Help! I can't bring myself to unload my old rock records!

[blind-blake]

Does anyone else have this dilemna. I've got something like 350 rock records -- stuff ranging from the Band to the Stones to the Grateful Dead -- which I never listen to. And I mean never. I think the last time I took one out was maybe twenty years ago. They just sit in boxes in the basement gathering dust, when I could probably get some money for them via ebay. Still, I just can't bring myself to get rid of them. Anyone else experiencing this?

Edited July 21, 2008 by blind-blake

[7/4]

I have about 800 or 900 sitting in my bedroom. Same situation.

.

[paul secor]

If you don't listen to them now, you'll never miss them when they're gone.

[Hot Ptah]

It might not be so easy to get rid of them on ebay, or even at a local used music store. Unless the vinyl is in really good condition, few will buy them.

In my experience, used music stores are now looking for the rare collectors items in 1960s vinyl, such as Beatles mono albums, Beatles or Dylan albums with certain wording on the center label of the record, Aretha Franklin albums with purple and brown on the center label, stuff like that.

To just bring in a bunch of Stones and Dead, you may get $1 an album at a used music store today, or less. Of course, specific cities and stores may differ, but you will have a hard time selling them unless you kept your vinyl in "pristine condition", to use a phrase that has been shot back at me when I tried to sell mine. That means not a nick or smudge anywhere on the record. A scratch is fatal.

Who kept their vinyl like that when these records were being released? I know that I didn't, and as a young person I would have probably sneered at anyone who told me to treat each record like a delicate porcelain doll.

So you might as well keep them, unless you have "Blonde on Blonde" with the prized nine photos on the inside cover instead of the usual seven photos, or something like that.

To sell vinyl on ebay, you have to examine each record and grade it according to condition, using the standard grading scale. If you sell something as Excellent when it has a small scratch on it, you will get negative feedback from the buyer and then you will have trouble selling to anyone. It's a hassle selling a quantity of vinyl on ebay.

Did that help? In my experience, most older vinyl seems to get dumped for free at thrift stores these days, when no one working at the thrift store is looking and is able to stop you from leaving it behind--unless you have that all-important "pristine condition" going for you.

Edited July 21, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[Shawn]

Does anyone else have this dilemna. I've got something like 350 rock records -- stuff ranging from the Band to the Stones to the Grateful Dead -- which I never listen to. And I mean never. I think the last time I took one out was maybe twenty years ago. They just sit in boxes in the basement gathering dust, when I could probably get some money for them via ebay. Still, I just can't bring myself to get rid of them. Anyone else experiencing this?

I'll take 'em.

[captainwrong]

Try moving a couple of times. I guarantee after boxing, schleping and unboxing a bunch of vinyl a few times and still seeing them collecting dust, you'll find the next move ends at Goodwil, justl like I did. After my last move, I took about 6-700 records straight to the thrift store because they were exactly the kind of records you're describing, stuff I was never going to listen to and was only holding on to because nobody is buying. In spite of an alleged vinyl resurgence, like Hot Ptah says, unless you have really rare or immaculate stuff, it's worthless, so my advice is to play it or toss it.

[mikelz777]

I'd agree that if you never listen to them now, you'll never miss them when they're gone, especially if you haven't listened to any of them for over 20 years.

I was in a similar situation several years ago. My young daughter's inquiring little fingers broke the stylus off my turn table's cartridge and I never got around to trying to replace it. By then I was well into transitioning to CDs so I rarely dipped into the LP collection anyway. I had two cantelope crates packed solid with LPs. I don't know how many I had but it translated into about four or more feet of solid LPs. I thought about going the Ebay or used record store route but I thought it would end up to be more hassle than it was worth with little return. My collection was well-varied but not the kind of stuff that demanded decent cash. I ended up selling all of them to a co-worker for $60.00 which was a pretty nice bargain as they were all very well cared for. When she came to pick them up I had a hard time letting them go. I had spent so many years collecting them and they had served as the soundtrack to a huge part of my life. I felt like I was selling a part of my soul.

[Hot Ptah]

When I got rid of some of my old rock records, and some blues, country and soul too, I called the local office of the Disabled American Veterans and asked if there was a shut-in veteran, perhaps someone disabled, who would like a free music collection on vinyl. I talked to three different people, and they all sounded like they thought I was crazy. They definitely did not want the albums, not even for free, and knew of no veteran who would want them.

[Dan Gould]

I think it boils down to this:

If you collect jazz LPs, they got much smaller production runs, making them harder to come by, but at the same time, you've got to find another nut with a similar disposition to collect in order to get rid of them at a decent price.

If you collected run of the mill rock/pop records, they were produced in enormous quantity, making the "soundtrack of your life" as disposable as the music was when you were growing up with it. I'm not at all surprised that decent prices are only paid for extremely well-cared for copies, or the super rare ones. Otherwise you should be grateful for a buck a piece.

[Soulstation1]

[Hot Ptah]

I think it boils down to this:

If you collect jazz LPs, they got much smaller production runs, making them harder to come by, but at the same time, you've got to find another nut with a similar disposition to collect in order to get rid of them at a decent price.

If you collected run of the mill rock/pop records, they were produced in enormous quantity, making the "soundtrack of your life" as disposable as the music was when you were growing up with it. I'm not at all surprised that decent prices are only paid for extremely well-cared for copies, or the super rare ones. Otherwise you should be grateful for a buck a piece.

Very true. In fact, the only reason that my local used music store would give me anything for my used rock albums is that I am a good, steady customer and they didn't want to alienate me. In fact, they gave me a store credit. They would not give me any cash. They knew that I would use the store credit on esoteric jazz CDs that they would never sell otherwise.

[7/4]

they got?

.

[ejp626]

Very true. I picked up my father-in-laws collection of 45s. He was a local club DJ and most are beat. I'm transferring the better ones (stuff like Jack McDuff and James Brown and a handful of rarer items). When I am finished, I will take them to Dusty Groove and will probably have to pay them to take them and put them in their 45s bargain bin. I do have a pretty amusing photo of them sitting in the dish rack, which I will try to post later.

[Rooster_Ties]

Very true. In fact, the only reason that my local used music store would give me anything for my used rock albums is that I am a good, steady customer and they didn't want to alienate me. In fact, they gave me a store credit. They would not give me any cash. They knew that I would use the store credit on esoteric jazz CDs that they would never sell otherwise.

Which store, if I might ask? I don't have any vinyl I'm trying to unload -- just curious.

[Hot Ptah]

Very true. In fact, the only reason that my local used music store would give me anything for my used rock albums is that I am a good, steady customer and they didn't want to alienate me. In fact, they gave me a store credit. They would not give me any cash. They knew that I would use the store credit on esoteric jazz CDs that they would never sell otherwise.

Which store, if I might ask? I don't have any vinyl I'm trying to unload -- just curious.

I unloaded them for store credit at two stores, Vinyl Renaissance and Zebedees. Each store wanted some of them and not others.

[Dave James]

When Django's still had a shop in downtown Portland, they would pay you so much per foot. I think that served two purposes. First, it rock bottomed their cost and second, if there was any wheat amongst the chaff, they might pick off something with real value for next to nothing.

I still have maybe 2,000 to 2,500 LP's in my garage. I went through them a couple of years back and pulled out what I thought might be worth something. I think that amounted to maybe 15 albums. Some of those, like fully loaded copies of The Last Days of the Fillmore and The Who Live at Leeds, I've since discovered aren't worth squick. I'm still holding out for a few of the others; the very first first ZZ Top, English copies of T-Rex (2), Nick Drake (2) and Rare Bird and (I think) a mono pressing of Marty Paich with Art Pepper on Tampa. Other than that, bupkis. At one time, I probably had between 4,000 and 5,000 records. With maybe two or three of those having any value at all, you sure can't say I collected as an investment.

I fall under a fair amount of better half pressure from time to time to clear these babies out once and for all. So far, that hasn't happened. As a couple of others have said, vinyl records have real nostalgic value. Maybe not as much for the music, but as a reminder of certain times in your life. The older you get, the more important this seems to become and the less likely it is you'll ever get rid of them. Once I'm gone, I'm sure they will be among the first things to go.

Up over and out.

[ejp626]

As a couple of others have said, vinyl records have real nostalgic value. Maybe not as much for the music, but as a reminder of certain times in your life. The older you get, the more important this seems to become and the less likely it is you'll ever get rid of them. Once I'm gone, I'm sure they will be among the first things to go.

Up over and out.

I think it's a combination of generational nostalgia and the effort it took to collect that many records. Cassettes were becoming common when I was growing up and CDs finally went mass market when I went to college, and that's what I collected. I have fewer than 100 LPs, most of which I will dispose of when I convert them to CDR. I just don't have a deep attachment to them, particularly those I don't listen to.

[Teasing the Korean]

My wife got all excited when she married me because I have all these Small Faces/Who/Kinks etc. records.

Then, once she moved in, she said it was like living with a Dad who just wanted to listen to jazz records and "none of that loud teenage stuff."

She has a punk/new wave radio show at the station where she works, so I told her to take all the punk and new wave records to her office. I never listened to them, and we also needed the shelf space for all the jazz, latin, soundtrack, bossa, etc. records.

If it weren't for her, I'd have unloaded all the rock and pop records ages ago.

But I would have kept the mono Kinks and mono Beach Boys albums.

Still, it's nice to occasionally hear Terry Reid or the Blues Magoos (in mono) on a Saturday afternoon.

[blind-blake]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

[Hot Ptah]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

Ha! Dream on! My 12 year old daughter thinks that ALL of my music "stinks". She likes the soundtrack of her life, recorded by people close to her own age. And so it goes, forevermore.

I have concluded for myself only, that as long as I have storage space and feel like keeping old recorded non-jazz music, I will. There is no real way to "make money off of it," except for the odd rarity I somehow managed to accidentally keep in good condition.

What surprised me a little bit is that when I decided to try to donate my old non-jazz vinyl to worthy organizations for the less fortunate, they had absolutely no interest in receiving it.

[Niko]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

well, i do treasure my dad' lp collection, only about 10 lps though, which he hadn't spun in the last 25 years of his life... guess i will also take a few hundreds of his books (his obsession) when my mum wants to get rid of them... but i do feel a bit crazy because of it... (i mean, i am fairly interested in philosophy, sociology and linguistics, i have indeed read three or four of his linguistics books and a bit more of the philosophy ones (don't see me doing that in he future though)... but then again do i really need 500 fairly interesting sociology books from the 1970s-1990s (most of which are again worth pretty much nothing))

[blind-blake]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

Ha! Dream on! My 12 year old daughter thinks that ALL of my music "stinks". She likes the soundtrack of her life, recorded by people close to her own age. And so it goes, forevermore.

I have concluded for myself only, that as long as I have storage space and feel like keeping old recorded non-jazz music, I will. There is no real way to "make money off of it," except for the odd rarity I somehow managed to accidentally keep in good condition.

What surprised me a little bit is that when I decided to try to donate my old non-jazz vinyl to worthy organizations for the less fortunate, they had absolutely no interest in receiving it.

That IS surprising! Bizarre, if you ask me. There must be someone who would enjoy this stuff (besides us in our younger days).

[ejp626]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

Ha! Dream on! My 12 year old daughter thinks that ALL of my music "stinks". She likes the soundtrack of her life, recorded by people close to her own age. And so it goes, forevermore.

I have concluded for myself only, that as long as I have storage space and feel like keeping old recorded non-jazz music, I will. There is no real way to "make money off of it," except for the odd rarity I somehow managed to accidentally keep in good condition.

What surprised me a little bit is that when I decided to try to donate my old non-jazz vinyl to worthy organizations for the less fortunate, they had absolutely no interest in receiving it.

That IS surprising! Bizarre, if you ask me. There must be someone who would enjoy this stuff (besides us in our younger days).

The format is the real killer. Sure there is a small vinyl resurgence going on, but only among a small band of hipsters who would not be interested in mass market rock/pop. Very few people have working record players anymore, and 97% of the rock/pop is out on CD, so there really isn't that much interest.

[Hot Ptah]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

Ha! Dream on! My 12 year old daughter thinks that ALL of my music "stinks". She likes the soundtrack of her life, recorded by people close to her own age. And so it goes, forevermore.

I have concluded for myself only, that as long as I have storage space and feel like keeping old recorded non-jazz music, I will. There is no real way to "make money off of it," except for the odd rarity I somehow managed to accidentally keep in good condition.

What surprised me a little bit is that when I decided to try to donate my old non-jazz vinyl to worthy organizations for the less fortunate, they had absolutely no interest in receiving it.

That IS surprising! Bizarre, if you ask me. There must be someone who would enjoy this stuff (besides us in our younger days).

Actually, I have found that older and younger people do not "enjoy this stuff" much. Even albums like "Tommy" and "Deja Vu" seem to elict yawns and shouts of "turn that garbage off" from my daughter's friends. Just as I could not "hear" my parents' early 1950s showtunes albums, although they were most likely of real merit, younger people cannot "hear" our "stuff."

Of course, there is always the odd exception, the current 15 year old nerd who gets into World War II battles, 1950s Presidential campaign buttons and late 1960s rock, but there aren't very many of them, I think.

Edited July 22, 2008 by Hot Ptah

[blind-blake]

Thanks for all of your replies! It's given me lots of food for thought. Are any of you thinking of holding onto your vinyl just in case your kids get into your old rock stuff? That's part of my thinking.

Ha! Dream on! My 12 year old daughter thinks that ALL of my music "stinks". She likes the soundtrack of her life, recorded by people close to her own age. And so it goes, forevermore.

I have concluded for myself only, that as long as I have storage space and feel like keeping old recorded non-jazz music, I will. There is no real way to "make money off of it," except for the odd rarity I somehow managed to accidentally keep in good condition.

What surprised me a little bit is that when I decided to try to donate my old non-jazz vinyl to worthy organizations for the less fortunate, they had absolutely no interest in receiving it.

That IS surprising! Bizarre, if you ask me. There must be someone who would enjoy this stuff (besides us in our younger days).

Actually, I have found that older and younger people do not "enjoy this stuff" much. Even albums like "Tommy" and "Deja Vu" seem to elict yawns and shouts of "turn that garbage off" from my daughter's friends. Just as I could not "hear" my parents' early 1950s showtunes albums, although they were most likely of real merit, younger people cannot "hear" our "stuff."

Of course, there is always the odd exception, the current 15 year old nerd who gets into World War II battles, 1950s Presidential campaign buttons and late 1960s rock, but there aren't very many of them, I think.

Not even the Stones merit a listen? Dylan? Ry Cooder? Young people today!