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

[jazzkrow]

As I am now in my 70s, and my son really has no interest in jazz box sets- I often wonder when do I begin to downsize or sell my collection? Universities seem to have no interest in physical product-and I am old school about digitizing my collection.

When to sell? Give to a much younger collector? Some of our collection took years to acquire and the "hunt" was lots of fun. I don't want to burden my wife with having to deal with my collection. I am in decent health, but you never know when health crisis hits...

How are you folks dealing with this issue?

[Eric]

Not quite there yet, hopefully.  But starting to think.  I suppose it depends whether you want to monetize your collection and whether you can find a store in your area.  Ideally a couple/few stores so you can shop it around.  Or if you have the time/interest, you could sell off the better stuff on ebay/Discogs.  Or offer some of it up here 😀

[JSngry]

Find a window into the Japanese market.

Also, be prepared to sell in bulk.

[Ken Dryden]

That's one of the reasons I have taken time to enter my collection into Discogs, to get a feel for the relative prices items are fetching, not the crazy auction asks.

I still get a kick out of Discogs sellers asking $15-$20  or more for a release which has been widely available and sold for far less.

[Stonewall15]

This is a problem faced by many of us older jazz collectors with no obvious way to pass on our collection. The logistics of selling individual CDs or LPs online such as eBay are overwhelming. First making the listing and then packaging and mailing each individual CD or LP is tedious and time consuming. Box sets in excellent condition such as Mosaic are sold routinely on eBay for a good price and are worth the effort to list and mail them. Finding a store or college to take the whole collection is difficult and becoming harder each day as streaming music is overcoming owning physical collections. Anything in your collection on CDRs is worthless, even though they may be of rare live performances never released on CD or LP.

The ideal solution if you are not interested in monetizing most of your collection is to find a younger fellow collector interested in acquiring same. Your collection should be listed on some type of spreadsheet such as excel to let him/her know of the magnitude and contents of the collection. How to find this person is difficult. One possibility is via Organissimo. Another is to attend a local record show where many dealers attend and one might be interested. The logistics of moving a large collection mean that the person should live fairly closely to you. For example moving a large collection from Florida to California would be difficult and expensive.

This is a dilemma that should be resolved so you do not leave a wife or relatives with this situation and no solution. You certainly do not want your collection to go to a Goodwill store.  

[Stompin at the Savoy]

I got the big early Basie/Prez set a few years back when it came out and somehow or other that particular set was so enjoyable that I started buying Mosaic sets in earnest.  I had been buying them for decades but somehow with that Prez set the addiction kicked up a notch.  I did a lot of shopping and bought scads of used sets.  My Mosaic boom is just now cresting because most of the ones I don't have are either prohibitively expensive or I'm probably not that interested in the music; I'm getting to the end of my want list.  I'm in my early seventies and acutely aware of the issue which occasioned the thread but I guess I want to glory for a little while in the physical possession of all these grail items.  It's one of those "Lord make me chaste but not yet" types of situations.  I'm getting on so I suppose in a year or two (or five) I will start doing the Swedish death cleaning I noticed the rents doing around this time of their life and get all systematic and at least sell off the box sets.

[Dub Modal]

In trying to help my dad with his collection (not jazz), I've advised him to catalogue via discogs or spreadsheet and sell in bulk or at a record show (or both). Piecemealing them out either in an online market like discogs, other sites, or at auction takes a special individual which neither of us are. 

[sonnymax]

[Ken Dryden]

My wife has threatened to have a yard sale selling stuff for 50 cents each. Her loss...

At least I am making headway on selling off some things of little interest to me, I probably have 1500 or more unheard jazz CDs received as promos that I thought that I would get around to hearing but haven't. It is embarrassing to see how old some of them are, but it hasn't been possible to listen to music in the order acquired for decades.

[felser]

Haven't we heard a couple of good reports about selling in bulk to Dah Bastids (Dusty Groove)?

[rostasi]

Amoeba Music said they were interested in my stuff if or when I decide to let it go.

[soulpope]

As long as collecting was a "labour of love", selling it (in parts or as a whole) will be always at loss .... btw treat my collection nowadays as sort of "private museum" and returned to the listening practice of my youth aka spinning my faves more recurringly ....

[Big Beat Steve]

I see there are many facets to this problem.
Having recently turned 64 I hope "I am not there yet" either but have started scaling down at least a little, starting with my "other" area of collection (late 50s classic cars and all the parts and documents that go with them) and gradually weeding out things.
The idea of letting some of the car books go was to free shelf space for my records and music book library, but lately I've every now and then caught myself wondering "Do I really want to add that many more records"?  Which does give me the creeps at this time because the enjoyment still IS there - and some kind of "hunting fever" too.
But great finds and purchases from the past 2 years made me realize that it would be unwise to encourage my heirs to sell my collection in bulk to a shop. Seeing the prices at which our local #1 record shop sold vinyl and CDs from quite interesting collections in recent times (and no doubt still made a decent profit, though they even let items unsold after a while go into recycling - which I only learned "after the fact" ) I shudder to think what they paid per item for those collections.
At any rate, I think my son at least knows what to do and what not to do. His musical interests run in quite different directions but are expanding, and he has caught the collecting bug too. Besides, one of his side jobs during his University days was working in a record store (one of his tasks was to list items on Discogs). So he ought to have some insights. Beyond that, I guess there will be takers (somewhat younger fellow collectors among friends) for at least part of my (real 50s and 50s-style) rock'n'roll, plus country/hillbilly and R&B/blues records. But jazz? Much less likely, alas. Particularly since part of my collection reflects my eclectic and "special" tastes sometimes off the trodden paths of the "usual name suspects". Well, we'll see ...

Edited June 16 by Big Beat Steve

[soulpope]

No scepticism about the future (at least regarding the large picture), but I feel im my 60's the way to go is to enjoy things NOW .... btw just got an mail from my reliable wine dealer motivating me to subscribe Bordeaux 2023 and doing so by showing some strong price increases for past vintages .... this is true, but I'm not a "wine investor", really like to drink some good wine and when I'm gone my (still) extensive cellar will be with my son .... will he enjoy it ? Sell it ? It will no longer be my decision ....

[Kevin Bresnahan]

2 hours ago, soulpope said:

No scepticism about the future (at least regarding the large picture), but I feel im my 60's the way to go is to enjoy things NOW .... btw just got an mail from my reliable wine dealer motivating me to subscribe Bordeaux 2023 and doing so by showing some strong price increases for past vintages .... this is true, but I'm not a "wine investor", really like to drink some good wine and when I'm gone my (still) extensive cellar will be with my son .... will he enjoy it ? Sell it ? It will no longer be my decision ....

I have a large wine cellar myself and my age has me re-thinking many of my future purchases. I am no longer buying any wine that needs needs a long time in the cellar before it's ready to drink. It's a bit sad to have to pass on some great wines but I know that even if I'm here in 15-20 years, I don't think I'll be drinking much wine nor do I think I'll appreciate it as much as I do now.

Like others have mentioned, I have to do something about my music collection. I'm about to start listing a bunch stuff but there's no way I could ever sell it all off. It would take decades. Plus, selling LPs is pain in the ass. Grading is everything and today's record buyers seem to want every LP to be perfect. No LP is perfect. You play it once and it's no longer perfect. On top of that, the shipping boxes for LPs are getting crazy expensive. The best LP mailer, Bags Unlimited's Might Music Mailer sells for almost $4 each & the box needed for shipping box sets are $4.50 each.

I wish Stereo Jack's was still Jack's place. I would feel comfortable bringing my collection there. Now, I don't know where I'd bring them.

[soulpope]

10 minutes ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I am no longer buying any wine that needs needs a long time in the cellar before it's ready to drink. It's a bit sad to have to pass on some great wines but I know that even if I'm here in 15-20 years, I don't think I'll be drinking much wine nor do I think I'll appreciate it as much as I do now.

Valid point ....

[Brad]

Ever since I started purchasing jazz in earnest, and after a few duplicate purchases, I started keeping a list in Word of everything I own. When the time comes I can provide a buyer with the list.  I hadn’t heard about DG buying collections but it’s something i will keep in the back of my mind. 

[mjzee]

Is it collection or is it consumption?  The big difference between buying music and having a great restaurant meal is that once the meal is over, it’s gone.  But you can listen to a great album and, at the end, have that album still in excellent condition.  But the impetus for both was still the same: to have a great experience.

I recently bought from Dusty Groove a mono copy of The Dave Clark Five’s Greatest Hits.  I bought it because I haven’t heard it since I was 10; my best friend had it and we played it all the time.  So it will bring back a lot of great memories for me - not for anyone else in my family, but specifically for me.  And I’ll get to hear it with fresh ears, which should be a treat.  I’m not at all thinking about what I’ll do with the record afterwards - it’s almost irrelevant.

Writ large, that’s my attitude towards my music collection.  If I cared about what other people thought or how they’d react, I probably wouldn’t own 90% of it (and these days, I probably wouldn’t even own a CD deck - I’d just stream everything).  I buy and listen to music because I enjoy it.  When the day comes, I figure my kid’s smart enough to research what everything’s worth.

[porcy62]

In the last years I sold on discogs or record stores most of the stuff I didn’t listen to anymore, mainly cds and less valuable LPs, rock and other genres. Now I am thinking to sell on discogs the most valuable stuff I don’t listen to anymore. All the stuff I bought in my compulsive eras, like audiophile records that are very sought nowadays. Mosaic and jazz stuff, including a fair amount of now crazy expensive originals, will be at my disposal in my last years. I filed all on discogs for my heirs. Selling online may be an job but for valuable records is well paid.

[mjazzg]

My collection's catalogued using Excel. I have a colour coding to indicate the more expensive items.

My partner knows this but I suspect when the time comes she'll look to offload it as one collection. It's going to be an inconvenience for her so I'm more than happy for her to do with it whatsoever she chooses. I have friends that will advise her if she wishes and a trusted shop that she knows about. I'm more than happy for it all to be donated to Oxfam - that's where I purchased the most expensive item in the collection from. I have had fun from it all, let others enjoy and look after them.

[tranemonk]

I'm in my late 50s and found a solution that worked for me a few years ago. When my ex-wife wanted a divorce (and I conceded), I moved out instead of fighting about who was going to keep the house. I decided at that time to split my collection in half. Mosaics and artists I loved, I would keep the physical Cds. The rest went to numerous public libraries around me (Boston). I know no one really thinks about libraries and they are going out of existence but I felt...

a) As long as public libraries exist, there will be people who use them and

b) If I'm lucky.. long after I'm gone., some teenager will run across my CDs and get the jazz bug.

Obviously, few of us rarely know when we are going to die, but I will probably tell my daughter to do the same when I'm gone.

[ejp626]

With very, very rare exceptions when music is donated to a library, it just goes into the sale pile.  I've had enormous trouble in the past few years donating valuable books to university libraries, i.e. things not in their collection but should be, and have basically given up.  It truly was easier 10 or 15 years ago to donate massive collections of things.  The one exception I am aware of here is the Merrill SF library will take donations of SF or fantasy books if not already in their collection.  And the AGO Library will take art books.  Those are pretty much the only exceptions I can think of.

In 20 years' time, I really don't think most music stores will be buying collections the way Jazz Record Mart or Amoeba do (or did) in the past.  And with shipping prices going the way they are going, I can't imagine burdening someone with trying to sell it piecemeal through discogs...

If we downsize and move to a condo downtown or something when the last kid leaves the nest, I'll try to get rid of almost everything at that time.  I barely listen to my physical collection at all anymore.

 

[Tom in RI]

I’m 67 and, uh, thanks for depressing me. Back to regular programming…

[jazzbo]

I'm nearing 69. . . I've had conversations of this nature with my wife. I only listen to physical media, so I'm inclined to just hang on to it all as long as I can. It seems if I don't take care of my collection big dumpsters will be in our driveway and pitching will begin. I'm undecided what is my best course of action or inaction.

Edited June 16 by jazzbo

[mikeweil]

My wife and I trust that my daughter and some other people her age that we know will take good care. Even if she doesn't have the time or interest for my books and records, my daughter said she would rather put it in safe storage than sell it. She holds my collection in high esteem, although her tastes are different. Maybe I will sell or donate some parts to specaliized institutions or libraries or single persons that have use for it. Same goes for my roomful of congas and other percussion instruments.

Edited June 17 by mikeweil