Crate Digging for Vinyl

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by lazydawg58, Jul 8, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    It sounds like used vinyl is much more expensive in the UK. Around here common records in VG condition sell for $5 to $15 at a used record store and $1 to $5 in a antique or specialty store that has a box or two on consignment. Thrift stores with records just thrown in there regardless of condition sell for 50 cents to $2.
     
  2. mBen989

    mBen989 Senior Member

    Location:
    Scranton, PA
    Here are my guidelines to record and CD collecting.

    - Have a second cup of coffee
    - Use the restroom (see previous post)
    - Be prepared to dig through the dollar bins and come out empty (say hi to the multiple Firestone Christmas albums you'll encounter again and again)
    - If you see something, grab it! You can always change your mind later.
    - Never pay more than $20 unless it's something you absolutely must have right now!*
    - If I'm out of town, is what I'm holding something my local (or "Fulfilled by Amazon")** would have? (A question that has saved me some money more than once)

    *$30 is borderline
    ** Full disclosure; I haven't dabbled with eBay or Discogs.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2018
  3. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    Thanks, good advise. I have pretty eclectic tastes so I end up picking up interesting stuff that might not interest others enough for them to be valuable money wise. I kind of divide up my collection into things I want to listen to and wouldn't want to part with and things that I enjoy collecting and might possibly sell or trade. Of course I don't mind paying a reasonable retail price for those that go into the always keep section but my whole point for the interesting, might sell one day records, is to find, rescue and resurrect a bargain cost record.
     
    Leonthepro and Fender Relic like this.
  4. geo50000

    geo50000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canon City, CO.
    Hi!
    Welcome to SHF!
    Not to threadcrap, but just my 2 cents:
    What has so far not been addressed are a few points...
    I, like you, am approaching retirement age. I turned 60 in April 2018.
    Like you, over the decades I have accumulated about 2,00 LPs and 3,000 45 rpm singles. I didn't intend to accumulate so many, it
    just sort of snuck up on me and "Boom!" ...now I have thousands of vinyl records overrunning my home.
    The situation has only been exacerbated by well-meaning relatives who have donated their collections to me because they knew I "Collected Records".
    So, some things you'll have to ask yourself:

    When I am 65-75 years old, will I be able and willing to cull my collection to make it manageable if I end up physically unable to haul 50-100 albums at a pop to the used record store?

    Will my heirs be willing to sift through my collection after I'm gone to find out what is valuable , and what is common?

    What do you intend to do with the inevitable "Junk Records" that you will accumulate in a 'collection' purchase?
    Many thrift stores will no longer take vinyl LPs.

    Just some food for thought, I am currently in the process of 'weeding out ' my collection (more like a hoard) now, and it is a lot more difficult than I had imagined.
    That said, if you have the room and a plan for all these LP's, "Happy Hunting"!
     
  5. Sax-son

    Sax-son Forum Resident

    Location:
    Three Rivers, CA
    I have been record collecting for almost 60 years now and I can't remember buying a whole collection off of someone. For me, I have to be selective and picky, otherwise it just ends up in a box collecting dust and becomes my problem to get rid of it. I made my best deals when people were dumping their vinyl for CD's. Even then, I had to be discriminatory. I can't believe how many near mint condition vinyl records I bought for pennies on the dollar. It's not that way now though, people think their thrashed condition records are worth big money and I have to walk away from about 90% of what I see out there.

    I have never been into record collecting for the money, it has to be for the music or else I am not interested. If you interested in flipping records for a profit, my only advise is to do your homework. Most record hounds that I know want to spend the least amount of money that they can. It's why I never sold records, I would give them away to friends if I was no longer interested in keeping them. Dealing with record nuts is one of the biggest PITA as far as I am concerned.
     
  6. geo50000

    geo50000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canon City, CO.
    Exactly what I don't want my kids to have to deal with after I'm gone.
     
  7. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    Dang! Hurt my feeling well ya! :) I need an outlet/distraction from the stresses of life and this is it. It keeps my mind sharp (I hope) and is something I can do without being gone from home for extended periods (caring for my disabled wife) of time yet long enough to relax a little bit. Then I can go down to the basement and clean records, listen to new to me music etc. etc. I'll haul records in bunches of 20-30 if 50 get too heavy. I'll make sure my daughter knows what to do with the collection when I'm gone, hopefully later than sooner. I'll have them on discogs so she will know the value. For me it is the opposite of stress. If it becomes stressful I'll call a younger collector and give it away!
     
    geo50000 and Fender Relic like this.
  8. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    I've never sold a record in my life. I do try to value what I buy so that I don't over pay. I am interested in eventually selling records in one way or another, not with the expectation of making big money, but with the hope that I might not sink all of my limited income into it, maybe break even. I'm definitely in it for the music and the enjoyment of the hunt. Most of my friends are big into hunting and / or fishing or into golf. I figure collecting records is a much cheaper hobby.
     
    Fender Relic and c-eling like this.
  9. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    What is PITA?
     
  10. MikeJedi

    MikeJedi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Las Vegas
    Pain in the A** ;)
     
  11. Brian Lux

    Brian Lux One in the Crowd

    Location:
    Placerville, CA
    laztdawg, I may be wrong and correct me if so, but I sense that you want to buy in lots in order to keep some but also to do some selling. Yes? No?

    If yes, then I would say:

    I've been working in the used book business for several years and have seen that business change drastically over the years. We used to have to scrounge and forage far and wide for good inventory. When my fellow baby boomers began to hit retirement age, they started to sown-size like crazy and now, partly as a result of that, the market is being flooded with used books.

    I predict the same thing will happen with vinyl. Right now, it's a trend. I don't watch TV but a musician friend of mine mentioned the other day that he sees adds for record players on TV a fair amount. A lot of young people have jumped on the vinyl craze but, I have to ask, how long will that last? And at what point will boomer vinyl collectors who start moving into retirement communities and housing begin to cull their albums? I'm guessing fairly soon. And what will happen to all that vinyl that old guys like me hang onto when we croak? Are the kids going to hang on to it? (See my first question above).

    So because of all this, I don't see the selling market holding up too long.
     
    Hammerpeg likes this.
  12. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I like books as well, but the two markets are totally different, just yesterday I passed on some books because the person selling them was pricing them like it was twenty years ago and there was no internet, no glut of available titles and a healthier buying market, the big difference, at least over here is that there are new record shops opening, dozens of people competing to buy collections and the record shops are full of kids, teens, twenty somethings and every other age group getting back into vinyl, bookshops on the other hand are barely holding on and I often do come across book collections for pennies each where the family aren't interested and I have no competition, for now the book revival just isn't happening whilst vinyl is secure at least for the foreseeable future.
     
    Doggiedogma and Brian Lux like this.
  13. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    Even the most common titles are now £4-£5 in shops, better titles are £10+ and at least locally demand outstrips supply, even 35 years ago good used LPs were £2-£2.50, just under 50% of the new cost so unless one got very lucky we never had the equivalent of $1 LPs and if you go back further into the 1950s and 1960s records were pretty much luxury items and relatively much more expensive, probably not the case in the States especially with cut out bins and music aimed at teenagers before the UK had even discovered what they were.
     
  14. Kingsley Fats

    Kingsley Fats Forum Resident

    This forum is a dangerous place to make that sort of comment.
     
  15. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Same here as far as friends and family hobby wise :laugh:
    Just don't be that guy, arms outstretched over the crates, phone in hand checking discogs and ebay prices. I've gotten to recognize a couple r-ebay'ers that haunt a couple of my locals. Turns my stomach.
    Luckily, for my music tastes they always seem to pass on the oddball 80's and 90's titles.
     
    Fender Relic likes this.
  16. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    I think you are right. I think we are at or near a peak when in comes to used vinyl demand. The new vinyl market on the other hand seems to be replacing the CD market to a great extent.
     
  17. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    I've pretty much decided that I'm not going to try and sell on ebay or discogs. There seems to be as much or more downside as upside. I think those prices are deceptive as well. I was visiting with a lady today that had her late husband's collection. Almost all the records were in good condition. They were 60s soul records, mostly lesser known artists, and after going on line she had a very inflated opinion of their worth. I tried to respectfully explain that those were retail asking prices and might not reflect what people were actually paying for them. I talked to her about grading, cleaning, prepping, pay pal, seller fees, consignment commissions, all the things that went into it before anything could be sold. I was willing to offer $120 for her collection and would have bit on a counter offer of $150.

    Based on some advice I got yesterday on this thread I pulled out 18 records that I wanted for my personal listening collection (The Impressions, The Isley Brothers, Surpremes, Roberta Flack) and offered her $40, which she took. Now she's got about 80-90 records with many of the more in demand titles gone that she is going to probably be stuck with. The used record stores are 30 miles away and they aren't going to drive to the sticks not knowing what they might find. The thrift / used goods stores mostly don't want to mess with it and the one I know that might would buy a few higher valued ones and pass on the rest. In short, I don't think she would get more that half the $110 she passed up from me. I gave her my card and told her if she changed her mind we could talk again.
     
    c-eling and beccabear67 like this.
  18. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    Even with ebay, discog etc. I think prices vary a great deal based on location. In the metropolitan areas prices are going to be higher than in rural areas. A record store in a college town is more likely to thrive and sell product for higher prices, while a working class town or city isn't going to have the youth and disposable income to support a store and prices aren't going to be as high where used vinyl is found.
     
  19. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    The Impressions, The Isley Brothers, Supremes, Roberta Flack... nice!

    I buy what I genuinely will enjoy (or think I probably will enjoy anyway) for what I'm willing to pay. I've paid too much a few times but you have to let that go and enjoy it anyway: I justify when I pay a bit more with the times I've gotten a great deal. :cool:
     
    greelywinger and lazydawg58 like this.
  20. optoman

    optoman Forum Resident

    Location:
    London. UK
    I am always amazed to read threads about record buying at the low end price range. Maybe there is something basic I don’t understand but when I read about buying quantities of records for $1 or $2 each, I get the impression that these people are buying plastic by the kg. and not a product to bring enjoyment.
    I love getting a bargain as much as anybody else and spent many hours in the last 50 years in charity shops and the like. However, it never occurred to me to buy a record that I did not really want just because it is cheap. If someone buys multiple records in one go for $1 each, then I find it hard to believe that many of those records are ones they really want to listen to more than once or twice.
    Obviously, at the high end of the price scale it is different but at the lower end would you prefer to buy and own one record you love and in excellent condition for $20 or twenty records that cost $1 each.
    I know what I prefer.
     
  21. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Actually I would prefer buying a record I love for a dollar.
     
  22. lazydawg58

    lazydawg58 Know enough to know how much I don't know Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lillington NC
    1. I don't have a lot of money.
    2. The hunt is a major part of the enjoyment.
    3. There is a sense of satisfaction in rescuing a neglected album that would have otherwise gone into the trash bin.
    4. How do you know you are going to enjoy a record just because it cost you $20 and how do you know you aren't going to like a record you bought in a large lot you picked up that averaged out to $1 or $2 an album or the single record you picked up at a thrift store?
    5. The records I end up not enjoying are the ones someone else might like a whole lot. So I can take those to a used record store or record convention and trade for something else.
    6. If I can keep my costs down, after cleaning, grading, placing in new inner and outer sleeves and establishing a consignment commission I can re-present some of the albums and maybe if I'm lucky almost break even financially (see #1) and buy more records I might enjoy.
    7. Variety is the spice of life.
     
    beccabear67 and greelywinger like this.
  23. hockman

    hockman Forum Resident

    It's hard to estimate what's a fair price as it really depends on what's in the collection on sale. Personally, I wouldn't buy a large collection just for the sake of getting a few records that I want. I'd rather offer a fair (i.e. close to market) price for the wanted items. Recently, a friend wanted to sell his collection to me and would have preferred that I take everything. We have similar tastes and so there were many, many interesting albums for me in his collection. But I ended buying only the items that I wanted. Although the number of albums was a lot, I paid him what I thought was a fair price per item -- higher than what a bulk purchase might have cost but lower than the market selling price.

    I guess I am happy paying a higher price for wanted items than to end up having to sort through and get rid of a large number of unwanted items. In fact, I wouldn't even accept a collection for free unless it had many records/cds that I am potentially interested in!
     
    Fender Relic likes this.
  24. Daven23

    Daven23 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hyde Park NY USA
    If you are buying collections to flip be careful. Stay away from easy listening and classical. You will probably end up just donating them somewhere. Only offer the money per record if it’s something good not just anything, so it’s hard for me to advice you on how much to pay for hypothetical collections without knowing the record and condition. Also make sure you know about PayPal and eBay fees before you start online selling.

    If you are buying for just yourself Thrift stores flea markets and record stores are the way to go.
     
    lazydawg58 likes this.
  25. ronm

    ronm audiofreak

    Location:
    southern colo.
    I happened to chat with a guy that I would come across perusing the thrift lps.In the beginning he was cool.Now its like he doesn't even talk to me...like I am the enemy.I've told him I really don't care if I find something or not.I have pretty much all I need or want an am pretty picky anymore.Its like he weirded out.
     
    lazydawg58, Fender Relic and c-eling like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine