Selling my jazz-records

[clifford_thornton]

With popsike, don't just use the highest-ending result to price your auctions - do some research. Especially since you're a new seller, those outlier-high prices are not something you'll likely get for, say, a copy of Ayler's Bells (even if it is a first edition). Set your reserve just a bit lower and you might be surprised at what you get. Considering what you have, I'd be surprised if some of the rarer items go for "chump change" - they're good records and hard to find in nice condition, so let the bidders do the talking.

[Ibuchreitz]

@Big Beat Steve:

Thanks for sharing your insights. I like the auction-concept. If I sell a record for 9.99 that should have sold for 100, I'll send it along without tears or regrets. That's just part of the game! I just dont want to put myself in a situation where that is the most likely scenario, if you catch my drift. I dont mind the idea of losing some, winning others. I've no realistic desire to make the outrages amount as some records go by, reported on sites like popsike and others. I just want about what they're worth without losing too much on listing-fees, selling-fees, postage, pay-pal tranfer-fees and few bids. Not counting Eric Dolphy: In Europe which I sold for $699 - I've made $231 on selling first press versions of Mingus, Mingus, Mingus - Dollar Brand: African Piano - Albert Ayler: New Gras - Albert Ayler: Love Cry - Albert Ayler: In Greenwich Village - Archie Shepp: Life at the Donaueschingen Music Festival. The problem is that after paying all those damn fees and covering the deficit which arose because I wrote inacurate shipping-costs, in pursuit of more bids, I probably only have around $100 to show for those transactions. I want to try a different approach and I hope the above recipe is the right one.

@Dan Gould:

It's "Miles Davis - On the Corner" (first press, gatefold cover), "Miles Davis - ESP" (UK first press), "Pharaoh Sanders - Tauhid" (US 2. press, gatefold, Rudy Van Gelder written on dead wax). They're not super-rare, but they're fairly nice records in great shape. The reason you cant see them, is because the auctions start at 3:00 PDT today. I've arranged for the auctions to end on Saturday (midnight in Europe, between 3.00-6.00 PM in the US), in an attempt to make the auctions available for everybody.

@clifford_thornton

You're probably right about popsike. When I used it, I found the prices relevant for my specific copy of the record (for instance "first press"), then looked at the prices tried to make an average, and then took that amount and lowered it by about 20-25 percent and used that as my starting price. Not very effective so far, but I dont think popsike is a useless tool for stuff like this. It's just not perfect.

Edited August 23, 2010 by Ibuchreitz

[BFrank]

I've finally reached the point where I'm getting rid of 2/3 of my vinyl collection (1,000+ LPs) for the same reason - no space, too many CDs, and more and more MP3s to keep track of.

I'm not selling them here or anywhere else, but hope to have a buyer from Amoeba come by and take them off my hands for trade value. I spent the day sifting through them and was as ruthless as I could be. I still have somewhere around 400, but the situation will be MUCH more manageable from this point on.

A very "painful" task, but necessary.