If you wanted to sell your record/CD collection, how would you do it?

Just interested really.How would you see yourself doing this.There are many options.I suppose it would depend a lot on how much value you place on it and how much of that monetary value you want back.Also how much time and effort you want to put into the sale.
Couple of rules please.Please don't post with 'i don't care, I'll be dead' type responses,or 'i'd never sell' etc.
Also, talking about the whole collection, not individual items.
Really just interested in thoughts from those who have either done it or have given genuine thought about doing it.
Myself,I couldn't ever see me selling my whole collection of well over 10000 records.I do sell regularly at a record fair locally every 2 months, but that's it.But I've always wondered about how other collectors get themselves over that 'it's got to go' line,and how they did it and the thought processes involved.

I have posted a few poll ideas, but please feel free to come up with any others.

 

I retired four months ago and set up a Discogs account. I'd try that way first. The only way they are going to a dealer is in the liquidation of my estate. I might eventually dump some of the monetarily worthless stuff in thrift stores, I suppose. But Many of them are like my Scion xB that I hit (hard) a deer with at 155k miles and I didn't fix. It's now got 225K on it and runs solid and everything works great. It is quite valuable to me as transportation and hauling loads that don't need a full blown pickup truck (which is most stuff), but I couldn't get $500 out of it if I tried to sell it. So I keep it. Same goes for a lot of those "useless" records.

 

I think I'll let the kids figure it out when I'm gone. Would hate to sell them all off at 80 and then live another 20 years

 

I think I would do a bit of private selling/eBay/Discogs for the higher-ticket items... and then try to get one buyer to take the rest.

 

Mostly likely, I'd sell the top 10-15% (value-wise) piece-by-piece on Discogs and dump the rest in a lot or lots to dealers.

 

Yep. This does bring up a good point for me: I would only put time into selling records for two reasons, and for the most part, they both need to apply: They are valuable (worth more than $20) and I need the money. Otherwise, I have more important stuff to do. But again, I'm retired. I don't really do stuff to make money, though it can be a side benefit.

 

Donate to a charity thrift. I already got my money's worth (assuming of course that I'm done with it).

 

I would try private sale option for my official releases like Discogs and eBay. I also have a large collection of silver disc bootlegs that I would work with some boot sellers I know to sell for me and give them a percentage of the sale. I would also try eBay for the boots but you risk having the auction pulled.

After I pass I would let my family decide what to do with my collection. I would love it if my daughters married music lovers into vinyl but if not then I would guess they sell to a local shop in bulk.

They may not get full value selling to a local shop but it would make me fell good I am supporting a small local record store.

 

Interesting and timely question for me.

As another year around the sun approaches I am giving serious thought to liquidating most of my 40 year collection. I have vinyl and CD's in multiple locations (some I'm paying a nice monthly fee for) and I always dreamed of owning a big house with a great listening room and adequate storage for 15,000 LP's and probably as many CD's but that dream is quickly fading into the rearview mirror.

I'll be watching this thread closely to see if any of you have the "eureka" suggestion(s) as I find it just too time consuming and unrewarding to inventory, photograph and list all of these on any of the popular music resale sites.

 

Get a table at a record-show.

 

I'd vote for an auction-like event, Live streaming where people could bid via YouTube or Facebook and twitter...the missus next to saying:"...oh my God!! unbelievable! I'm so so sorry my love!" crying over my shoulder full in cash and happiness...mision accomplished.

 

I don’t see how a thrift would ever be an option.

Either sell piece by piece by myself or take bids from dealers.

 

I sold off 99% of my vinyl last year to CD Cellar in Falls Church VA. They came to the house and picked up all the albums. Got about 1/3 or 2/5 of retail price. But I like the store and owners and I figured let them make some money and let others enjoy these albums as I let them go.

 

I would think being in NYC despite the poor stores, your collection would be quite valuable and attractive, for the locals and definitely give some NJ dealers/stores a shot to look also. You should be in the catbird seat, and they come to you, no schlepping.

 

Also note in the US at least not all dealers are stores, and not all stores are dealers.

 

Some that are supposedly worth a bit, I'd probably do it via discogs or the forum.

The less valuable ones..... I'd probably give to a friend.

The most likely scenario is someone gets them when I die though

 

If I ever downsize my home, I will need to downsize my collection significantly as well. Taking everything as one lot to a shop worries me because it can lower the worth of the gems as they take the stuff they can’t quickly sell or have many copies of already. That is how we did it when we bought collections twenty years ago when working in shops.

If that time came, I think I would sell the cream over Discogs and invite family to take what they want from the rest before selling the rest to a shop. But to be honest, I despise selling stuff and prefer to just donate or give to family. Yet I would need to make the exception if I needed to really get rid of my collection in earnest.

 

Hmmm…your wife did contact me regarding a large vinyl Valhalla pyre for your send off.

 

Shhhh... I don't want the hate mail

 

Good topic for a thread and timely for me. I don't yet have an answer for you (from my perspective) but here are a couple of thoughts that I have pondered over the past year.

It's very dependent on the type of collection and condition of the vinyl. If it is run of the mill albums collected through the years then it would be better to sell as a lot to a record store. You would probably get a fair price and the convenience versus selling individual albums. Also depends on how many you are selling. If it's in the hundreds then probably best splitting into smaller batches and perhaps testing how they price across a few record stores.

If your collection has a lot of collectibles then I think it would be better to keep those out of a batch sale. Discogs has become much better over the last few years in identifying collectibles. You could also sell via the SH Forum where people tend to know and appreciate fair market value. The downside to this is that you have to package and mail individual LP's.

 

Agree. Piece out the higher-ticket items on eBay, rent a table at a record show or two to try to sell the middle of the pack, then sell the leftovers as a package deal to my local shop.

 

Since none of my friends are music fans, I wouldn't be able to give them away, so I'd go with the dealer -- Anything else is too much work -- if the local gun range was looking for clay pigeons, I'd consider donating them.

 

I sold my record collection a few years ago before an out of state move. I had a lot of OOP albums by Music Maters, Analogue Productions, MFSL. Imports and Beatles mono first pressings. Anyway I sold them right here. After a while I had my regular customers who would contact me if I had a certain title. Steve is very generous to allow sellers to sell here without taking any percentage of the sale to put back in the forum.

 

While grading, packing, and shipping records is work, getting to three to five times as much per record as your local record shop will offer to you is worth the work, in my opinion.

If I ever decide to part with my UK first press of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, I’ll take the thirty minutes to photograph it and list it on eBay rather than hope my local shop will give me $40 for it.

 

When I was just selling a few things at a time I did it all myself, but once I made the decision to get rid of everything, I chose "send it all to Amazon and let them deal with it." In retrospect, I should have been doing that the whole time.