What should my heirs do to dispose of my vinyl and CDs?


I am typing up a document with all details of my system components and cables with approximate values.  No one else in the family knows anything about high end audio.  I suggested they sell the gear at US Audiomart.  What should I suggest they do with the vinyl and digital discs in my reasonably large collection?  I want them to get to others who can enjoy them when I no longer can. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

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I have a friend who took his collection to a shooting range and use all his records and CD’s as skeet! I saw the pictures and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

A resonant post.  While I think my son will assume ownership of my hardware (while perhaps not being as passionate about it as I've been ;-), my main concern is the appropriate disposition of collector sets I've accumulated.  As a long-time Deadhead, most of what needs deliberate effort are box sets of Dead releases that are worth 3x - 5x what I paid for them (based on what I see on ebay these days).    I'm talking about a strong 5-digit amount of dough.  From this thread, I picked up the valuable advice to catalog the most resellable pieces to facilitate the process of monetizing them for my heirs.  Great advice.  We ain't getting any younger!

Some posts here discuss the timing of such disposals.  Fact is we don't know when we're going to go.  This is really elegant.  Science fiction has discussed the horror that arises in a system when we do know.

There must be Discogs merchants who would be interested in extensive LP and CD collections (regardless of the cynicism of some elitist LP owners!)

I'm wondering if there are affordable barcode scanners and software for the purpose of cataloging. 

For your relatives without experience with vinyl, eBay or Discogs will take too long and be too much of a hassle, especially going through each record one-by-one grading.

Depending on where you live, the easiest/quickest thing for your heirs to do with you LP and CD collection would be for them to call up an area record store or three and ask for an offer on the whole collection (maybe let your heirs know the rough value). Assuming you have a worthwhile # of collectible LPs any record store owner will travel far to make a house call to pick up a valuable collection.  Depending on the number of rare/collectible records, they'll probably only get 25-35 cents on the dollar, but will be quick and easy.