Unsolicited Discogs enquiry on your personal collection.

I use Discogs as a means of cataloging my collection and a few of my pals do the same. Essentially, our collections are not for sale. I have personally respectfully contacted a Discogs member that had a title I was interested in, for info not available on the site. (The item was from his personal collection and not for sale.)

Every once in a while I will receive a message asking me about a certain item in my collection. Sometimes it's asking for info, sometimes asking if I wanted to sell, etc.

I had one guy email me twice within a year asking if I would send him a MP3 of a couple of titles I had. Curiously, both of those titles have not seen a reissue on vinyl...

I'm sure it's not just me. So, has anyone gotten requests? A request to sell? A request for deadwax info or if you still had the original sleeve and what it looked like? Maybe an email from Tom Port?

 

Is your collection public? I've been on Discogs for a few years, never received such a contact, but then my collection is not public.

 

Yeah, public for sure. It's how I connect with my vinyl group who I either don't see so much these days or are all over the country.

 

I guess you must have some rare items in your collection that are not available elsewhere, including streaming services, or are expensive to buy.
I've never had anyone asking for mp3s or if I want to sell an item, but I have had people wanting to sell privately, or offering me items on my wantlist, or inviting me to check out their store. Once a person who had no items listed, no sales or buying history offered me an item on my wantlist. I declined. I once had a request for information on a release in my collection, that's no problem - I uploaded a couple of pictures displaying the details he was asking about.

 

Every once in a while I get inquiries about buying rare items. Once I was asked to make an mp3 of a 78 and ended up selling it to the person. Hasn’t happened in a while though.

 

I have no problems with it, although I've never been contacted. I have contacted a few people about selling their copy of a record. 2 accepted, though the offers were close to $1500 so I had to respectfully decline.

 

I received an email from Tom Port, asking if an $8 album played through with no surface noise or any other abnormalities whatsoever, showed little to no sign of handling and numerous other questions related to playback quality.

 

I had a request for deadwax info on an old somewhat rare 1969 Atlantic funk/soul comp. I had to decline because it's sealed. Then he replied to ask for the matrices if I ever opened it!

Atlantic Blockbusters (1969, Vinyl)

 

Mine is public, and I wouldn't mind such a message. Back when I drove, all my cars down through the years got at least one note asking if I were willing to sell. Always took it as a compliment.

 

Gold. I assume your $8 record was properly graded.

The last 3 MP3 requests for me were all albums that were OOP, not re-issued and not on Spotify. Often no or very few copies listed for sale.

Arlen Roth, National Velvet and The Extras. Could just be fans but I would hate to be the source of any bootleg campaigns!

$1500. Wow. So how far off was that from a rational offer?

 

$500 but that was still too much. I had no idea the prices had climbed to that extent. Research on other platforms showed that this was within the prices which are offered.

 

Which album/release was it?

 

I've messaged people about the sound quality of an album I am interested in buying. Not buying from them. These are albums that are not on YouTube. Just want to know what they think of the sound.. Nice and bright or dull and muddy... I usually have to message at least 5 people to get 1 response.

 

Many of the inquiries are related to rarities that don't see a lot of action in trading so I usually welcome the questions. I've also had people looking for promo tapes...back in the late 80's and early 90's, bands would often bring tapes to sell at shows, often before they got on a record label.

Unless I'm planning to buy, I usually only contact members with items listed in their public collection, not items listed for sale. I feel that way, the person has an opportunity to discuss their collection but not as a potential sale.

 

I have my collection saved on discogs as well. Brilliant resource for keeping track of a large collection. Occasionally get an enquiry and it’s usually someone asking for me to send them a wav or mp3 of a track not available elsewhere. I politely decline. Became too hard for me to rip when iMac stopped including CD burners anyway.

 

I had someone asking to send them an MP3 of one of the few CDs I've bothered entering. I mainly only enter my vinyl collection

 

I've received both offers to buy items in my collection and requests to send MP3s. I may act on the former, but never the latter.