Selling Classical CDs

I have a large collection of Classical CDs, including some rare box sets, that I would like to sell.
There doesn't seem to be much interest in Classical music, at the Hoffman Marketplace.

Can anyone recommend other sites, forums ... where there is more interest in Classical CDs for sale?

Thanks in advance, for any suggestions.

 

If you aren't already familiar with Discogs I would check that out. My favorite place to buy CD's.

 

hmmm, not to rain on your parade, but it's going to be a sort of mission impossible. Nowadays, those new mega-boxsets represent a huge value for money. Also, many, I'd say about 90% of the legendary performances on DG, RCA, EMI, CBS, Philips, Decca can be bought for some pennies used on Amazon marketplace. And they're usually in like new conditions. I bought many legendary performances on CD for the princely sum of £1,83 shipping included. And 99.9% of the times they looked brand new, booklets included. The only occasional blemish was a scratch on the jewel case.
Probably not worth the effort, but good luck with your sale anyway.
Cheers.

 

value > US$ 100 -> eBay
value US$ 5-100 -> Amazon
value < US$ 5 -> giving away for free or almost nothing

 

I've been trying to sell 200+ classical CDs (many duplicates) from my own collection for as little as 2 - 3 euros apiece for several years now, without much success. A dealer offered me 50 cents to 1 euro per disc, but only for the ones he was interested in, others didn't even respond... It'd be a nice collection for a classical music newbie. Oh well.

 

Donate them to a library. Cheaper than renting a dumpster. CDs have about the same value as VHS tapes today.

 

Not if you have hard to get ones, there's plenty of valuable ones along with all the ones that sell for a penny on amazon. I don't know much about classical cds so I'm not sure if there is lot's of collectible classical cds or not but I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least some that were valuable even if most of them are probably not worth anything.

 

They are only valuable if you can find a buyer.

 

It's easy to find buyers on sites like Ebay or discogs if it's a valuable cd.

 

I unloaded 1,300 classical CDs on Amazon, and prices were $25 to $60 a disc for many of them. $9.99 to $14.99 average, and very few $5.99 to $7.99.

I did really great with 5 CDs per day selling for months. This was all modern and avant-garde classical and not the common stuff.

I did better on Amazon than ebay, as on ebay everyone was loking for a bargain, on Amazon I sold to libraries all over the world, and they paid the asking prices and it was a done deal. Not one lost CD.

But there were a few CDs that Amazon blocked me from selling. There was a deal in place where Amazon was selling a download of that CD, and had cut a deal with the copyright owners to not let anyone sell a used CD of that title. The given titles were imports never released in the US. So the label could claim that it was never licensed in the US and not for sale there. Amazon went along with it. So ebay was used for those few rare ones.

 

I would definitely look elsewhere to sell these, either eBay or Amazon. If you have some Targets or Philips WG blue face discs you could test the waters here, but I think other than those not much will sell here.

 

Selling classical CDs abroad is not an option for me, since Dutch international shipping rates are insanely high.

 

That's the key.

With classical, the stuff with real value that you can sell for good money are the dusty corner type releases that barely sold when issued, and were often issued by small labels.

The core stuff by major players issued by major labels after 1990 is almost all worthless these days.

(Some of the major stuff issued in the '80s can be sold for good money if you are patient, depending on how identifiably different the release is than the subsequent reissues).

 

Some of the majors did in fact do small runs at first issues of CDs.

But yeah obscurities imports and smaller run indies are going to be easier to flip by far. I really got lucky coming into that classical collection. And it happened right when the Great Depression hit and work hours declined and I was at a low point financially.

 

There's some quirky stuff amongst the majors that does ok, but mostly it sells for very little.

 

I've been trying to sell a few hundred duplicates and discs I no longer listen to on ebay for about two years. More of my jazz and rock CDs have been worth anything at all than the classical ones, but one or two classical discs have sold in the £15-20 range. They have been long-deleted recordings of some significance. Most CDs, as others have pointed out, have no practical value whatsoever, and this seems very much as true of classical discs as those of other genres.