Old LP's

I've been away for a little while, and know I have ALOT of reading and catching up to do, because I follow so many threads, and some of them get quite lengthy. One day will KILL me, lol!

We're cleaning out the basement, clearing out junk from good, and the people who left this house to us, bless their hearts, left alot of antiques, as well as some old LPs.

Does anyone here know about their worth? I mean, I think they go down in value if they've been opened from their covers and played, but Russ seems to think many of these are worth some money, and wants to turn me loose on an Ebay excursion with them. There has got to be like over 200 of them.

I think my first task will to be to go through them and alphabetize them.

THEN I will make a spreadsheet, going through them, checking their condition.

Also, does anyone know a better way of handling this? I mean, I realize I could start the spreadsheet without alphabetizing them first, and let my spreadsheet do that first, but I want them libraried so that I can find them easily to ship out to whomever I sell them to.

It's going to be a big chore, but first things first:

Is this EVEN worth it?

There's Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Tony Orlando & Dawn, you name it - it's there - too many to ever list. I could be sitting on a pile of money, or I could be sitting on a pile of junk. I'd like to know, if possible, before I start this venture.

Karrie

Time to get back to work - I was taking a break from mopping the floor (grandma's coming over tomorrow morning).

This message was edited Jun 27, 2004 11:37 PM

Karrie try this website for some tips http://www.recordcollectorsguild.org/estimate_value2.html

There are books available with approximate values of records but they are 'book prices' so flexibility in what to expect from the real market place is wise. You could also get an appraisal from a 2nd hand record seller, if that is going to cost too much, you can do the research yourself by going through their stock ... if you have oodles of time.

I don't know about the US eBay market but in the UK it goes down during the summer, picking up again in September to October for the Christmas market. Local flea markets might be a good place to sell them if you can gather the prices in a list so you don't undersell them too. You've got to make a catalogue system that is right for you, when there are items of different genera like rock, easy listening etc, it might be worth sorting the records into those first, then alphabetizing in smaller bites both with the records and your spreadsheets. That makes it easier to fit the cataloguing in with your daily schedule.

Pile of junk? Look at it this way, even if only half sell for 99c each, you still have $99 that isn't in your bank account and someone out there is missing a record they want :) I'm sure they are worth more than that!

This message was edited Jun 28, 2004 4:32 AM

A single LP in really good condition can be worth good money to a collector. But most are only worth a dollar or so. Beatles albums in top condition including the jacket in good condition can sell for top dollar. So sort through them and if you discover something collectable you will be glad you did. The rest might sell on Ebay too but to be honest, most people would decide they don't want to pay for the shipping cost on them so a yard sale would be more apt to place them into homes of folks like me that would enjoy them.

Karrie, Zany has given you a little hint there!

What a good find! Such things cannot happen here - people leaving things like that and moving away!

I have 3 copies of Sgt. Pepper....All in exellent shape. don't know what they're worth, but picked them up for a song (heh, heh) over the years.

Between my sis and I we have about 3000 vinyl albums. But we both still have turntables. We rarely use them, but it's kinda neat.

There are a large group of collectors out there that will pay big bucks for the right thing. I was at an estate auction and they had tons of old records. We bought the lot of them for a couple hundred bucks, bidding against 1 man. He came later and told me that he would give me 100.00 if he could just have 1 album from the bunch and me keep the rest. It was an old blues record. Of course I refused.Figured if he ran it to 200.00, then it was probably worth that instead.

Most stuff is pretty much worthless, but out of print is very collectable. Old Marshall Tucker Band stuff was like gold for awhile. The brothers had died and nothing was being released on cd due to legal problems. The old vinyl was the only way you could get their stuff. When the estate problems got cleared up, the music was released on cd, and the values fell.

This isn't to do with vinyl, but FYI, The Traveling Wilburys...with Dylan, Tom Petty, George Harrison and Roy Orbison is highly collectable. Litigation by Orbison's estate has frozen production at that first run of cd's. There can be no reprints...been locked up like this for years. A good copy of the cd is worth over 50.00.

There are a lot of things like the Roy Orbison situation. Just bought a CD from 1993 of the Origins first albut for $38 on Ebay as the demand is small and they will not repress it. One thing you can do is set up your favorites on ebay to search some of the artists regularly too see what their stuff goes for. After a while (especially if you watch the exact same thing go a couple of times) you are bound to be able to extrapolate what you can get for yours.

I used to have about 8000 LPs & 12 inch remixes and about 2000 CDs. Not that into it now.

Thanks all for your ideas. It will be awhile before I have my list compiled (It's going to take some work!) and then I'll go to various websites, all of those above listed, maybe do some google searches as well, to see what I have.

Karrie

I definitely don't want to put an old Beatles album in a yard sale! But I'm sure there are SOME that could definitely be sold that way.

Well - I went down there and pulled just a handful of them, to get started on the spreadsheet. I've made 25 entries so far, and didn't come even close to making a dent in the huge pile. I way under-estimated when I said 200. I think I'm going to find some local collector's shops and snoop around - see what's going on in this collecting world before putting anything on the market.

I worked hard on this yesterday, and have nearly 200 entries on my spreadsheet. If you want to see this, send me an email and I'll send you an excel attachment. Some of them are a real hoot - bring you way way back in the time machine. Some might make you giggle. Some might catch your eye.

I didn't find any Beatles! I thought I'd seen some of them before! Hmmmmm...... maybe someone beat me to them.

Some of them say they are limited collectors editions. Guess we'll see about that!

Hey Melody - Is the Travelin' Wilburys on vinyl worth anything? I still have my copy. (Loved that album).

Yep, just not sure how much. I'll ask my sis. She keeps up with all of that. I'll let you know.

I printed out what I have on my list, and am looking them up on Ebay for now. Some of the stuff I have is definitely worth some money! :) I'm still going to take my list with me and visit some collector shops and see what's going on, on that end as well.

The biggest pain in the butt...... Alphabetizing all these records! It's easy to do on a spreadsheet, just click the "sort" button, lol! But it's going to be alot of work to do it downstairs! Maybe I'll pay the kids to separate them by Letter first for me (artist) and then I can go in and alpha them from there..............