What to do with a large collection

If you have the inclination and time, you could bundle your CDs into "lots" and sell them on Discogs/Ebay. So if you have several CDs of certain composers, bundle them like a box set and sell them that way.

The alternative is to trade them in for store credit and then sell the credit to someone else for cash and donate what you can't sell/trade in. 

My friends were surprised when I told them I still buy CDs but it's because I'm looking for better sound than streaming, and some artists' back catalogs were never released on vinyl. And if I'm buying used/new  from abroad, I prefer CDs as the chances of damaged vinyl are too great. 

@rvpiano Is your LP collection catalogued? 

I’ve bought a lot of CDs that do and did absolutely nothing for me (I used to experiment back in the old days) but I needed to buy them in order to find the jewels that gave me hours upon hours (for years) of enjoyment. Iris Dement, Allison Krause, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Cowboy Junkies . . . just a few of the hours of enjoyment that I was able to experience for years by experimenting. So if I wasn’t able to listen anymore for the rest of my life, starting today, and they all (and there ae a lot) wound up in the recyclable bin (starting tomorrow) I still would not consider it/them a waste.

However, here’s to hoping it doesn’t go that way.

I buy cds to this day. I have a huge collection and I love it, and most likely I'll never get rid of it. Even though I do rip them and listen on portable devices, every now and again I play them on my system and I enjoy it tremendously. If you don't want/need the $ I would donate them to Goodwill or a similar local organization. Otherwise, like many suggested, if you have the time and patience for it, sell them as smaller lots online (eBay, Craigslist, etc.)

How timely! I have an editorial in the February issue of TAS—the digital edition is already available—about selling my LP collection (1800 albums, 80% classical) to make room for the installation of bunk beds for my grandkids. There’s a West Coast dealer who sells very expensive turntables to wealthy individuals who often don’t own many records and will pay top dollar for big collections. (The dealer doesn’t take a cut; he just views this as a service he provides to an exclusive clientele.) If you are so inclined, you can probably bring in more cash by selling the valuable stuff separately. But that’s a lot of work (plus reduces the attractiveness of the rest of the records) and I’ll admit that I like the idea that my lovingly curated collection is largely intact and is being enjoyed by someone else on the the other side of the globe.

If this is of interest, send me a PM and I’ll put you in contact with the dealer.

Andy Quint

Senior Writer, The Absolute Sound