For those who sold their CD Collection - any regrets?

I'm still unsure if I want to sell my cd collection part of me says yes and the other part doesn't want to let go. Curious to know, for those who did sell their collection, did you regret it afterwards?

 

Why do you want to? If you don't mind me asking?

It's been awhile since I counted how many I have but it is a lot. I haven't played one in a couple years but i can't think of any reason to unload them.

There isn't any money to be made and it is nice to have the silvers as insurance for when the hard drive crashes.

 

Well I've gone digital, have over 750 cds I think I could use the money and if I were to sell them I would sell individually at $4-5 each.

 

I gotta agree with Dennis, there's no money to be made. It's not a sellers market for CDs right now.

 

If you can find somebody paying those prices have at it.

 

I don't know what you have or where you're at but you will not get anything close to $5 for a used cd. More like .50 especially if you are selling a large quantity.

A store is lucky to get $5 for a used copy of high demand titles.

Edit: I was in a store an hour ago the had a huge rack of cd's, they were asking 3 for $5 and they said they were not moving.

 

At least if you sold them in 2010 ,they were still worth something. Today you would be tossing them in a dumpster.

 

I totally appreciate the appeal of freeing up the space taken up by 750 CDs. And the idea of having all your music digitally and being able to get $3,000 to $3,750 for stuff just lying around taking up space also is very appealing.

But I have to agree with @Dennis0675 and @Ed Hughes here. Right now CDs are worth less then they've ever been worth, ever. I would say you'd be lucky to get an average of $1 apiece - and that's assuming you have a number of collectible CDs, because unless your collection is very unusual, it's going to include many discs that are just unsellable at any price.

Of course, if you're absolutely sure you don't want them, and you've ripped all the ones you want - and if you've ripped them in full lossless quality, securely and accurately, and have all your rips backed up to multiple hard drives - then yes, you might be able to dump all 750 of them at a used CD store and walk away with a lump sum of, say $350.

But I still think you're likely to regret it. I sold a significant chunk of my collection - maybe 1/3 - in 2000, when I got my first CD burner. In the past few years I've bought back probably 20-25% of what I sold off. My tastes not only grew and changed, but also circled back in ways I never anticipated. I also learned a lot about preferred pressings at this forum - and many of those rips I did in 2000 now turn out not to have been 100% accurate. Finally, CDs are a great backup/master-copy of the music. The hard drives we rip our CDs to inevitably fail, as do backup drives. While some commercial CDs become unplayable over time, I would estimate that well over 90% remain very durable storage media for the music.

Why not start by doing a purge - sell (or try to sell) only those CDs you're positive you really don't want: For example CDs you never listen to anymore, or maybe CDs where you like only one or two songs and so you never want to listen to them as a whole album? See what you get for them.

 

You went digital, did you store your files losslessly? And do you have redundant backups?

Have you considered buying a CD book or two? You can get massive ones that hold many hundreds of CDs but still take up a miniscule amount of space. That's what I did for my DVDs, saved me tons of space. That way you can keep the CDs/inserts and recycle the jewel cases.

 

I would actually go a step further: Now is a great time to be buying CDs! The used market is full of CDs in very good condition - even releases as recent as, say, 2013 - that can be had cheaper than the lossy digital versions from iTunes or Amazon. Given that you can save real chunks of money this way - about $3 to $8 per CD, depending on the situation - you could probably save more on your next 50-100 album purchases, than you would make by selling your existing CDs and going all digital into the future.

Along these lines, I've noted with amusement (and relief!) that many of the CDs I've had to repurchase recently have actually cost about the same, and sometimes even slightly less (when adjusted for inflation) than I got for them when I sold them in 2000.

 

This is way out of character for me to say and advice that I am not following but now is the time to buy cd's.

A used cd is cheaper than a download and their value will go up as the format dwindles. If kids are into buying cassette these days, there will be a generation that will be looking for cd's. Unlike cassettes, they have the advantage of sounding good

 

I am carefully ripping everything to Lossless with metadata, everything is stored on 3 seperate drives. I live in Canada and used cd shops still sell cds in the range of $5-10 each , some sell rarer or more obscure music much higher than that... Im pretty sure I'll hold on to them for the time being but Im very tempted if I can get a good offer...For some reason I couldn't bare to think about doing that to my LP collection =)

 

The only reason to sell your CD's now is to make space in your house. There's no money in it, and if you bring a stack of them to a used store, they'll probably refuse many of them. I'd hold on to them and see what the used market does in the future.

 

I did this in 2005 - just a few boxes of stuff I thought I would truly never care about again. I got $1200.00 at the time but I believe I bought back more like 85% of them

Never again.

VP

 

Nope. All digital files. I only keep what I love. I can put my entire collection on shuffle and never hear anything that sucks. Can't do that with physical media. Life has never been better.

 

Going on two years now. Last time we had one of these threads, I promised I would bump it and post if I experienced any regrets.

Hasn't happened yet.

I got a little over $600 for my collection, netted from four trips to HalfPrice books. Admittedly that came to a bit less than a buck per title, but it still ads up and I was able to buy a lot of nice vinyl with that cash.

 

Still got them, but they are just souless shelf junk now.Ripped to itunes years ago. Now I only listen to vinyl 98% of the time anyway.

 

Nope, no regret other than I didn't sell them sooner. You can still command a good price for rare select titles. Sell these first. If you digitize your vinyl, now is the time to dump these, while prices are a premium.

 

I started selling off my CDs 10 years ago. I kept only the unique packages, like slip cases with booklets, certain box sets, DTS surround, etc. I even dumped my MFSL CDc on ebay to the highest bidders.

I can't say I miss any of them.

You mean you would not have backups? You would just trust "the" hard drive? Wow.

 

I agree with the sentiment a few others have posted. Its worth it for the space, but not for the money. Respecting that everyone's money situation is different. The $750 CDs realistically cost you at least $5K and possibly upwards of $10K if most were purchased new. You will probably get between $300-$400 unless you happen to have a collection of super rare collectible stuff. Even if money is tight $300 is unlikely to make a huge difference. (If $300 was the difference between you eating or not this month you wouldn't have started this thread before selling).

So I think you sell if you need the space. You keep if you have the space. And if you do sell, do so on this forum so we get first dibs!

Good luck OP.

 

Every decision I've ever made to get rid of media has been a regrettable one.

 

I must be Japanese, I still like physical media. I play with iTunes load Cds in there burn copies, but I don't trust hard drives with my music, no way.
It is definitely a buyer's market for CD's right now, unless you are selling OOP DCC's or MFSL's or some short-run issue, or rare Japanese import. Or those Targets, for the Target fanatics...

 

I have sold a few hundred total over the last decade and I do regret selling maybe a dozen, most have not been missed.

 

For those who sold their CD Collection..


Thank you!

 

Idiots.
CD players sound better than computer audio.

After a good 5 years of computer audiophile mania people are just starting to accept it.

I hate to think how much time,effort and money I have wasted on computer audio/DACs/software without ever achieving really decent sound compared to my old Krell CD player.