Discogs...

Anyone else have their collection registered on Discogs? Once I got all my LPs entered, it's a handy way to inventory my collection.

Never bought a record through them. Seems like a person is taking the same risk (re: condition) that they would with any online purchase.

Any insight as to how accurate there Low-Med-High estimates are on the values? My guess is the Low value is what you could expect to get if you sold the entire collection together - most likely to a dealer. Med might be more accurate for selling them one by one privately. High is lightning striking and finding that one perfect buyer with more money than sense.

The app comes in handy when I'm at the used LP store and can't remember exactly whether or not I actually own a given record.

 

Thinking your best bet of collection valuation if parted out and sold individually is somewhere between low and median, closer to median. Obviously consideration placed on the condition of the top 10% of collection if you have some records more expensive than the majority.

 

Plenty of folks use it here I'm sure.

Haven't had time to enter everything.

Buying a record off Discogs is the same as buying used vinyl online anywhere. There is always a risk of overgrading and overgrading is rampant with online used vinyl sales in general.

The estimates range from quite accurate to not accurate at all. The "going rate" for a particular record is highly dependent on condition, the particular pressing, and geography. A record that might only fetch peanuts in one state or country might be worth more elsewhere.

Dealers buying in bulk will pay far less than the "low" estimate for a bulk buy. Think pennies on the dollar.

 

I buy regularly from them.
Some great sellers

Peter from Holland offered me a place to stay if i ever visit!
Records very good.
I have had a few lemons maybe 2.
Its always a risk. I rarely go for mint
Copies. As they are almost certainly not.
I clean mine anyway and that helps.
Any record over 10 years a risk.
Biggest problem being that most grade visually.

 

If you're interested in what records have actually sold for (as opposed to listing price) I find this site is invaluable:

popsike.com - vinyl records price guide

 

Love the site, hate the app. Have almost all my records on there.

Discogs value estimations ARE what a lot of shop owners and other sellers use to choose a price for their records. So yes it is accurate in a way since its a bit arbiter for what is accurate. It depends though, where you live for example, they dont take condition into account for the value either so naturally it wont be top price if its broken in two. UK sellers tend to overgrade like on Ebay I suppose.

I buy records all the time through them, its great I think, as long as you are clear with sellers what you want and ask questions. Better than any other site I know of for getting specific pressings.

 

I tend to use popsike and Discogs statistics on sold records to best estimate a value given each condition.

 

I purchase mint/sealed quite often. If it's sealed, it's mint.

 

Well, thats debatable.

 

Buying always a gamble.

 

I’ve seen some pretty beaten up sealed records.

 

My collection is there as well. I don't really pay attention to the values assigned to it, as I'm not interested in selling. I do enjoy researching different pressings, and I have a number of sellers whom I trust completely. I don't think any of them are necessarily the best for pricing, but I do respect their grading.

Most recently I have made several purchases from ella_records, which requires bundling at least two purchases to spread the shipping cost from Japan; as well as great patience as it usually takes about three weeks. But I do now have some lovely unmolested Japanese pressings from the 70s and 80s.

 

No. It could be chipped, cracked, broken in half, dirty, or noisy.

 

If it's sealed, the seller in good faith is listing it as mint. There's no way for the seller to know otherwise, unless the condition of the jacket is in a shambles. I have no problem with a seller listing a sealed product as mint.

 

Click on the last sold date for the history. The values are based on the last 10 sales on Discogs. The values are calculated directly from those 10 most recent sales. The statistical sales figures have to be interpreted from the actual sales. Mind you, the assumption is that you are actually selling your records on Discogs. It isn't what you would get from a dealer. Discogs doesn't track that data. They only track sales on their site. The median value is used rather than mean (or average) value to offset the skewing from low or high sales. The extreme sales values are probably mint (or NM) and beaters. I tend to think this information is listed as an enticement. If you see that records of yours could be very valuable, the thought is that you might decide that listing a record out of your collection with Discogs may be something you want to do.

If you really want to understand the statistical sales data, you have to look at the actual sales. Those past 10 sales are delineated and graphed. Just look over a few in your collection. After looking at the backing data, you can better paint a picture of what these monetary values portray. If their is a huge disparity from the low value, you can look at the grading it was sold at to get that price. From my analysis, the median value is generally VG+. And the Mint (sealed) records are generally Maximum sales. The Minimum sales values, if skewed far off from the Median value tend to G graded or often just the sleeve or a beat up record.

 

Discogs price estimates are based on actual sales.

 

Schrödinger's discogs entry...

 

There are a few similar threads here at SHMF already. I would summarize them like this:

• A lot of people list their collections in Discogs. It helps when you're in the record store and want to know whether you own an album already (or which version you have), and it can also provide a collection value for insurance purposes if it's ever needed.
  
• Buying is indeed a crapshoot, but if you ask questions ahead of time, you can weed out a lot of bad sellers. I find that simply asking something as "stupid" as "Is this record really a 'VG+'?" can help avoid a lot of disappointment. I've gotten some crap records on Discogs as well as some (IMO) amazingly good deals.
  
• Discogs is much more seller-friendly than a lot of online marketplaces. They will remove negative feedback for a lot of different reasons, even if the seller sold you complete garbage (e.g. seller sells you a bag of broken vinyl shards, but if you insult them personally in your feedback, it will be removed). So tread carefully. All the more reason to ask questions up front, and read through positive feedback to see if there are any red flags.
  
• The process of adding or editing releases is hugely complicated, both in terms of software implementation and the amateur corps of content moderators who will strike down any addition that doesn't match their interpretation of the vague and inconsistent guidelines published on the site. A lot of us don't bother to add new information to the database as a result.

 

Yes, that is clear. But the question is if youre using the label Mint as a synonym for sealed or if it actually describes a condition of a record. Your initial statement made it sound like buying sealed is a guarantee for a perfect copy.

 

What I am saying is that the seller is listing a sealed record as Mint in good faith.

 

In that case I agree. I list mine as Mint if sealed as well, as soon as its opened I change it to NM however, even if its never been played.

 

Warped would be more likely than any of those.

I think 'mint' is used to describe condition, which for a sealed copy is impossible to ascertain. Listing it as simply "sealed" I would think is preferable, as that should convey to a buyer that there is a good chance they will be getting a mint copy.

 

I've recently purchased a few discs from the sellers on Discogs, gotten some great deals, the ratings from those that I've purchased from appear to be spot-on, and I've found some things on there that I just can't find here.
3 of the discs came from Italy and Wales... Shipping is a bit steep, but the items were great.

I generally don't buy anything less than M/NM for the vinyl, as for the cover, unless it is collectable, I don't care if it is cardboard as long as the record is protected...

 

Well, my experiences reflect what I said.

 

I only list sealed items as mint and add in the public comment that the item is sealed... I've got some pretty fubared VG- albums that were sealed... not from discogs, but from Amazon, Chains (e.g. Best Buy) & Brick 'n' Mortars.