A family member passed away and I’m now in possession of a lot of old records.
I cannot afford to ship them all back home (there are a lot). A local record store has said they buy old vinyl which is great.
My question is can I know if they’ll honestly aseess the value? Are there online resources I can check?
I can see people selling on eBay but asking $300 for an album is no indication it’s worth more than a nickel.
Look at sold items on eBay (for sale and completed listings are also useful).
Record collectors are picky about condition.
Someone would have to see how it sounded. Pops and scratches are bad. I think it would boil down to my philosophy on this sort of thing: “A thing is worth however much someone else is willing to pay you for it.”
I’ve seen used book stores that have a used record corner, where they go for $1 apiece. I wouldn’t expect much more than that unless you have a real rare album in mint condition.
You can’t afford to ship them home where you might be able to assess their condition. You didn’t pay anything for them, and a vinyl store is willing to make you an offer. Ask them what they’d give you and if it seems like a nice chunk of change you’d like to have then take it. Otherwise, you can scratch up the money to have them shipped or to have them appraised on site, which would then be deducted from whatever you got for them. Unless there’s a lot of weird esoteric bootlegs in there and if the albums are in normal wear and tear condition the lot probably isn’t worth a whole lot to you, regardless of what it might give up to someone with the knowledge and connections to market them effectively.
Given that it’s very unlikely that you have a particularly rare vinyl album, I think you should take whatever they’re offering to take these records off your hands. My parents have several hundred vinyl LPs and we called around but weren’t able to find anyone who wanted them, even for free. We’re probably going to have to throw them out. (And from what I can tell, the records themselves aren’t recyclable, although the cardboard sleeves are.)
Actually I can afford to ship them and just said that for ease. There are a lot of records and records are heavy. Shipping might well cost more than they’re worth. I just don’t know. That’s the issue and I have a day before leaving so not much time.
Yeah this is your answer. Shipping will cost more than they’re worth.
If you have a couple hours look at sold listings on eBay quickly but don’t expect to find anything worth much. Even if something is your favorite record of all time or by the best artist that ever lived or even something made before television existed, it doesn’t mean anything. Rarity is the key.
So take fifteen minutes to separate out a few albums you want to keep (either “This is a classic. I’ll listen to this over and over.” or “Hey, I remember Uncle Einar trying to dance to this. Gotta keep it!”).
Then sell. Consider the fact that the record store guy is saving you a bunch of hassle. And he’s ensuring your vinyl won’t go to waste, but might cheer up a random customer.
Look for the Goldmine Record Album Price Guide. This should give you an idea of whether any of the records have value. Of course, the prices in this guide are what the albums might sell for in a record shop (or what they would go for at auction), not what the record shop would buy them for.
Correct. My wife had a brief go at selling some of our unwanted crap on eBay and realised that we had a good copy of an album which couldn’t be obtained for less than one hundred dollars. So she advertised it for eighty… then fifty… then twenty… then five. Then gave it away to the local charity store.
Markets which aren’t deep and liquid do not necessarily have an efficient mechanism for establishing prices.
If there is a local second hand store that will collect your inherited albums and put them back into circulation then it’s probably worth doing so just for the satisfaction that they might be reused. Unless your relatives were specialist collectors rather than music lovers (which you ought to be able to work out?) then the collection has no value, so if the store offers you anything at all that’s a bonus.
Here is another site with a searchable database. https://www.popsike.com/
Some sellers of Vinyl on ebay are professional sellers. They are willing to relist unsold items for months I f not years until a sucker comes along and buys it.
Are you willing to waste time doing that. If not take what the store is offering you.
Discogs is the go-to site for collectors. You can poke around there to see if you have anything of value.
How many albums are there? What genre(s)?
Before you dump them, at least see if there are any Beatles, early Stones, colored vinyl, or picture discs.
Good luck.
mmm
This is what I used when I was getting rid of records, and it was very helpful. They also make a guide for 45 rpm records. But yeah, just because a record is old doesn’t mean it has value. I happened to have some fairly scarce jazz that fetched good prices, but I ended up donating the vast majority to the local jazz radio station.
What others said. You can get an idea of what MIGHT have value online - and maybe try to sell those - or ask the guy for a couple extra bucks. Otherwise, save any you might want to remember the deceased by or listen to. Consider if any have intresting cover art to hang on walls. And be happy you are getting a couple bucks for the rest rather than having to pay to have them hauled away.
Update: Record store offered $67 for about 400 albums. I certainly did not expect some crazy windfall (sure there is a little hope but not much) but I did expect a bit more than about $0.15/album. So nope to that. I appreciate they are a business and won’t do things unprofitable to them which is expected but it is still disappointing.
So I took them back and gave them to a close friend of the deceased who is excited to get them.
As an aside I forgot how heavy records are. Lugging around those boxes sucked.
Fifteen cents each sounds about right. Even for 50 cents retail per album a charity shop or second hand record store will find it very hard to move anything mainstream or common. Each person flicking through the crate is also going to cause a bit more scuffage and rattiness, and gradually degrade even the 50c bargain into unsellable pulp.
Off-loading them to someone with a sentimental as much as musical connection is a very good outcome. Their happiness is probably worth more than $67 in your pocket.
I would have made an agreement for him to look for anything rare/valuable and to split any profit.
Sounds like it’s too late for the OP … but here’s something to look for:
Plain white jackets without any printing, the LP inside maybe isn’t completely full of music, say like ten minutes of music on one side and blank on the other … these would be industry demos, with just a few printed to pass around the company … my brother had several hundred of these in his collection from a family friend at Arista Records …
If you have any of these … play it … if it sounds like the Beatles playing a song no one’s ever heard before … you have something worth a bit of money …