when everyone else started to like them as much as me, all the fun went away.

Oh, listen to me. Thinking I’m all cool and shit cause I figured out Thrift Stores a long time ago.

Anyways, I love all those places cause I love The Score. And it’s not about making money on The Score…it’s just knowing that you found it, and it’s worth way more than you paid for it. Well, making some extra coin is kinda cool, too.

Scores can be defined so many ways: my Auntie thinks she’s scored big when she finds a cheap Hummel Plate; my pal B thinks he’s scored when he finds a Tiki mug; the Armenians I live next to think all the tsatskes cluttering up their homes cumulate into One Big Score.

My best Score was a self-portrait of Bukowski; I bought it from a dude in a used bookstore for $75 in 1991, and, about a decade later, I eBay’d it for almost $4,000. I’ve scored some really cool shit over the years, but don’t worry…I won’t brag.

OK, just for a sec, and off the top of my head: a Ray Johnson book with an original piece collage laid in for less than a Happy Meal; Burroughs “Call Me Burroughs” on ESP; tons of Titters and Beauty Parades and Wink and a tube of Darkey Toothpaste with paste still in it.

None of my scores come close to this: some scrap metal dealer in England was handed a cup, and it turns out that Score is worth a million. The Dealer got the cup from a dude who got it from grandpa, and he played with the cup when he was a kid.

Cool gift, grandpa.

Dude thought grandpa’s toy gift was a brass cup. He kept it under his bed after he got tired of playing with it, and The Score has been there ever since.

Turns out the brass cup is gold Persian treasure, manufactured before The Big JC walked the Earth.

The best part of the story? Dude used the million dollar cup as target practice with his BB Gun.