I have over 600 Vinyl LPs. None of these records have been played in years, and in many cases more than a decade or two. So I figured that it's now time to sell off my collection, and get pennies on the dollar for what I spent on these recordings.
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In my 30 years at the bank, I met many interesting people - some of which were vendors. (My former cruise partner was one of them.) So I had a list of people I could call on for unusual needs, such as selling off my record collection. When I wrote my friend, I received the following response:
That's an easy one! Sell it to me!
I buy collections every day, just about.
You know me. I think you know I'll do my best to be fair.
One way or other, let's get together and I'll give you an estimate. If
it seems fair to you, you can sell to me. If it doesn't meet your
expectations, I will advise you on your other options.
You are definitely in a good position either way, as you know the right guy!
Couple of important notes, though.........
Hopefully you haven't sold any, or given any away yet? Rule of thumb
with collections (and this can be records, or books, or stamps, coins,
comic books, baseball cards, etc). The records may all be good ones,
music wise, but the value is almost always in 10% or less of the
collection. As soon as you start pulling out a few pieces, you greatly
affect the value of the collection. The biggest mistake I see people
make on a daily basis is that they sell a few pieces online, or let a
friend take a couple of handfuls. Once you do that, you often can't get
anybody to buy the rest of the collection. Invariably, those few pieces
almost always are the most desirable ones. Whether you sell to me, or
not, I very strongly advise you to only sell the collection as a unit,
all or nothing.
The other thing, I am very interested, but am headed to Florida next
Monday for most of the rest of this month. I don't know how ready you
are right now. I may have some availability to look at it tomorrow but,
failing that, it will have to wait until I get back.
There are some albums I plan to keep, but the vast majority are taking up space that I need to use for other purposes. So, I told my friend that we'll get together when he gets back. This gives me about 2 weekends to make these albums accessible.
How much do you think my friend will bid on this collection, not knowing what I have in it? No, I'm not looking for a ball park figure. Instead, I'd like to know what people think these albums are worth - even though I wouldn't use any of these figures to determine whether my friend is making a fair bid. Remember the key figures: 600+ albums purchased at $10/each. I have my own guess in mind, and I want to see what others think.
More on this soon....
