A few months ago I got rid of my LP collection. I offered them on NextDoor and they were snapped up within an hour, and I had to turn away a number of people. These were mostly rock albums from the 60s to 80s, not swing era music, but it’s worth a try if you just want to find them a new home and don’t care about making a profit.
To expand on that, some of the still existing ones that are yet to have been dug up may be historically important because they are the only existing known copy of that particular cut.
It’s easy enough to do a search on YouTube to find out if it’s a “lost” recording. The problem with 78s is that there is almost always a better example of the recording on another format. Also, I can’t imagine a shellac record is going to do anything good for the stylus of a modern turntable.
My recommendation: Put out a “free to good home” offer, and if nobody bites, maybe contact a college of music, a used record store, or a museum if there are any of those in your area.
Long story made short: A man who owns a vintage record store in my town told me that, as an example, Alma Gluck recordings in a 78 “album” would be like finding a debut Boston album in a collection from the 1970s, or Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in a collection from the early 1990s.
You might be able to sell them, though no jewel cases won’t help. As vinyl albums have gotten more expensive, a number of people have turned to CDs as an affordable way to own physical media.
I have a large collection of 78s, though I stopped adding to it years ago.
The artists you’ve listed here are very common, so I doubt you have anything really valuable there. Perhaps a few bucks each, if you sell them yourself.
One way to sell them is through a record auctioneer. Nauck’s Vintage Records is a reputable one. Their website is 78rpm.com. They have a minimum bid of $3 on most of the records of the type you’ve listed. If Nauck took them from you for auction, they’d pay you a lot less than that.
Condition has a lot to do with the value of a record. There’s a set of grading standards that auctioneers use. An E+ record is usually worth a lot more than, say, a V- record. If you want to sell them yourself on, say, eBay, you’ll have to learn about grading.
Also, 78s are brittle, so they must be packed properly if you mail them. Collectors of 78s have lots of stories about records they bought on eBay that arrived in pieces.
That was my first thought, too.
If I were the OP, I would try to minimize the time I’m messing with them. I’d join a bunch of online groups (FB, forums, etc.) who collect vinyl records, and simply offer the whole lot for free.
Send them off to the landfill. They are primarily made of shellac, which is non-toxic, renewable, and fully biodegradable.
I don’t think it much matters if they’re biodegradable if they’re disposed of in a modern landfill.
It matters to some people.
Modern landfills are specifically engineered to minimize oxygen, moisture and light, to prevent groundwater contamination in the area. Most “biodegradable” substances require aerobic bacteria and moisture to break down, and since modern landfills don’t have much of either, even food scraps and newspapers can survive basically intact for many many years. (Vegetables thrown in a landfill a decade ago probably still look better than what’s lurking at the back of many a refrigerator.)
Alright then, skeet it is! The shards will be exposed to the elements, so that’s better, right?
I am in the camp of put them up on craigslist, FB Marketplace, XXBuyNothing, NextDoor or whatever your easiest and cheapest interweb posting platform is, maybe include a few photos, and list them for FREE and MUST TAKE ALL and someone will take them off your hands. Any more work put into it is going to put you in the “loss” column even more. I had to dispose of a coin and stamp collection and just gave it to my brother, who had nothing better to do, and he reported to make a few bucks but barely worth his time sorting thru it and selling everything online.
In my previous life with my previous life…she came from a family of kinda high-end globetrotting classical musicians.
Her older brother Danny owned a gorgeous Victrola. Played, he had a box of old steel needles and a whetstone for sharpening, etc etc.
One day, quite randomly, walking down Canal Street in NYC, I glanced to the side as I crossed the street. There was someone with heaps of 78rpm records. Mostly the thick cardboard boxes they originally came in. I bought all of the string quartet/ violin recordings I could carry. Had no clue if any were worth owning.
I boxed them up in 2 or 3 boxes ( they were really heavy…) and wrapped them for Christmas gifts. He was quite blown away as he opened the first box and saw what was going on. In one of those three boxes, he took out a box. Exclaimed loudly, " THIS doesn’t exist !!". Apparently a recording that was beyond rare. A live performance by a violinist. It had never been released in 33rpm. It was in fine shape- no scratches of note.
He was pretty overwhelmed by the gift. And apparently he carefully used an at the time very new DAT recorder and high quality mics to record this performance off of the Victrola horn, so it could be preserved and shared around.
That was…about…1985. Ask around, post on Craigslist. If at ALL possible do not throw them out. To some, they’re low-quality garbage. To others, they are an analog window to recordings and performances long lost.
(When I posted the names off some of the records, I intentionally grabbed names y’all would know. But more than half of them were artists I’d never heard of at all.)
I’m definitely NOT going to skeet shoot them!
I have found a solution I can live with. While, perhaps not ideal I am not too bothered.
This house is over150yrs old. The basement is a cavern, and as irregular as the other spaces in the house. There is a, possibly dangerous, stair that leads down to the cavern. I am currently clearing the space. While clearing I almost entirely overlooked, in the darkness behind these ‘stairs’, a wooden box. It was full of the oldest 78’s. They were packed tightly into this clearly built to purpose case. At first I couldn’t figure how to open it, no clasps or hinges. The top slid out. To say it was dust covered is a huge understatement.
Here’s my plan; I have purchased boxes, also built to purpose, extract right size, insulated, seal up tight, no dust will get in, etc, etc. I bought two, enough to hold all of the 78’s these older ones and the others from the book sleeve sets. They are very heavy, yikes.
My plan is to reinstall them where I found them. In the darkness behind the stair. They will very soon be dust covered and virtually invisible. And when I move, one day years from now, or pass, I doubt they’d be noticed by whomever clears out the house. Even if they notice they’ll likely be put off by how heavy they are!
So, now they exist like an easter egg, that some future owners of the house get to stumble upon. Many, many years from now, quite possibly.
And who can say, perhaps, by then they’ll be more valuable?
At least a curiosity and amusing to find, I hope.
I love this!
