My tastes in music are changing, so I am weeding my collection to make a transition. This gives me a large number of CDs to use as trade-ins for other CDs. My question is would you trade in all CDs at once, or space it out over time? I am just wondering if too many trade-in CDs makes each one seem less valuable in the eyes of the CD store dude Would I get better trade-in value if I spread out the trades, making several visits to my local CD store? …Or, does it just not matter?
I’d do it all at once - and wouldn’t expect much…
Only reason to space some out would be if you had things which are truly rare/collectible, very good-selling catalog titles, or very recent releases.
Most places will just glance through a collection, figure a base of 10 cents or less per disc, and maybe give you a small premium if they see catalog stuff they know they can sell. If you give them 100 discs and happen to have, say, Adele’s 21 and Taylor Swift’s Red in there, they may not see them and offer you $10 for the lot. Pull 21 and Red out, sell the remaining 98 (an offer of $9.80 for the lot), and then offer 21 and Red separately, they may offer $5 for those two alone. It wouldn’t hurt to contact the store and simply ask if there are any titles they’re specifically looking for.
For rare/collectible stuff (out of print, limited edition, collector sets, Audio Fidelity gold, etc.), you’re not likely to get a premium at all from such stores unless you run into an employee who recognizes them for what they are (“oh, hey, you have the out-of-print soundtrack to Killdozer!”), but can get a decent premium from specialty dealers, or flogged individually on eBay.
You can also sell used CDs to Amazon now. The prices are low, and they pay with an Amazon gift card. It’s still worth checking, to see if they pay more than your local place.
There are several decent colleges around here. Last Spring I traded in 100 CDs at a book/cd exchange store and was very surprised to get $120 for them. Unfortunately, I’d already been to a “collector” store that specialized in vinyl and rare music. They paid me about ten cents each for my higher quality stuff. It still pisses me off that a vinyl record that I was given $1 for is now for sale at $45.
My collection is eclectic and doesn’t have the common stuff like Led Zeppelin, U2, and Katy Perry. It was stuff that would be difficult to find but not often in demand. As such, the store could get a higher asking price on retail. There was quite a bit of jazz and genuine blues mixed in with non Top 40 rock.
The moral of the story is to bring in just a few titles to as many places as possible. See who’s paying the best. Tell them you want CASH, not store credit. CDs are on the way out, and prices will likely start dropping in the next twelve months.
I’ve got about 100 more titles to bring in. I keep toying with putting them on eBay but I hear that they’ve made it difficult for the small time seller that built their business. My goal is to get the collection down to 1500 albums. Small enough that I can cycle through them within two years. It’s irrational to hold on to stuff that I haven’t heard in ten years.
You could offer to sell them through the SDMB Marketplace forum: it would require more work, but you’d probably get more money.
Hell you might be better off donating them and writing them off your taxes. In 2011 I was able to write off $1500 from books and CDs because you can take what the store sells them as as the price. I was getting $3 for hard back books and $5 for CDs.
I list books on paperbackswap.com and keep meaning to check out the CD version, swapacd.com
there is a small cost but if someone wants one of yours, you send it to them and then you get one in return.
so, you don’t get any money but you get different CDs for a low price.
I use swapaCD.com, and like it, but the big disadvantage to doing it this way (for someone in the OP’s situation) is that you have to hang on to all those old CDs until someone requests them (which, for some titles, could be never), and then you have to package and mail them all out individually. So it’s not the way to go if you have hundreds of old CDs that you want to get all taken care of at once.
Swapacd doesn’t sound good because it looks like you have to use your real name as your website handle. I sell my CDs of any value on Amazon, although it can take years for any one to sell, and my cheap CDs in a garage sale or craigslist listing. I don’t sell them to a music or media store because they’re only giving a $1 at most and the jewel case itself costs more than $1 to buy. I’d rather listen to them once a year than sell them for less than a $1. I remember when they would pay $3-4 per common CD. I tried selling CDs at auction on Ebay but Ebay is truly a buyer’s market for CDs, so it’s not worth the hassle of taking photos and typing descriptions.