Advice Sought on Disposing of Recordings

[Big Beat Steve]

Can't give any concrete advice as to actual takers as I am on the other side of the world (and things might work differently here; record stores DO pay for collections they get in, though only a very small fraction of their actual value) but what has been said here really must be true everywhere:

an archive, a library, a college.

Unfortunately, they're understaffed, and given their standards/needs, would want it all documented and properly annotated before accepting it into their collections.

This is exactly what happened to my dad when he wanted to dispose of his fairly huge working library of architecture books before moving to a senior citizens' residence some 10 years ago. His first choice would have to offer it free to a university library. And this despite the fact that he had the ground covered real well so it would have been fairly sure he'd have been able to fill quite a few gaps in any professional library! He would have had to catalog EVERYTHING in extremely great detail. No way he'd do that! So he ended up giving away quite a lot of more recent/common books to former students of his (and younger students who'd belonged to those circles), throwing others away, and I kept about 2 banana crates full of the older/more more desirable architecture books from the 20s to 50s. By now I have shifted about two thirds of these after setting up stall at about a dozen local fleamarkets/book fairs over 6 to 7 years, and I can tell you I did make good money on the more desirable items! It was fun (and satisfying money-wise) but it DID take some time (and I ain't finished yet).

So I'd suggest you proceed along similar lines as suggested above:

1) Consider setting up a stall at a local record fair, price your records decently and see what happens

2) Try listing some more collectible ones (that you are DEAD SURE you are willing to let go) on eBay and see what happens there This might have an interesting side effect: If you let those who buy from you know that this is only the tip of the iceberg you might be able to do quick follow-up direct deals, especially if the buyer is within driving distance from you for a personal inspection of what you have for sale. I bought a 700-item 78rpm collection that way three years ago.

3) Make up assorted job lots (related style-wise etc.) at decent prices and offer them in For Sale sections on sites such as here

The problem, of course, will be that a LOT of potential buyers would already have a good deal of whatever you offer in the way of assorted lots of records (by featured artist/style, etc.) so you'd be more likely to find buyers for isolated items. Any way you look at it - if you want to make halfway sure somebody gets any kind of enjoyment out of your records after you're gone WITHOUT being ripped off (which is dead sure to happen both to you and to future "end users" if your records pass through too many dealers' hands) there will be work involved in disposing of your records.

Too bad I am not in your neck of the woods at all. Previous generations' sources such as yours usually yield a lot ... But these days postage and customs fees kill any such major deals.

Good luck!

Edited July 24, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[JSngry]

Truthfully, I've told LTB to "sell to Japan, no cherrypicking allowed" when I go, if that's still a viable market.

The sweetheart and I have had the same conversation. I told her to call you first and foremost for first pickins.

Oh shit...dude, I'm gonna have to have something go either terribly wrong or terribly right to afford all those pickins....

[Jazzmoose]

I took about 100 books to Half Price Books, mostly hard cover, all in very good to excellent condition, and was offered $5.00 for all of them. I was told that as they were "not recently published", that they were pretty much worthless. I have not taken any records or CDs to Half Price Books, because the experience of lugging all of the books back to my car soured me on trying to sell anything there.

The HPB down the street from me on NW Hwy pays by the inch.

...and then there's places like Know Knew Books in Palo Alto, CA. that paid me top dollar for my Ace Double paperback collection. Unfortunately, the bad far outweigh the good.

As far as the question at hand, if the main concern is leaving cash for the loved ones, it seems to me that eBay or jazz boards are pretty much the only ballgame, at least for the cream. If on the other hand, your goal is to maximize the chance of your beloved music being enjoyed by likeminded people, well, it's still the only ballgame. I don't know if this is practical, but if selling on eBay isn't your thing, maybe some of your fellow board members could help out. (I know it's not practical in my case; I'm stuck with dial-up right now, and no way I'm doing scans of OOP vinyl! )

[Jazzmoose]

I would also echo Chris' advice about favorites. Before I sold my collection, I couldn't have told you what my favorite jazz recording was. Now I know I'm going to die with my copy of Misterioso!

[poetrylover3]

Euclid Records in St Louis MO has considerable experience with large collections and the owner, Joe Schwab, is very knowlegeable. I've known him to be an honest, shrewd bargainer over the last 30+ years. You can find them online.

Jeff Tedford aka Blue Trane

[tkeith]

Maybe find a good library in a bad neighborhood. Perhaps a not-for-profit specializing in bringing the arts to the community. Either option allows you a tax write-off. It's tricky, but it seems to me that you should have options for a good home. If not, consider founding such an organization! If you don't need money, it would be very beneficial to a financially strapped organization if you could donate this material. That said, I would have something in writing that says they'll use the material for educational purposes -- don't want them turning around and doing the eBay thing.

[AllenLowe]

as someone who has currently about 3000 LPS and 3000 CDs and who is looking around to donate, I think the tax deduction/donation thing is a good idea -

[Tom in RI]

One avenue I haven't seen mentioned is selling to Cadence. I have had no problem selling common cd's to them for what I felt was a fair price. I have sent cds through the mail and gotten credit for future purchases. I don't know how much they would reduce the rate for cash. They will let you know they don't want compilations and any other parameters. They might travel for a collection of your size, I don't know. In any event, I think it would make sense to list the more collectible stuff yourself or look for someone already running lots of auctions and work out a split.

[elo omo]

it seems that if one wants to dispose of a large collection - unless one is willing and able to piecemeal them on ebay, then the best bet would be a record store-of which there are less and less that can and are willing to take them, and/or afford them. In my experience, libraries are not interested anymore. Radio stations may be able to accept some, but there are few of those left that even play LPs anymore. My guess it that a good majority of those would end up in the private collections of the DJs / interns. In Chicago, Dusty Groove would take the A+ items and nothing more, but give you pretty good money, Groovin' High would take a few more and a little less money, and Jazz Record Mart would take them all because they are less discerning, and can afford it space-wise and $$ wise. They would give you a lot of money for the good stuff and not much for the B and C stuff. All 3 would probably send someone out to your house to peruse. as far as the other stores in the Chicago area, I doubt most would be able to absorb / afford 10,000 LPs, most being rock oriented stores, with little / less interest in "jazz". Another idea; some public radio stations have fund raisers - physical events where people donate items and the proceeds go to the station. You could donate all of them and take a healthy tax deduction, and feel good about a) getting the items in the hands of like minded jazz fans, and b) helping out for a good cause. The only down side to that is that a lot of them would probably end up in a volunteers' collection.

hope this helps...

and good luck,

Elo

Edited July 24, 2008 by elo omo

[Chuck Nessa]

Now I know I'm going to die with my copy of Misterioso!

You are my hero no matter what happens between now and my death.

[Alexander]

I'd also be happy to help out in the way .:.impossible describes.

Me too!

[captainwrong]

From my personal expirence:

1) Worked at a university school of music where I stumbled across a large classical record collection that had been donated years ago. The collection was literally decomposing in the back corner of a storage area, which happened to be an old shower room complete with leaky pipes (our facilities were an old elementary school at the time.) I'd asked around about this and was told that since it was donated or willed we couldn't just dispose of it (or auction it off) but we had no place to store it nor any resources to do anything with it. Aside from that, it was 98% records and the rest open reel tape and players for both weren't exactly easily available on campus. As far as I know, the records were buried when they knocked down that old school after moving to the new facilities. I can say this because I would have been the one who would have packed them up and/or moved them and no one ever had me do anything with them.

2) Different university, this time in the radio station. Many years prior to me getting on staff, someone had donated a pretty good sized 78 collection. The collection was taking up most of the space in a production studio. I'm hoping it had been raided by the guy who did the classic jazz show, as it was in pretty sad shape, having been pretty poorly cared for. Again, they were moving facilities, this time they weren't even going to have turntables at the new place (which was part of why I left, as it was pretty impossible to do a show where 75% of what you play is vinyl if they won't even give you a turntable.) I have no idea what happened to those records. I never saw them again after the move.

3) Worked at Half Price Books for a short time. I never got into the purchasing, but I can tell you a few things. First off, as everyone knows, you aren't going to get very much at HPB. There don't seem to be any hard fast rules about how it works though. About all I know is they make an offer on anything. I know that if you find one where someone knows a thing or two about music, you're likely to get a better deal. However, the way it works is everyone does the buys so your chances of having someone how knows are as likely as having someone who knows nothing about music at all. I also know CDs are going to bring more than records. From my own experience, I brought a ton of CDs in there (maybe between 500-750) and got almost $600. On another day, I brought several hundred records in and got about $13. Don't take any of this as gospel, like I said, I never did purchasing.

4) From my friends who work in the public libraries here, donated records end up in the library sales. They got rid of their records years ago. About ten years ago, I worked at yet another university in the library where they held all the audio-visual stuff and at that time, the records were being phased out and I'd imagine they're all gone by now.

In the past year, I've trimmed a lot out of my collection and plan on trimming further because I just don't need it. I really don't have a good answer about what to do with it. The records I've been donating to Goodwill as hauling the stuff up to HPB, waiting around and getting less than $20 just isn't worth it. For a long time, I was selling CDs on half and amazon marketplace, but frankly, it's gotten to be such a buyer's market with that stuff, I'm finding it not worth my time. After their fees and postage, I was doing good to average about $3.50 a disc. Sure it's a better average than taking it to HPB, but you also end up going to the post office several times a week and dealing with customers who have become increasingly needy, demanding and dumber in the four years I've been using those services. It's almost a second job between answering stupid emails and packaging and running to the post office.

So, I really don't know. I'm pretty much in your situation. I stressed about it for a while, but I think I'm just reaching the "fuck it" stage and just want the stuff out of my house and to have a more manageable collection. It's a little frustrating, not so much for the money I have wrapped up in it as it is the fact that there's good stuff here that I know someone else would dig. But I'm starting to get over that.

[medjuck]

Many years ago when I decided not to ship my 400 or so Lps from Toronto to LA I had John Norris of Coda Magazinze and Sackville Records auction them off through his mailing list. Even after John took a 40% commission, IIRC I got a couple of thousand dollars which was certainly more than I paid for the records.

John gave the unsold ones to a University library. My name was on most of the jackets and every so often I'd hear from people who had either bought an Lp or seen one at the library.

Aren't there still a couple of of places that hold auctions of Jazz recordings? Not on e-bay but from their own sites?

[AllenLowe]

1) get 'em appraised at an inflated value

2) put 'em in a window-less room

3) buy some gasoline and put it in a can

4) get some matches

5) (this step left out for legal reasons)

6) Run like hell.....

[Ted O'Reilly]

Many years ago when I decided not to ship my 400 or so Lps from Toronto to LA I had John Norris of Coda Magazinze and Sackville Records auction them off through his mailing list..... Aren't there still a couple of of places that hold auctions of Jazz recordings? Not on e-bay but from their own sites?

I wouldn't suggest anyone get after John any more....he's not doing auctions any longer. (That was incredibly labour-intensive work back then, all done by mail. John is a bit of a Luddite: does not have a website, and is not even online).

[Jazzmoose]

1) get 'em appraised at an inflated value

2) put 'em in a window-less room

3) buy some gasoline and put it in a can

4) get some matches

5) (this step left out for legal reasons)

6) Run like hell.....

Probably the most practical solution!

[mjzee]

One aspect not yet mentioned: You might want to take a booth at a record fair. In the New York area, there's the yearly WFMU Record + CD Fair. It's a lot of fun, you'll get to meet a lot of other record collectors, and you could make good money, too. This year, it's October 24 - 26. See WFMU Record + CD Fair. If you're not in the NYC area, perhaps there's something similar near you.

[Tjazz]

If you live in a big city, just have a garage sale.

If you're lazy, sell to a large used record store.

If you rather spend your last dying days, selling records/CD and dealing with the public, instead of listening to music or buying more music. Sell thru ebay or swap meets.

[coooltrane]

This thread has absolutely depressed me. Maybe I should stop buying cds.

[Hot Ptah]

This thread has absolutely depressed me. Maybe I should stop buying cds.

Actually, this thread made me stop and think, too. Why am I emassing all of these recordings if they are going to be so difficult to dispose of in about 40 years (hopefully not sooner).

It really troubled me as I picked up 8 used CDs and 2 used LPs today at three different stores.