|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
96.244.93.88
Hi all,
A lot has changed and I am thinking about changing a lot of things. One of them is selling all the vinyl. Oh, I know the heresy, what sacrilege all that stuff. I have about 4000+ records, a bit over half classical, the other half is rock and jazz not much folk music and other stuff but a sprinkling here and there. Looking for advice from others who have been down this road. Where is the best place to list it, how to list it, how to price it? It has been a long and interesting journey but like every journey, there are forks in the road.
Thanks
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Follow Ups:
Anecdotal: I tried to sell my parents' collection of lps to a record store. I offered them for free and they declined. Country, 50's popular, classical. About 100 of em.
I have been selling them one by one at a flea market for $1 each. Sometimes I feel lucky and ask $2 each, and get it!
There is a high volume record dealer at the same flea market who wants to buy my whole collection, about 100 records now, for 50 cents each. Not enough. I'd rather sell them at my flea market table for $1 each, plus it gives me something to do, as a retired dude with time on his hands.
I definitely research any record online if I think it might be valuable. Sometimes they are going for $10 plus shipping on eBay, but it's just not worth my time and energy to do that.
Good luck! I'm glad I only have about a hundred left, lol.
And I'm keeping about 70 for myself since I like them. So I guess my inventory is more lie 170 at this point.
Interesting topic.
In about 1 1/2 year I have to move temporarily (for a couple of years)( back to the US for a coupe of years, and it would be great if I could leave my current collection here in Spain, and have another 'established' collection in the US.
Maybe an idea I need to peruse once I move back to the US.
Record your music to a hard drive and carry back and forth when you travel. You could have physical media in both places but access to all your music where ever you go.
Good idea.
However, I have never digitalized any of my vinyl and wouldn't know how to do so. Maybe someone can point me into the right direction.
My other thought was to move all or most of my music to the US and use a Streamer in Spain.
I connect the recorder to the tape out of my preamp, insert a CDRW into the recorder, then play an album side. I can usually get 3 or 4 album sides per CDRW. First time do just one album on one disk - after awhile you figure out how many CDRWs you want to fill before ripping them to the PC and making albums out of them.
I think you could use CDRs and break into tracks and label song titles from the recorder if you wanted. Then use a CD marker to write the title onto the disk. I don't need or want the CD so I use CDRW (reusable CDs) and do all my work on the PC. Either way once you figure out how you want to work, and get used to doing it, it'll probably take 5-10 minutes more than the time to play a record to complete the digital version.
If I had it to do again (or when this recorder wears out) I'll be getting a recorder that uses a solid state media or one that connects via my network/ethernet.
Thanks for the thumbs up and idea.
So with that I still would have a lot of CD-RW next to my 1500 CDs.
Going with a HD recorder probably would be preferable. Would need to see which of my 1500 LPs I would want to 'carry around' with me.
I'm sorry I just assumed you had vinyl too!You'll record your vinyl to CDR (record once only) if you want CDs of them. Use CDRWs (re-recordable) if you want the digitized vinyl on the hard drive without a CD copy. A CDRW costs much more than CDR.
My digital library has both my CD and vinyl collections in it. I rarely ever use my CD player. Just don't need it - in fact IMO music on the hard drive sounds better than music played directly off the CD. I made over a 1000 CDR copies as backups when I first started out but now I'm using 4 different hard drives (2 external) as backups
And yes you can set up a laptop/desktop system that can act as a vinyl recording device if you want. The possibilities are endless almost.
I think I've ripped about 3000 LP sides off 30 CDRWs. Only 4 of those CDRWs are still "working".
Edits: 01/03/22
yeap, got about 1500 CDs and 1500 LPs.Best will be to pick the LPs and CDs I am more likely to listen, and then get them on a HD.
Any good suggestions of a decent Recorder with an HD, or external HD?
Or is there a good way to use my laptop and an External HD?
Edits: 01/04/22
I don't know - this is actually the 3rd CD recorder I've used in this adventure.
There are ADCs available that should provide a PC/laptop interface and sw (maybe even free) that could be used to capture that input to a HD.
Personally I'd like to have a component in the audio system that recorded to solid state media then interfaced with my PC (to transfer the recording) so I could do all the tagging on the workstation and librarian duties on the workstation.
Yea I started with my favorite bands/recordings first then expanded into an effort to get it all into the music library. It's been a multi-year effort so recording your favorites makes sense and it might be as far as you want to go with it.
You might want to try this post over in PC audio if you haven't done so yet.
Thanks for pointing me into the right direction.
Will post this over on the PC Audio site
Are you willing to invest time in selling your collection or do you want one person to show up, offer a single price for everything, and be done ?
The first step is to decide how much time you want to devote to selling your LPs. You basically have 3 choices, each with a different potential outcome.
If you want to sell everything to a single buyer, I would create a list of dealers/resellers within a single day's drive of your location. Then create a basic list of what you have, including visual estimates of condition. Then contact each dealer and invite them to inspect your collection, and give you a bid. Best bid wins. Understand that dealers will bid at a price allowing for profitable resale. Your profile indicates you live in the Mid Atlantic region. I suspect you have -a lot- of dealers within a 3-6hr drive of your location.
Or, as another person suggested, seek a consignment seller who will sell valuable LPs on your behalf. You will receive more in this scenario than from a wholesale bidder. This person may or may not inspect your collection. They will likely rely upon you to identify and ship valuable LPs to them. They will list, sell, ship then send you an agreed % of the net proceed
Or, sell each LP by the piece. This will result in the highest net proceed to you, but will entail the greatest investment of your time.
Personally- I would go through your collection and segregate your LPs by value. $1, $5, $10, and $20+. Anything worth $20+ should be sold online- either Discogs, FB, Instagram, or Ebay. Ebay will likely result in the highest proceed. It should take about 30min to photograph, process and list a single LP.
Shipping: a 1-5 LP mailer can be purchased in bulk for about 50 cents each. A single LP can be sent via media mail for about $3 per LP in shipping cost....so your cost to ship a single LP is minimum of $3.50. You can include shipping in the sale of more valuable LPs- this will help you attract buyers. Or add $3.50-$5.00 in shipping cost to each sale.
Are you comfortable interacting with groups of people at this time ? If so, then you have some options.
Record Fairs and multi vendor Record Sales have started to come back again. Find one in your area, and plan to take 1000 or so LPs with you; an assortment of $1-$5-$10 LPs. You will likely sell all or most in a single day, and meet some great people who may have interest in additional bulk sales. You will also meet some professional/ semi professional sellers who may be interested in purchasing the remainder of your collection.
Are you comfortable with individuals and small groups coming to your driveway ? If so, you can schedule and execute a pop up record sale ! Basically this is a LP only garage sale. Place ads in craigslist, and local FaceBook pages announcing the sale, and then ask interested parties to contact you directly for the address. Address is disclosed the night before, then removed from content the next day after the sale. You will sell much more than you expect, and again meet great people, some of whom may be interested in bulk sales. I have done this several times, and it is a great way to spend a Saturday morning. I have -always- ended the day with several hundred dollars in my pocket.
Good Luck- wish I were close to you or I would make an offer for everything !
with a wee bit of fine tuning and some "How to properly pack
LP(s) for shipping" we should add this to the vinyl FAQ since
it's a frequent topic. Well done!
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
nt
My recommendation is to put out feelers on your local grapevine to identify anyone looking to purchase records. He came to my home for an afternoon, looked through my lps (only interested in rock and jazz), said Wow! I need to get more money. He came back and gave me more than I ever imagined. I'm happy and have reacquired a few as new releases which has worked out fine to me.
OTOH, there really is no market for classical lps. I suppose you could donate them to your local library for one of their fund-raising sales.
Sim
Discogs for the less valuable ones
ebay auctions for the more valuable. Set the minimum bid at the least amount you are willing to accept. DONT allow international sales. That get's messy. Over estimate the size and weight for shipping to get the actual correct amount YOU will pay. YEbay expects you to cover insurance so the only way to compensate is by carefully over estimating size and weight.
Penguin:
4,000 LPs all at once or individually? What is your time frame? One thought would be to sell the entire collection to a reseller. Should you go this route have a firm price in mind regarding your price, how the collection will be picked up and how cast-off will be dealt with. Having an inventory could be to your advantage. The majority of my collection, 70% mol, is catalogued in Discogs, it has been a major task, but now that I am retired it is more doable. Some collection buyers may want to cherry pick on site and leave the rest for you to deal with. As others have said unfortunately not much of a market for classical these days.Several parties in the midwest, which may be willing to drive out to pick-up the collection, that I can suggest and that may be interested are:
Strictly Discs, Ask for Ron Rouloff
Dusty Grooves
773-342-5800
used@dustygroove.comReckless Records
https://reckless.com/wordpress/sell-to-us/Toad Hall ask for Nick
https://toadhallonline.com/page/2/contact
Edits: 12/30/21
There are a few super-sellers on eBay that sell individual items for a 70/30 split to owner. They also get top$ for items, much higher than average. My friend sent in a VG/VG low numbered White Album and it sold for $1600. If you follow eBay at all you will see certain very well established sellers getting ridiculous (IMO) money for records in below VG+ condition. Anyway possibly this is an option for LP's you have that are rare.
P
Good to hear from you, but I am not much help for your collection.
I have only sold a few LPs on eBay, and it is a lot of work coming up with descriptions, good photos, and packaging.
From a record store friend, I have seen that classical does not sell well. Rock sells best, and jazz is one step or two below that.
My experience with selling to record stores for your average record store price is one to two dollars each. That's for rock, rhythm and blues, jazz, and hip hop. Some stores will not buy classical. The prices above are for purchasing entire collections and not for cherry picking by the store. Most folks just want all the records gone, so the stores have to buy everything.
A suggestion for Penguin; consider the time spent.
No question you will receive more by grading and listing individual records, with possibly some cleaning. As others said, that is likely to leave some for the dumpster.
My solution: I was preparing for a major move, but the decision came with about 9 months lead time. Unfortunately two surgeries plus recovery absorbed some of that time. I had more than 3,000 LPs but wanted to move only those I was certain I'd want to listen to again. So I went through them all, selecting out what ended up at about 1,000 to move. Fortunately I was friends with a local audio dealer who also sold new and used records. I sold the remaining 2,000 plus to him. Certainly I didn't get top dollar, but it was reasonable, he picked them up, and I saved considerable time.
Whatever way you go, good luck.
"The only cats worth anything are the cats who take chances. Sometimes I play things I never heard myself." Thelonious Monk
Acoustic Sounds in Kansas buys used record collections. So does Audiophile USA in California and In The Groove in Phoenix, Arizona. Usually, they're looking for entire collections in NM condition and not interested in buying piecemeal except for very valuable records. Your collection really has to be outstanding to get a decent price. Some of these buyers will travel to you if they think your collection is worth it.Of course, there's always EBay and Discogs if you want to sell piecemeal. You'll get higher prices if you want to go to the trouble of listing and packing records. Local stores may be interested as well. Unless you have a really great collection, keep your expectations modest. Don't count on significant supplementary income in your old age. Most of us here buy records to listen to, not as an investment.
Edits: 12/30/21 12/30/21 12/30/21
As a package deal. I sold a carefully curated progressive rock, psychedelic, rock collection of about 1,500 LPs a few years ago.That was after I had spent a number of years carefully recording them all with a high resolution digital recorder.
The issue with selling records of any genre is that buyers will try to cherry pick the albums that have any significant value and leave you with the rest.
Most dealers or record stores will pay maybe 5 cents on the dollar, less if they can - using the "I have to stock this for a long time" story to justify that low price.
When I sold my records, the deal was simple. Pay $5 a record, but you have to buy them all. Sure, some were likely worth hundreds but most were likely in the $10 - $12 range at retail.
I made it clear that the sale was for rock albums only, not jazz or classical, and the MoFi titles were excluded.
I'm not in the record selling business, and just wanted to get rid of them.
I do sell some of the records I had left on Discogs, and that's a whole different topic. You need to be very accurate with your assessment of the album condition or risk a lot of returns.
I did have a lot of trouble with my classical records. The Chesky audiophile records sold easily, as well as the RCA reissues. However, the original Blue Backs and RCA mono recordings generated no interest whatsoever, neither did the audiophile classical titles on various boutique labels.
Most of those ended up at Value Village after many months of sales locally and on eBay with no nibbles. In retrospect, Discogs may be a better bet but again - I didn't want to start a record selling business.
Opera? Forget it - can't give them away. I think that with classical most people have the pieces they're looking for, and maybe are looking for one or two that is of interest to them - just not a big market for that type of music any more.
It's worth noting that other than a few ratty classical jackets virtually all of the records I owned would be graded at VG+ or better, most of them NM for both jacket and vinyl. All of the inner sleeves had been replaced with a poly-lined type, all original artwork, posters etc. was in place and all had outer plastic covers for the jackets.
Edits: 12/30/21 12/30/21 12/30/21 12/30/21
Not trying to make a killing on them If I get $1 a piece I can let it all go :)
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
Whatever the OP does, he does NOT want them 'Cherry Picked' or he'll NEVER get rid of the 'rest' of them (if that is his goal).
All professional buyer/sellers as well as collectors can spot a collection that has been cherry-picked a mile away and will give him NOTHING for the collection (in my experience).
I have over 3000 LPs with a handful (couple hundred?) worth real $$$ and without those the collection is virtually worthless. Less than the cost of the buyer taking them to the dump.
So without those, no buyer will bite and they go to the dump.
Depressing to say the least, but good to know. I have several hundred box sets and other classical LP's that essentially are dead weight if they're not being played. Many are operas. A very busy life the last several years has rendered them unplayed as I have many other musical interests.
A sobering reality....
maybe months?
Mono.
Because I can.
You MONO, because you are. Good choice.
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: