(Well here it is..)- What to do with your LP/CD collection-especially Mosaic box sets, when no interested heirs?

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, adh1907 said:

Slimmed down! Love that. I can’t imagine the weight of 500 78s if you had to shift them!

Well this discussion is sadly relevant for me as my Dad died a month back and has a large jazz collection accumulated since the 50s and the mention of 78s reminds me he used to have quite a lot of these too (a lot of Esquires). My mum will be moving out of the house so it needs emptying. I have been tasked with dealing with this. There are a few I might keep but I am trying to slim down my collection too. I may see if a local record shop has any interest in taking them all. 

I know some around here who would be willing to take these 78s off your hands (yes there are a small handful of fairly young'uns around here who are into 78s - and I might even spring for certain Esquires, for example, myself) but distance makes this unreasonable, and since Brexit has occurred this has become even more unfeasible, unfortunately.

And of course my sincere condolences to your loss.

FWIW, as for 78s in London, I am afraid that ever since Mole Jazz and Ray's Jazz Shop (are there still remnants of Ray's at Foyle's at all?) have become a thing of the past these outlets for jazz 78s are no longer feasible either.

Edited July 3, 2024 by Big Beat Steve

[sidewinder]

1 hour ago, Big Beat Steve said:

FWIW, as for 78s in London, I am afraid that ever since Mole Jazz and Ray's Jazz Shop (are there still remnants of Ray's at Foyle's at all?) have become a thing of the past these outlets for jazz 78s are no longer feasible either.

Last time I was in Foyles/Ray's the Jazz section seemed to have shrunk a bit. There was a small section with second hand 10" LPs but not sure if any 78s, don't think so. They had a note on the rack saying 'not buying any second-hand collections at present'.

As for Mole - any evidence of the old sign and original shop presence, which survived into the 2010s, now obliterated with the King's Cross developments.

Edited July 3, 2024 by sidewinder

[adh1907]

Last time I visited, Ray’s Jazz had been shunted into a unstaffed windowless corner of Foyles. Very sad. 

[sidewinder]

3 minutes ago, adh1907 said:

Last time I visited, Ray’s Jazz had been shunted into a unstaffed windowless corner of Foyles. Very sad. 

Yes, that corner area is uninviting and as you say, unstaffed. Sad - when it started out it was a lively shop run by Paul Pace and co. , the nice coffee bar next to it and with good CD and LP offerings. I remember buying the Hazel Scott Debut 10" from the 'Hen's Teeth' box. Heck, they even had good free gigs there by the likes of Empirical.

Edited July 3, 2024 by sidewinder

[gvopedz]

"I made the argument to my wife that we should do a clean sweep. I took all the discs we had to an Oxfam on Kentish Town Road. I remember handing the bag over dubiously, with no faith in the resale value of the contents. What a cool thing, I told myself, as I walked away unencumbered, to own no albums… yet somehow to own every album. What freedom! What choice!

"I don’t know how long it took for the regret to sink in. Three years? Five? I know that I miss my pile of CDs now."

https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/28/cd-sales-rise-taylor-swift-collection-nostalgia-90s-oasis-bashy-metronomy-kitty-liv

[dougcrates]

Good thread.  I'm 46 and have approximately 3500 CDs / LPs, all logged in Discogs.  I once had 6000.  I still win the occasional overpriced jazz record center auction but I also sell a bunch of stuff that's no longer interesting to me.  I'll keep whittling my collection down while occasionally adding something and I expect to be down to 2500 in a couple of years. I have multiple sclerosis so I expect to have a shorter run than my long-time girlfriend but she's been instructed to let my best friend, also a collector, to take what he wants and then to sell the rest and donate the money to a worthy cause.  

[soulpope]

3 hours ago, dougcrates said:

.... my long-time girlfriend but she's been instructed to let my best friend, also a collector, to take what he wants and then to sell the rest and donate the money to a worthy cause.  

Sounds like a good plan .... 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I'd love to open a discogs account and start selling stuff, but I hear so many horror stories about it that I haven't been able to take that step. I am particularly worried about selling LPs. Visually grading LPs is so subjective and today's buyers seem so unforgiving that I can imagine getting quite a few returns.

I've toyed with listing LPs here but as this thread shows, most of us are looking to sell, not buy. I'd list them at the Steve Hoffman forums but most of those posters return LPs for the dumbest reasons so I'd be afraid to grade anything higher than VG-.

[Eric]

22 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I'd love to open a discogs account and start selling stuff, but I hear so many horror stories about it that I haven't been able to take that step. I am particularly worried about selling LPs. Visually grading LPs is so subjective and today's buyers seem so unforgiving that I can imagine getting quite a few returns.

I've toyed with listing LPs here but as this thread shows, most of us are looking to sell, not buy. I'd list them at the Steve Hoffman forums but most of those posters return LPs for the dumbest reasons so I'd be afraid to grade anything higher than VG-.

At some point in retirement (< 5 years away), I will probably try the Discogs route.  Most of my stuff is in excellent condition, but I will probably never use the NM grade to avoid the problems you describe.  I may give up a few dollars but avoid hassles.  I also think providing a narrative description helps.  The other option would be to sell here.  Fewer buyers of course, but at least we have the right target audience.

[felser]

I've actually found a good number of buyers here for LP's the past three years (have never tried selling them anywhere else), much better than for CD's at this point (I used to be able to sell a lot of CD's here, many to guys who don't seem to have a presence in this community any more.  I've turned to Hoffman as an additional jazz CD selling outlet, and do much better there selling jazz CD's), though I have had two people return LP's for condition concerns over the past three years.  I find them much harder to grade than CD's, do the best I can, but grading LP's seems much more subjective.  Like, what is a VG LP really?  In 19 years here, I've only ever had one person return one CD for condition.  As far as Discogs, is selling there any worse than selling on Ebay?  I find Ebay tolerable for selling rock CD's, little market for soul and jazz CD's.  But much of my ebay sales go to a very small group of frequent repeat buyers (really good guys I've developed nice friendships with).  I have a large number of lower-priced rock CD's that I want to try to sell on Discogs some day, but finding time/energy is difficult, with extended family living with us.

Edited August 2, 2024 by felser

[Kevin Bresnahan]

11 hours ago, felser said:

 though I have had two people return LP's for condition concerns over the past three years.  I find them much harder to grade than CD's, do the best I can, but grading LP's seems much more subjective.  Like, what is a VG LP really?

 

This is exactly what I'm worried about. LPs are so subjective. Even though I consider my grades to be conservative, others may not agree.

For instance, I will never buy another used record from Dusty Groove, as I don't agree with their grading at all. I've bought a few LPs from them over the years & their VG+ rating is pretty close to my "Poor" rating. I once got a VG+ LP from them that had a large, audible scratch across one whole side.

Edited August 2, 2024 by Kevin Bresnahan

[Ken Dryden]

I used to have issues with Euclid Records, not with LPs, but CDs. They would not grade them and they would frequently have scratches meriting VG grades and writing in the booklets.

[dougcrates]

On 8/4/2024 at 12:13 PM, Ken Dryden said:

I used to have issues with Euclid Records, not with LPs, but CDs. They would not grade them and they would frequently have scratches meriting VG grades and writing in the booklets.

I had an issue with Euclid Records recently.  I ordered a CD fro their Discogs store that arrived with a large promo stamp on the front of the booklet.  No mention of it in the original listing.  Seems kind of important to mention such a thing.  

[clifford_thornton]

On 8/2/2024 at 8:34 AM, Kevin Bresnahan said:

 

This is exactly what I'm worried about. LPs are so subjective. Even though I consider my grades to be conservative, others may not agree.

For instance, I will never buy another used record from Dusty Groove, as I don't agree with their grading at all. I've bought a few LPs from them over the years & their VG+ rating is pretty close to my "Poor" rating. I once got a VG+ LP from them that had a large, audible scratch across one whole side.

they used to be much stricter, and have become quite lax with their used LPs. Avoid.

[tranemonk]

Hopefully, I've got a few years left at least, but I'm wondering if anyone has a plan to donate their collection to a university music department, public radio jazz station, or something like that. I've got 5000 records (downsized to probably 1000-1500 CDs, with the rest digital). I'd like to have a clean, useful way to transfer them all to a place that might use and keep them.

On 6/26/2024 at 5:24 PM, rostasi said:

The other, wider, suggestion is if you're sincere about wanting to deal with your collection is to probably start by asking yourself what kind of time scale are you looking at. Are you moving in a month and have to drop a load of them (or all) really quickly? ... or do you have a longer timescale where you can let loose of one or two items for every new one you buy now ... or something similar (10 year plan ... a summer's sifting ... or so on). Sometimes time scales can help with your final decisions.

When I got divorced, it was a fire sale... I kept all the Mosaic sets and CDs of my favorite artists, but the physical collection of CDs went from 4000, probably down to 1500. Divorce will do that to ya....

[gvopedz]

In the last few years, I have slowly given away some CDs.  To a coworker who (inexplicably) brings me 2 breakfast tacos every week, I gave 2 CDs of Carl Palmer (she had mentioned that she likes prog rock); to a coworker from Aruba, I gave her a compilation CD of Louis Armstrong last Christmas (and she gave me a big smile), etc., etc.

I am keeping my Mosaics until the end.

[Ken Dryden]

Most public radio stations lack the storage space for donations of large music collections, they would likely sell it off. If my station received one and sold it, the university would get the proceeds, not the station, they would consider it a surplus equipment sale. Maybe the Institute Fir Jazz Studies at Rutgers or East Stroudsberg University would be interested in donations.

[felser]

9 hours ago, tranemonk said:

 Divorce will do that to ya....

Does a lot of things to ya.  So sorry.

[tranemonk]

18 minutes ago, felser said:

Does a lot of things to ya.  So sorry.

Thanks. It hurt my daughter much more than it hurt me. Appreciate the empathy.

[ejp626]

I actually was able to donate one Mosaic set to the U of Toronto Music Library (though I would have had to donate a lot more to get a donate slip for tax purposes...) but they didn't seem that interested in large scale donations, just very targeted ones.  That said, I might try again when I am ready to downsize.

Edited May 9 by ejp626