That’s very nice of you.
I will take pics and post someone’s item(s) for them, but put their email and phone number in the ad and and state that replies to the craigslist generated email will not be responded to. They have to deal with the actual sale of the item, not me.
My brother inherited a hope chest from my grandparents full of records. He listened to a few of them but lost interest after a while. He thinks there’s about 200 in it and was trying to figure out what to do with it. He was thinking about putting it on CL. My suggestion…take it to a record shop and say “I have 200 records, they’re yours for $50” No stupid emails from stupid craigslist people. No organizing pickups. No one ringing your doorbell even though the ad said “If it’s not by the tree out front it’s gone, don’t ring the bell.” No breaking it up in to smaller chunks to put on ebay so you can ship it.
I also suggested that if one or two places don’t take him up on the $40 or $50 then just give it to the next place for free. It’s a college town that I assume is full of hipsters…I have to guess that if a record shop puts a bunch of vinyl jazz standards and big band stuff out $2.00 or so it’ll move fast enough that one of those record shops will want it.
Yeah, if you sell each one individually you can probably gross over a thousand dollars but you’ll probably net negative when you factor in time and gas. Take them to a record shop and see if you can dump off the whole thing (or half of it) and get a few bucks. If you have no use for them, you’ll probably be happier with the extra space back.
Anybody have a name for this horribly annoying behavior? “Couldn’t you have gotten more?”
That would probably be the whole of it if the question was just a way of sharing their experience of disappointment. If they’re really shifting into “I’m disappointed therefore it’s your fault” territory, maybe we could call it Sellers Remorse by Proxy. I think the article is right that it’s best to warn sellers that they’re going to feel that way.
You have my complete sympathy. I inherited some 78’s.* Fortunately not nearly that many and no one is prodding me to sell them. Except for myself. I got to experience the disappointment by myself with a simple web search. I’m over it.
- On the up side, I figured out why 33 1/3 records are called albums. I think I inherited 3 albums plus a loose platters.
I’m sorry but I think you gave your brother really bad advice.
Care to expand?
Next time ask George Constanza how much he wants to sell it for. Don’t accept a “it’s up to you” response.
Agreed, could of been a big gold nugget in that collection.
Might see it on an episode of Pawn Stars soon.
Maybe, but that’s kinda what the OP is complaining about.
Well, you valued the collection at over $1,000. With that information, you encouraged him to sell the collection for five percent (5%) of its total value. That sounds like really poor advice to me.
Actually, I ‘valued’ Nawth’s collection at over $1000, but I didn’t put that price tag on it, Nawth’s parent’s did.
I tell you what, since you seem to think these collections of random records are worth well over $1000 I’m sure either of them would be happy to sell them to you for $1000. Can I have my brother call you?
As my dad always says, “Things are only worth what someone else is willing to pay for them.”
Also, my thought process behind selling a $1000 collection for $200 was this: Sure, Nawth (or my brother) might be able to gross an average of $5 per record if they sold them individually (or maybe in 2’s or 3’s). If they did research to find out how much each one was worth. If they ran all over town to record shops. Put them one at a time on Ebay and CL and random collectors BBs on the internet. Spend all that time shipping them…but is it really worth it? What are they going to net when they’re done? How much are they going to have left when they factor in the time and gas they spend working on a project they really didn’t have any interest in to begin with?
So $50 for doing almost no work at all or a higher amount of money for doing a shit load of work…I’d just dump them off at a record shop.
But like I said earlier…I mentioned that he could probably $50 at a record shop and you telling him that he could probably get more then that is virtually exactly what the OP is talking about.
Should’ve gone Price is Right on her… One dollar!
Joey P is right on. My parents live in a rural area far from me and they wanted to either pay a lot of money to ship the whole thing to me for selling or have me drive up for it, then sell it - all on their behalf, all w/ me doing the Internet research, calling people, setting prices, arranging sales; all this for a group of records they inherited so their sense of the collection’s value came from no actual knowledge whatsoever. And Mom doesn’t know how to research their value or who to call or email so it’s down to me.
They also inherited all my grandpa’s documents, passes and pictures from his time as a security guard at Kennedy Space Center during Apollo and Gemini. That **is **a valuable collection but it’s stuffed in a box somewhere in their house as Grandpa’s ‘work papers’. When I bring those up I get brushed off.
I’d call this attitude “presumptuousness”.
I call it greed and get it every time I list something for my mother on ebay. She does not understand (or is just playing dumb) that I have to deduct shipping and final value fees from her total.
I believe it’s on the initiator of the sale to name the price. I hate when someone wants to buy something off of me, but expects me to come up with a price just like that. I don’t make a habit of keeping a running tally in my head of what I would sell my stuff for on the off-chance someone asked!
If you’re interested enough to ask if I’d sell something, the least you can do is make an offer, IMO.
Holy agita.
I was basing my conclusion on the information you provided. Nothing more, nothing less. Please don’t assign presumptions to me that don’t belong to me.
Offer a package deal. You’ll do a full court press on the records if you get to take home your grandpa’s box to keep and do with as you like. Or if you’re looking for a way to show them the extent of the work necessary, get a quote or three on the cost of evaluating the records. Then evaluate the shipping and handling costs. . . or not. I kind of like the idea of buying the hostage NASA box with ebay toil.