I’ve got 3-4000 records. A wide range but mainly blues ,jazz ,rock, African and reggae.
A mix of US and UK pressings and a lot of Aussie pressings.
People say it must be worth a heap,especially these days with vinyl’s renewal – see thread by @LOUDspeaker.
But I doubt it. Go to a second hand record shop and they are likely to offer you about A$5.00 or if it something that was popular, Boston, Hot August Night etc they wont take it.
Equally those less populist albums often don’t attract much because there is not much demand for them. Mark Almond record anyone? It is only good nick copies for the big names Stones, Beatles ,Zep that they will pay big money.
Curiously crappy Aussie pressings can sell ok overseas because the covers ,awful as they were ,were sometimes different to overseas versions.
Stuff that seems to have solid demand are blues albums, some jazz ,classic funk and some indie Australian bands from the 60s and 70s. I mean you see crazy prices on discogs but anyone ever sold or bought at these prices?
But I’d be surprised if my whole collection would pull more than 10 grand and that would be if I carefully fed them into the market.
It seems the most common way stuff hits the market ,and this will be increasingly common as we all age, is the record collector carks it and the partner says now I can finally get rid of all that clutter and it ends up at an opp shop or some kindly “friend” takes it off their hands …..*shudders*
Anyone had any experiences in this area that they would like to share
I had a clearout about 10 years ago, when a friend of my daughter’s bore off a couple of armfuls, including an original copy of Five Leaves Left (*gulp*, but it was pretty knackered).
As part of the great Oz move I sold a few choice items, top price of about 25 quid IIRC. All a bit of a pain in the arse. Absolutely nobody wants classical vinyl, so that all went to charidee.
Somewhere I have a copy of Please Please Me album in stereo, first pressing, all indicators present. Can I find it? Can I buggery? It was safely tucked away in my storage unit last time I saw it, but when I came to empty it, nowhere to be seen. I sure hope I didn’t give it away – I’m hoping it will magically reappear when i go back to Blighty. 3 grand minimum.
I used a set of Parlophone Beatles eps as Frisbees when, in my adolescence, I nailed my colours to the Rolling Stones mast.
Should have nailed my fucking head to it too.
Some classical apparently you can actually sell- certain pressings. Not much though.
Yesterday evening I had to venture up into my loft because a roofing tile had slipped. Guess what? Yep, there are numerous boxes of pop LPs, EPs and 45s. Lots of Beatles albums, Stones including what I call the “hexagonal LP”, Pretty Things, Georgie Fame, Manfred Man, umpteen Bob Dylan LPs…and so it went on. Wish I’d never ventured up there now.
My father in law, who was a classical orchestral conductor, had literally a room full of classical recordings. We couldn’t give ’em away. Maybe one or two were “rare” or “desirable” but not having The Knowledge we didn’t know. They got spread about the family (we have a shelf full) and others were quietly disposed of.
Ditto my Dad’s jazz 78s when my parents moved to a retirement place. I took a few that I remembered from my childhood, the rest went to the tip.
The only vinyl I have that I thought might be worth something is a Beatles bootleg of Strawberry Fields outtakes and mixes from the 80s. On eBay it’s about twenty bucks.
The answer to this question is “much less than you think”.
In most average collections there’ll be a few choice individual items but most of the collection will be worth peanuts. Separate the wheat from the chaff and then the rest is just about volume IF you can find someone to take it.
Which leads onto the question of….what *will* happen to your collection of stuff when you expire? Have you made any plans? Expecting to dispose of it all beforehand, or leaving it to loved ones to throw out?
I decided a couple of years back to make a start at getting rid of my Disney pin badge collection. My children would not have a clue which one was worth £1 or £100 and, more importantly, where best to sell them. I can turnover £500 a month on eBay, selling them mainly to US collectors. I intend making a start on my record collection for the same reason. I have turned it into a little business to supplement my pensions as they become due.
For some reason they are begging me to stop buying more crap records from charity shops and car boot sales but I explain to them gently that is my hobby. It gets me out of the house and costs very little. If anything happens to me before I manage to dispose of them they have instructions to share them around various charity shops to start the cycle all over again.
As my contemporaries seem to be leaving this mortal coil at a rate of knots I have increasingly become aware of this problem.
Just what am I going to do with 50 years of blues records, literature about blues/jazz/ folklore/ complete magazine sets of Blues Unlimited/Living Blues/Blues & Rhythm/Blues World/Jazz Journal/Jazz Monthly?
Major blues collectors, for instance Paul Oliver or Bruce Bastin have donated their “holdings” to academic establishments.
If you scroll down to the Bastin’s entry on Stefan Wirz’s Persons Behind The ‘American Music’ Scene you’ll see what I mean http://www.wirz.de/music/persofrm.htm
Unless you have a first pressing Elvis on Sun, it’s probably nearly worthless in resale terms.
We’ve been doing house auctions for a family member since he died in November, and while he wasn’t a record collector, it’s sobering to realise that all the things he always thought were valuable aren’t. At all. He was so proud of having collected this stuff, and it’s ended up going to clearance or being given away.
Enjoy the stuff for itself but assume it has little to no monetary value, then at least if there’s going to be a surprise, it’s the right kind.
It’s always the case isn’t it, personal value and open market value are two totally different things.
We bought a flat a few years ago, the guy who was moving out didn’t really want to move some larger items of furniture – a large corner style sofa, work desk, bookcases etc. so we said we’d give him a bit extra for them. His values were so way wide of the mark – £300 for the work desk, £2,500 for the sofa! We offered £500 for the lot, his reply that the sofa alone cost him £3,000 was met with “Maybe, but to us it’s just second hand furniture”.
I don’t care about the value of my record collection, it’s cost me a lot to amass it but it has a lot of value for me and enjoy all aspects of it. I’m lucky in that I can’t see me ever having to raise money on it anyway and being the type of person I am I don’t care what happens to it when I die.
When you see the prices of stuff in second hand stores there is obviously a massive market inefficiency between original sellers and end purchasers. Or are these second hand shops kidding themselves.
As to Alan’s questions. I gave a collection of an independent leftie newspaper from 70s Melbourne to a university but even that was an effort to offload. The blues mags you’d think would have a market as blues collectors are particularly avid. What to do with your blues records Alan? – I will send you my address. I will even pay for the tea chests. How long are you planning on living for?
Love it Mr Wells, love it…..
Mrs Wells #2 loves my records and will cherish them though I expect the African and reggae stuff not so much .
Got a couple of friends who will want them.
Aside from the obvious, stuff most likely to be worth something at the moment are mid 90’s albums that are still trendy now, haven’t been reissued and were produced at the time when vinyl sales had collapsed. For example, Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix ( with 7 ” single). Worth £60 plus.
Yep see also original vinyl copies of Oasis etc. This also counts for artists going into the 00s, Richard Hawley Coles Corner I’ve seen go for £250
Same with Ariel – Kate Bush, Cave’s Abbatoir Blues and the like. Its pure madness
Yep. You think someone at the labels would be keeping an eye on the prices and supply according to demand.
Disparity in valuation between owner and any potential purchaser? My dad is 86 and increasingly more aware that he ain’t got long left. He has routinely told me about a set of aircraft books from the late 40’s that was ‘worth a bob or two’. Look after them, he told me. Last time he came round he told me he had them valued by an expert – £12.00 apparently.
Likewise a book of old postcards from the turn of the last century. I expected them to be worth a few undred quid – auctioneers told me just about £100.00. Yet I know whoever bought them would double the asking price. Fuck em.
As for my cd collection – to me its worth the World – to anyone else probably aint worth shit. If I go before my brother and my son they can share them according to my will.
I’ve got several hundred aircraft books, varying in age from the 30s to the current day. Age is no guarantee of value – some from the 30s can be bought for very little, some from the 80s for many multiples of the cover price.
Have a look on Ebay, Amazon and Abebooks to get an idea of their value, and sell them there. Anyone with specialist interests will regularly check those sites.
Are they ‘Aircraft Of The Fighting Powers’ volumes, by any chance?
Not Sure, will check with him. I do however have the complete set of there ‘History of Aviation’ magazines that were released in the late 60’s/early 70’s in the binders too. Will get a valuation for them.
I have hundreds of vinyl singles and LPs from the 70s and 80s, including many classics from the punk era, but I don’t suppose they’re worth very much.
Ironically, the most valuable record in my collection is probably a CD set that I bought just a couple of years ago, namely the Grateful Dead’s ‘Dave’s Picks Vol. 4’, which now goes on eBay for about USD 250. Crikey – it’s lucky the world is full of insane, obsessed Deadhead mugs … like … well, like me.
The Dead : an investment for life!
I have about 1000 albums. Probably about 20 are worth up to several hundred dollars each e.g. original Time out of Mind (Dylan), Aerial (Bush), I am guessing the rest are worth between 25 cents and $10, but the time needed to reach these values is not negligible.
Of course if you sell as a job lot you get much less than real value. They have to make a living from turning them over.
Original time out of mind several hundred dollars @dai ?
Surely there would have been plenty though I guess that was just before the vinyl option became more popular.
I’ve got the cd with an extra disc of live stuff put out for the Oz tour – I will take 200.
@junior-wells It has since been re-released so worth less now. A lot of LPs from the 90s are quite rare, I also have Van’s Hymns to the Silence on double LP.
http://www.popsike.com has values for what albums actually make on ebay (not what people want for them)
Ooo that’s a good site. I just checked and a copy of SPIROGYRA – BELLS, BOOTS AND SHAMBLES near MINT LP went for £1,831 in 2011! I have been saving my copy for a rainy day, since I have it on CD and Korean reissue LP. I think it may just be pissing down.
Fuck me, that stereo Please Please Me that I can’t find went for GBP15,000! Better find it then.
All the vinyl that I used to have that may be worth anything is long since sold. I wouldn’t like to know what some of it would be worth. I have 1,500 CDs, but I’d guess that, boxed sets aside, less than 10% of them would fetch more than a tenner, probably nearer 5%. I have a one in one out policy for CDs, as they were getting out of hand, so I flog them on eBay to subsidise other purchases. Most of them go for £2.99 including postage.
As a hoarder I do, however, have loads of other collections around the house that are worth a bit, to the point that I really need ro price it all up for insurance purposes and so the missus doesn’t get ripped off should I pop me clogs – Batman comics and memorabilia, James Bond stuff, footy programmes, etc. It does get a bit worrying though when my 5 year old and 9 year old start divvying it all up between them. Do they know something I don’t?
I think David Hepworth wrote an article in The Word about having his collection valued, and being somewhat dismayed at (a) the value (or lack of) and (b) it being described as an assembly (I think) rather than a collection i.e. it didn’t have a focus or a theme.
He recently addressed the issue of who you leave it to http://whatsheonaboutnow.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/leaving-record-collection-in-your-will.html. The story in the comments about the Green Bay Packers collection will stick with me too.
I have all my original vinyl but no working deck and no inclination to get one – and no ability to just dump the records. There’s some Zappa there that is probably worth a few quid but the Westwood One Radio shows have probably lost their value given the number of bootleg sites online. I consigned about 1000 bootleg C-90s to a skip, keeping about 50 back that I knew to be worth a listen – although I don’t know when that might be.
I have so many CDs when I last insured the house contents I just measured the length of the shelves that sat on and worked out how many there were per foot, and assumed I’d have to replace them at around £10 each, although I reckon I’d be lucky to get more than £2 if I were to sell them. They are pretty much all on a hard drive (backed up twice) so it’s only the same inertia that prevents me from selling / dumping them.
My music is bequeathed to my sister. When I told her she looked more burdened that blessed.
C
Try again.
…an’t imagine my current collection is worth anything at all. I sold a lot of stuff years back when I needed some money and now that I want to give it all away again, I’ll give it to hospices hoping they can some use of it all.
I would imagine my books would be worth more if I hadn’t been so dumb as to annotate some of them. I have first editions of Capt Corelli’s Mandolin, Robert Harris’s Fatherland and Fever Pitch which someone told me were valuable, but they aren’t really.
Maybe we should all put our collections together like Mick Jones did, set them up as installation art, have someone curate it and charge people to visit. I’m fascinated by what people have in their houses.
My ex wife’s mother was a record collector .Classic jazz and blues inflected jazz from th 40s ,50s and 60’s. All immaculately maintained ,each in a plastic sleeve and mainly US imports.
I was the only person who ever looked at them ,put any on or discussed them with her.
Don’t know what happened to them. I try not to think about it – but obviously I failed.
I have all the Beatles albums on vinyl. People say “cor, they must be worth a bob or two”, and I say “no, they made bloody millions of them”. It’s the obscure soul and rockabilly records on unheard of labels that make big bucks.
Well if you go to your common or garden recycled record shops it is the Beatles et al that bring in the big bucks. Yes there were heaps of those records but they were put out a long time ago and most copies are rooted . Plus this is where there is more demand – so pristine copies sell for a tidy sum.
Your rockabilly record might be really rare but demand is so much lower.
Rarity is the deciding factor if a record is worth big bucks. You should check your reggae collection. Anything on Studio 1 is likely to be quite valuable. You will have to sell online to get the best price.
This is a bit like The Antiques Roadshow when the experts lift the spirits of punters by telling them that horrible artefact Uncle Charlie left them is worth … fuck all. Isn’t it great to watch their little faces fall? Especially when they maintain – unconvincingly – that ‘I wouldn’t sell it for anything’. You can’t put a price on memories, pointless to even try – it’s worth nothing, but at the same time, everything.
It’s been a buyer’s market for a long time now. The main problem will be finding a dealer who’ll take all the rest once all the good stuff (not necessarily what you think it’ll be) has been snapped up. About a third of my vinyl went to charity shops in the end but I was reasonably content with what I got for the rest. Your estimate may be a tad optimistic but good luck
(You’d think at least one record dealer would be lurking on this site.)
If you enter your collection into Discogs it will tot up the resale value based on previous sales. That’s a good estimate of the price you’d get selling individually.Worth doing and doesn’t take as long as you think unless you’re trying to pinpoint the exact Beatles pressing you’ve got which can be a mare.
I’ve got maybe 4000 cds and 700 vinyl, the vinyl worth far more than the CDs. I backed the wrong horse format wise but I’ve stopped bothering about that, I had great fun collecting them and continue to enjoy listening to them and rooting through the shelves to find something I’ve not played for ages
£19.71
Does that include p&p?
Junior,
I have never really thought of my LP/CD collection in any terms other than emotional value, although I do appreciate there is financial value to individual collections. Without wishing to detract from your OP, I’m just curious to know of the 3 -4 thousands discs in your collection, how many get a regular playing?
I ask because my collection of CD’s (mostly replaced vinyl) is perhaps 10%, (i.e. 400) of yours and I probably play maybe 10% of them on a regular basis.
Please tell me I am wrong, but, in my case, I can’t help relating this to a sign of ageing and being less bothered about collecting the historical and being interested in the ‘new’.
@attackdog That’s a regular question and probably applies to any collection. how often do you read those books, look at those stamps, fondle that figurine?
I play my vinyl more than my cds -though less so in the car ha ha.I have 2 turntables- one in the family room and one in the den for want of a better description so availability helps.I prefer vinyl for all the usual reasons, the ritual, the cover art, only playing a side if you want ( yes you can stop a cd halfway but it is not the same innit)., the sound ( yes I know the debate) and I have a stronger connection to them. Can remember where I bought every record-cant say the same for cds. On the thread what was your first cd I couldn’t even remember the very first one .
I play my blues and jazz and reggae a lot then the soul and folk. Not much rock gets an airing because I find that music has dated pretty badly, my taste has changed and that stuff is also more likely to be in less good nick- especially your favourite tracks. African infrequently these days though I will have bouts of picking a particular country – I find that helps to get in the groove of that style of music’s rhythms rather than being eclectic in selection.
I didn’t start out with the plan of having a 3000 record collection plus cds.I just started buying, havent stopped and haven’t gotten rid of them. As per this thread a lot would be worth little if anything so they stay in the shelves. In fact I find the record spines with all their colours and patterns quite visually attractive. fortunately Mrs Wells agrees.
I
They’re there if I need them, is how I look at it…
Worth the petrol my kids will use taking ’em to the tip? (O, that’s the outlay, not the worth.)
Shame, but I think they will die with me. Maybe lining my box, but it will have to be a feckin’ big un.
Back in ’63 (I think), I begged my parents to get me Beatles wallpaper. It showed the clean cut Fabs in their collarless jackets. By the time it arrived, I was two-timing the moptops by having a flirtation with the Stones. I haughtily declared I wasn’t having my bedroom walls sullied by this passing fad. My parents stored it in the garage. IIRC, it was being quoted at a ludicrous price per square foot by the mid -70s. The pound signs lit up my eyes, so I phoned home only to be told ‘oh, we got rid of that years ago’.
You wiill be pleased to learn that a very grainy repro of the four fabs walking across a zebra crossing is now available as a wallpaper via a New York based company. You can specify your preferred size.
Should you opt for, for example, 1m tall by 3m wide, that will be £145.00 plus shipping. Thank you for your order.
Having just read these posts I think you are a very sad bunch(*)
A few points for you to consider:-
If you have 501326 albums then you will never ever get to listen to them all ( even 5013 albums will be difficult)
If you happen to have a first pressing of Burt Hampster’s first LP on sky blue vinyl in a cellophane green sleeve signed by Burt it maybe worth, to someone, £73.21p (including post and packing) Chances are though that, given you might be reading this on your £300 electronic gadget whilst sitting in your air conditioned car eating your M and S wrap having just got back from watching a top group at your local arena venue then £73.21p is not really that big a deal (yes I know to some people it really could be a big deal)
Once you shuffle off this troubled World of ours’ does it REALLY matter what happens to your albums because (probably) you won’t know anything about it.
(*) just joking
well all quite true @daff but it is good sport though…..*resumes looking for value of Countryman label on Tuff gong label*
Lee perry roast fish corn bread and collie weed original pressing 100 bucks – that’s a good start.
Tune!
oh here’s an interesting thing which sort of reinforces my point that rarity is one thing but demand is critical.
An aussie pressing of the single whole lotta love / livin lovin maid by Ver Zep is worth $75.00, presumably close to pristine, which mine is not -chiz. But The mighty Oh Well parts 1 and 2 from Fleetwood Mac ,also Aussie pressing less than ten bucks
Certainly here in Germany, good prices to be had for Vertigo/Island/Harvest releases (= “underground”, later prog) from 1971-ish in top condition that didn’t sell too well at the time. Local Anaesthetic by Nirvana (which I actually have a copy of) went for a whopping 600 Euros recently. Astonished me as it’s not even that good, really. So who’s paying this kind of money and why?
I scribbled my name in biro on every LP sleeve I bought (betraying a subconscious distrust of my friends and family), so unless I become famous enough for my signature to add value to them, my “collection” is worth f**k all.
Actually, even if I did get very famous it wouldn’t add any value, because I didn’t write my actual name, I wrote my pseudonym – the one I used before internet even existed (and without being a rapper). Not the one I’m using now.
(Why did I have a pseudonym, you ask? I’m not sure. Punk may have been an inspiration. Certain authors may have had something to do with it. Or maybe I just was a rather pretentious teenager, as most teenagers are)
Get those LPs out and write “(Locust of the Afterword)” under your name, and the value of them will rocket pronto.
Yes I did that too. No idea why, I think I just liked the sound of my own signature
I have so much rubbish that if I threw away 95% of my records the whole collection would probably be worth more
When I was younger I used to do the rounds of second hand shops in Melbourne every few months and in that time I picked up some gems plus a whole lot of crap.
Luckily I have a mate with a similar collection to me, probably better, and once he retires he intends to sell them through ebay . I told him that once he goes through his material he can start on mine and we’ll split the proceeds 60/40. He thinks that a good idea.
There used to be a mail order store in Australia called Witch Records that would sell for you on consignment. I sent them a bunch of records with recommended prices and a few months later they sent me the discards and a fairly hefty cheque so making a profit can be done.
But the minute you sell ’em, you’ll miss them and want them back. I remember having to flog a few to get thru’ to a particularly bad end of month, pre CD, getting a quid each for them. Anyone got that Henry Gross album with Shannon on it? Only 2 good tracks, but jeepers, could do with it again. Less so Still by Pete Sinfield.
You did alright with the Henry Shannon for a quid seeing as you can up another copy for 89p.
http://www.discogs.com/sell/item/45817791
Yay!
The key factors (not all these need apply) are condition of the record and sleeve, the format, the scarcity of the item, whether the record is by a particular collectible artist, label or genre, whether there is something unique or unusual about the record (signed copy, mispress, sleeve variation etc) and the last one the most difficult to guage, demand from collectors.
At one end of the spectrum a battered copy of ‘No Parlez’ or a Lighthouse Family CD single that’s lost it’s inlay card…and at the other, the original acetate of The Quarrymen.
I’ve noticed particularly among younger buyers, there are collectors who just want a specific record on vinyl, even a bootleg reissue, and would probably happily part with cash for a copy that Locust has scribbled on so that doesn’t always reduce the value that much.
The demand thing is odd though, I’ve got quite a few rare Stereolab singles but they don’t seem to be in vogue with collectors so the records have noticeably fallen in value.
There is growing interest in obscure house and techno records that I couldn’t give away years ago, and as stated earlier people now pay crazy money for original vinyl versions of 90s/00s music that you can get for £2.50 on CD. Trend spotting and knowing when to sell is the hard part
I got rid of 95 per cent of mine earlier this year. The punk stuff went to a guy I think will appreciate it, the reggae to an independent shop I approve of as a donation. I think there are a few nuggets he can sell, and if that helps him survive in some small way then great. The rest went in the bin, or more accurately to a recycling station.
I have a few things left that I will digitize, because I don’t find them on iTunes.
What was in the reggae collection you gave away @jed-clampett ?
Some Wailers 12″ singles, Erroll Scorcher, a lot of British reggae from the 70s and 80s, mix of singles and albums from … Misty in Roots, Steel Pulse, Black Slate, Black Roots, Aswad, Bloodfire Posse etc.
Lots of “reggae basics” … Dennis Brown, Sugar Minott, Gregory Isaacs, Culture, Delroy Washington, The Royals, Black Uhuru.
Other stuff that I can’t remember.
Criminal!
I have pretty much all of it in electronic format. Everything I actually listen to anyway.
I still have a turntable, but the only thing I ever use it for is digitizing vinyl. I can’t even remember the last time I played a record just to hear the sound.
So it all just takes up too much space that I need for other things really. I tried to find good homes for as much of it as I could, but there was genuinely very little interest in most of it.
Inspired by this thread I’ve had a bit of a rummage. Turns out my first pressing Ziggy Stardust (excellent nick) might be worth the price of a dirty weekend somewhere. Mind you, I do know how to do a dirty weekend on a budget.
Cue Moose……
Crikey. My original copy of The Prettiest Star would pay for a week in Rhyl. Not bad for a 10p purchase.
Yes, almost doubled in value!
I have over 400 45s from roughly 76 to 82. I’ve just picked a couple of acts at random (Eddie & The Hot Rods and Alberto Y Los Trios Paranioas) and done an Ebay search and I’m rather pleased at the market value.
And I’ve just put all of my ‘punk years’ from A to E into Discogs – roughly 200 singles – and the median value is just under a grand. I’m happy with that!
still you’ve got to fuck around selling them .
True dat, but I’m enjoying seeing what they are worth! So far A-L, 306 singles, median value £1550.00
I’d whittled my albums collection (no singles to speak of) down to around 3000 before I sold it. Two dealers, one skimmed the cream (about a dozen highly priced items in mint) the other took the rest. I got about five grand. If I’d sold them myself on ebay, I’d have made a few times that, but I didn’t have the time or resources. So there you go. A good dealer will only tell you what they’re worth to him, but that’ll be more than you get from “collectors’ shops”, and it’ll save you the Walk Of Shame as you stuff your Genesis albums back into your satchel, avoiding the sneers of the crate-thumbers.
I was never into it for the money, man, anyway. I started picking stuff up I liked (anything with paisley on the cover was a no-brainer) back in the early seventies. The most I ever paid for an album was ten quid for the Monkees’ Head, when the “collectors’ market” (and, later, the first back-to-vinyl craze) started spoiling everything. I’d had a great time crawling through second-hand shops, didn’t lose any money. Don’t miss them at all. Still listen to the music.
Here’s the guy who lapped the cream:
http://www.beatbooks.com/shop/beatbooks/index.html
(Beware – lock away your credit card before visiting this site)
I think you hit the proverbial nail on the head when you say you could have got more on eBay but….
My parents had oodles of books that went to a dealer who lapped them up, same story – I’d have to have become basically a second hand book dealer to make maybe a couple of grand.