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

[Eric]

62 here, not retired.  Once I retire, I plan to skinny things down, keeping the stuff near and dear to me.  Unfortunately that is not a small number (both CD and vinyl).  However they are just "things" and I would like to make it as easy as possible when the day comes.

[rostasi]

Another idea: instead of selling huge batches to your local record store,
sell a few things (let's say: a hundred) to them and check back later to
find out how well they've sold. It's possible that they may have a story
to tell about one or two "special" customers who were pleased with the
"new" items that arrived and maybe there can be a kind of "hookup"
with them to find out their interests. It might take away some of the
drudgery of wondering who's out there buying what when it comes to
the stuff you want to unload. Again, this is all dependent on whether you
need to get rid of stuff fast or not. If you can casually stretch it out, you
may be able to meet new, collector friends as well as sell thru your collection.

Edited July 1 by rostasi

[clifford_thornton]

I've instructed my wife to sell it all through a reputable shop... of course I am youngish now but who knows what can happen. I have told her to consign if she can, as that would bring her top dollar.

Then again if I make it another 40 years or so, it is highly unlikely that I'll still have a massive collection and it will have been sold/consigned long before.

[Clunky]

Clearly jazz aficionados are able to confront their own mortality. My wife has "encouraged" me to downsize my collection of LPs , 78s and CDs. I sell some stuff on Discogs and to a dealer friend. I've long since got rid of junk and slimmed my 78s down to about five hundred. I will only sell stuff on Discogs that is in excellent condition as I don't want to deal with complaints from buyers who allergic to the odd bit of surface noise. The majority of CDs/LPs in the departure lounge however  go to a charity shop for the local hospice.

My other vice is darkroom photography, specifically film cameras of which I have very many. All vital of course and get used at least once a year. So basically my detritus spreads everywhere, hence I'm receptive to the requests to limit things..

[sidewinder]

Inspired by the history festival attended last week I plan on doing a 'Jazz Sutton Hoo Burial' type of thing with a Saxon burial ship lined with LPs/Mosaics and maybe also room for my hi-fi too !

[mjazzg]

22 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Inspired by the history festival attended last week I plan on doing a 'Jazz Sutton Hoo Burial' type of thing with a Saxon burial ship lined with LPs/Mosaics and maybe also room for my hi-fi too !

😂definitely the best suggestion yet!! Better than going all Viking and burning it all as it leaves it open for future generations of archeologiss to decode the societal impact of box sets....

Sounds like an interesting festival too, joking aside

[sidewinder]

3 hours ago, mjazzg said:

😂definitely the best suggestion yet!! Better than going all Viking and burning it all as it leaves it open for future generations of archeologiss to decode the societal impact of box sets....

Sounds like an interesting festival too, joking aside

Yeah,  Chalke was pretty good and in a lovely scenic spot too. One of the highlights of the year. There was a recreation from scratch of the Anglo-Saxon Prittlewell Burial and this gave me the inspiration. Don't think whoever it was had any Mosaics but he did take a well-used lyre with him to Valhalla !

It would be ace to do this and then have future Baldricks + Time Team scratching their heads.

Edited July 2 by sidewinder

[HutchFan]

3 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Inspired by the history festival attended last week I plan on doing a 'Jazz Sutton Hoo Burial' type of thing with a Saxon burial ship lined with LPs/Mosaics and maybe also room for my hi-fi too !

LOL !!!  

 

[adh1907]

On 7/2/2024 at 9:38 AM, Clunky said:

I've long since got rid of junk and slimmed my 78s down to about five hundred.

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. 

Edited July 3 by adh1907

[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 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 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 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 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 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.