Advice on bulk record pricing?

I know the owner of my local record store goes to people's houses to evaluate their collections. You could try that route if you have a used record store in town. If you don't like what he's offering, you'd at least have a ballpark how much the records would be priced at on the market by adding the profit margin.

Take actusreus suggestion. In the metro NYC area there are a few dealers that will show up and give a bulk price. Often that is no more then $1 a record. These dealers randomly pick about five records, look at jacket and surface condition and give a price. They pickup, pay cash and leave you feeling 'empty', which is a good thing. An alternate is to hire a senior high school kid who will put them on ebay. A fair arrangement would pay s/he $15 per hour and give them 40% of the net sales price after all fees and shipping is deducted. With all the latter effort, you may get an average of $1.50 a record. Must go now, the GoodWill store is calling to arrange another pickup of my 'stuff'.

Sorry to hear your medical problems force this on you but you are in the classic quandary of the person who is asked if they want their purchase to be made well, cheaply, or quickly? You know, they can pick any two of those but not all three. I suspect there is no quick or cheap answer for pricing LPs which is why we see such volatility in the market. Those who want to shift stuff in bulk fast, price accordingly and sell those $20 items for a lot less. To get the $20 bucks, or whatever your desired price is, sellers need to give buyers info and assurances, putting in all the effort required to satisfy the small market for such goods at top price (you know, grading, photos, individual shipping etc.) or find someone locally who knows and wants these items. Frankly, I wonder sometimes how folks on ebay have the patience to sell and ship some LPs that go for $5 unless it IS their full-time job!

That said, a practical technique might be to cluster your collection into very broad categories: " rare", "not so rare but desirable", and "garden-variety" based on your own intuitions and experience. Cherry pick a few of the items from each and get a feel for their price on Discogs or Ebay. Then consider that a mean price for each category and price the lot accordingly. As you suspect, anyone interested in buying the lot will drive the unit price down. Despite all the love many here have for old LPs, most people do not share it and hauling a collection around is a far from attractive proposition. Even priced fairly, there's a bit more involved in making a sale happen for this type of item than just saying "come and get 'em". As others note, the typical price you get for a record collection is usually far less than most audiophiles think it is worth.

You could check out popsike.com. You can search the first 15 to 20 records for free and after that it'll prompt you to sign up for a fee.