What to do with a large collection

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

Buddhism Universal Truth #1: Impermanence - Nothing lasts forever.

Rip all of your CDs to hard drive and listen to them from there.   Make sure you have at least 2 full backup copies of your music data on different devices.

Take your CDs down to the record shop, get your 10 cents on a dollar store credit and be done with it. You’ll still have all of your music at home and you’ll get a few more at the record store while you’re there. Do this and you’ll save yourself a lot of angst.

@latik  Thanks for the referral on CLZ Music.   They have an app for the Mac called Music Collector.  Very nice interface and works great. 

If you have a community radio station, they might have use for them and you can write off the donation. 

@rvpiano

I am in the same situation, being 71 and not having cared for my most valuable material posession very well in my youth (my body). My great hope is that one of my kids or son-in-laws or any realtive will want them, as well as my system. I have listed most of my collection in DISCOGS, as has been mentioned.It’s a lot of fun and you can see what other members are selling the same release for. You can also see the high, low, and median prices that the release sold for in the past as well as when it last sold.

I was surprised how much some pople paid for some of my pieces, so if there is any chance you have some thing rare or valuable, check it out. You can also offer it for sale. I am not planning on selling much of my collection that way. Too time consuming but I am not going to toss out my Linda Ronstadt Live in Hollywood 2 LP set from Rino. It has sold for $99 and someome is currently asking for $199. Of course it also sold for $21 at some point. You will need to enter the bar code, catalog number, or matrix/runout code because it may make a big difference.

If I can’t find someone I know who will enjoy my stuff I would donate my collection to a Habitat For Humanity re-sell store. I know they are a true charity. Goodwill, not so sure they are 100% not for profit.

My system will be sold if necessary. Lots of ways to do that.

@kmcong I have 355 CDs and am fortunate to not have seen any rot....yet