Are CD's Pretty Much Worthless Now or Am I Over Obsessing?

Amoeba posts the prices it pays for CDs, DVDs, vinyl, etc. here:

http://www.amoeba.com/buy-sell-policies.html#how-we-price

CDs: We pay anywhere from 10 cents to $5.00 credit for most CDs. A typical price for a strong title in mint condition would be $2.00-$5.00 in store credit or $1.00-$4.00 in cash. We pay less for lower list-price CDs or less sought-after or common titles.

DVDs: We pay TOP DOLLAR for strong and uncommon titles!!! There is a wide range of list prices and values--most often we pay between $.50 and $5.00 credit for most DVDs, though unusual foreign films, Out-of-Print titles and special editions can go much higher.

LPs: We might pay anywhere from 25 cents to $5.00 for titles that still sell on LP. A typical collection that contains mixed titles usually averages from 20 cents to $1.50 per LP, however, rare, Out of Print and highly unusual items in Mint or Near Mint condition can go much higher.

78's: There is quite a glut of 78 rpm records on the market. We are really only looking for 78's of World Music, some Folk titles, Soundtracks (esp. in complete albums), Blues, small combo Jazz (not BIG BAND), Country & Western and early Rock'N'Roll. If your collection consists mostly of Classical Music, Pop Vocal (Big Crosby and the like) and Big Band (Glenn Miller, etc.), it probably will not be worth your time and effort to bring them in to the store.

Videos: VHS is a format that is disappearing and becoming very difficult to sell. We seldom pay more than 5 cents per tape. Boxes must also be in good shape and the VHS must not be a screener/promo or have been bought from a video rental store.

Tapes: Another nearly-gone format that we don't really need. Sellers will generally get 1 to 5 cents per cassette tape.

Collectors Items: If a record, CD or DVD is truly collectible and we can get more for it, we will of course pay accordingly. Generally we pay anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 half in cash or 1/2 to 2/3 in trade of what we expect to sell an item for, depending on the item’s demand and scarcity. So, if we plan to sell an LP for $50.00, we'll pay about $15.00 to $25.00 for it in cash or $20.00 to $33.00 in trade.

 

The time to sell CDs and DVDs and get any sort of decent cash back has come and gone. The best you can hope for is that people will discover this and start dumping their own collections at Goodwill or in the landfill, and if you keep yours in like-new condition you may find them starting to increase again in 10 years.

 

good point.

I gave what I felt was fair store credit for a nice stack of excellent condition, early pressing Maiden CDs early this year and it took me almost six months to sell enough of them to make back my original investment.

With very few exceptions the supply totally has totally destroyed demand...and many people who buy and collect rare stuff/out of print, etc. online want it sealed.

I remember the same with vinyl and cassettes back in my college days, so not really a surprise.

 

Seriously, in Australia no one will buy used CDs for $5, $2 is becoming the common price. The shops must be buying them for 20c each maximum.

 

BS! Most, if not ALL of the stuff i bring them is usually good selling stuff. Hell, I have a ton of OOP industrial/goth stuff they routinely low ball me on, thats big time OOP. I brought 4 Throbbing Gristle Cd's in there(Ive never seen them in there before), even the girl said "These are out of print"...but yet, only offered me $3 bucks each for them. They sell those for anowhere between $15-$20 bucks+, and Ive seen them higher.....

Again, BS.

3x's a charm in the BS dept. I borught some Smiths vinyl in there, and the guy only offered me $5 each for them, (No BS), and they were all Rough Trade pressings, and very very clean. I wanted to smack him. Like i said, I dont mind if you make something on them, but just be fair. My buddy sold them a Smiths test Pressing years ago...the guy offered him $3 for it, it was a $100+ record(it really was, there were something like 100 made). My buddy flipped out on him, and said: "why? so i can come in here in a week, and see it on your wall for $150 bucks?...Ill pass". Then, the guy finally gave in, and offered my buddy $50 cash for it...while practically following him out to his car..LOL. he had a second copy, in prestine shape, spo he sold that one, b/c it had a few scratches on it.




Collectors Items:

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Probably the BIGGEST BUNCH OF MALARKEY they have on their site. They do no such thing...Ive brought them big time OOP stuff, and they've low balled me EVERY-SINGLE-TIME. I brought them in a Cure 3 disc set(1 disc all acoustic hits, 1 disc greatest hits, and 1 disc videos-Japan release & OOP), know what they offered me for it? $3......I laughed.

I brought them in a box set called "The Goth Box" which is HUGELY oop, and they sold for upwards of $50-$60+ on ebay and elsewhere(I saw a few sell from Amazon for over $100+- mine has the poster, the original cigarette box, and is in prestine shape), know what i was offered for it? $6. They even sold them in their store for $40+ when they did have them.

ALMOST sold them a Morrissey promo disc, but they only offered me $5 for it...I laughed @ them.

They're job is to low ball you...I get that...but dont do it to the point you make yourself look like a *******, and that people dont want to deal with you again?

 

If your cd is a recent remastered edition, its worthless. Everthing on the shelves in HMV is worthless.
Hold on to everything between 1982 and 1990, also SACDs, DVD-As and gold discs. Everything else is landfill material.

 

1. What is "fair" in a business transaction? There is no such thing as "fair" in business, there is a price that is agreed upon or not - period.

2. Not for anything, but why would you take $10 for something you could get $30-40 for????

3. $120 for 70 CD's, some of which would sell for $20-40, is "fair"???

4. Why are you and your buddies hell bent on to taking peanuts for stuff that is worth money? Why not offer that stuff on here?

 

Hey DJ,

Stores don't care about the original sale price for a CD. They only go by what they think they can resell it for, and how many they already have in stock. Really obscure or collectors sets have less of a chance because the audience for them are narrower.

Their goal is to make a profit.

I haven't tried to sell anything at that Amoeba yet, but when I look at their inventory, I see the same old tired stock of used music. I only find the place useful for finding the more obscure new CDs.

You would have better luck selling them on ebay...or here!

 

I dont buy too much "remastered" stuff anymore...as a lot of it is brickwalled, or poorly mastered. Why spend $15-$20 on a cd, that sounds like ****?

 

You think CDs are worthess you should try selling some of those MP3s you bought from Amazon!

 

LOL, I dont buy them...Im more of a physical cd person..I like reading the liner notes and art work.

 

I've got 3,500 CDs stashed away in storage right now, and I'd bet that less than 2% of them would fetch any kind of decent price. When I think of the money I spent on them...

 

You've posted before how Amoeba has low-balled you/your friend when you try and sell items to them, why do you continue to go there to try and sell things?

 

Same reason I buy made-in-China crap - because thats all there is (if I want to hear some new music).

 

It's pretty goofy to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result...just saying!!!

 

LOL, not sure...Im a glutten for punishment I guess? I always think that that one time, might be the time I get something decent for them.....Like i said...I think Im done with selling anything to them. I have 2 cd's on special order im waiting on, then I dont think Ill be going there anymore...no point.

 

Sounds like Amoeba gave you the going rate for stuff.

If you're expecting $13 for a CD you've seen sell for $40, you went to the wrong place. Toss it up on our Classifieds for free

Amoeba (and all the others) are in it to make money. Just cause they're selling a CD at $8 doesn't mean they can afford to pay you $4 for it. They'll offer $1, because it might sit on their shelf unsold, for 3 years. Like they said, if it's a "hot" title (i.e. popular national band that just had their release last Tuesday), you might get that $4. This is all assuming they don't already have a dozen copies of each in their inventory!

I've worked for a used CD store, it's a tricky business. If it was that easy to pay $5 for CDs like you probably brought in (and make a profit), everyone would be doing it.

 

Don't they say that is a sign of insanity?

 

Good points......

 

I lost my mind by coming to this place repeatedly years ago!!!

 

LOL, I think we all have.....

 

Are CD's Pretty Much Worthless Now or Am I Over Obsessing?

You're right on the money, their value is going down day after day..I bought a copy of Genesis' "Selling England by the pound" for my dad ( nowadays he listens to music mainly from the PC) from Amazon marketplace thinking it was the remaster (he won't complain) and got the old unremastered "mastered by nimbus" Charisma CD instead. 4 euros shipping included. A further evidence that people really don't care about CDs anymore, I know this is not a mega-rare disc but...€4 shipped? C'mon..

 

The topic of this thread is why I stopped selling my collection years ago...I'm passing it down to my nephew and niece when I'm six feet under!!!

 

When I'm old and retired, I'll spend my days sorting my worthless collections of silver discs and reminiscing about the good ol' days of music stores and non-brickwalled mastering.