Should I sell-off my old records and CDs?

August 22, 2005 10:46 AM

FortySomethingAttachmentFilter: I'm thinking of selling-off a rather large collection of LPs and CDs , accumulated over the past 30 years, at our next garage sale.

They don't really seem to fit my evolving identity/personality any more; most of the memes are too angry and/or depressing. On the other hand, I'm having a hard time getting my mind around the idea, even though I never listen to them now. Please note that music has always been hugely important in my life.

I suspect this could be quite liberating if I can do it. Anyone ever done this? How did it affect your life? Any regrets?

posted by ZenMasterThis to health (25 comments total)

Have you checked to see if they're worth anything? I mean, would you really want to sell a rare record for 10c at a garage sale?

I always see these antique roadshow shows were people are like "I got this at a garage sale" and it's worth like $100k.

Also, remember things are way overvalued on ebay.
posted by delmoi at 10:49 AM on August 22, 2005

I hear that kids these days still like angry music -- and LP's are valued by plenty of young music fanatics. Maybe it would be easier for you to part with them if you sold (or donated) the entire collection to an aspiring DJ or musician, someone you know will love and appreciate them as much as you did, instead of of watching passersby ignorantly sift through your prized albums.
posted by junkbox at 10:55 AM on August 22, 2005

Gotta laugh whenever I hear some aging boomer talk about how they're planning to sell off their large LP collection.

To whom, exactly?

After the futile yard sale, don't feel bad about heaving 'em into the dumpster. It's a purge activity I've done several times.
posted by Rash at 10:58 AM on August 22, 2005

It can be fantastic on the liberating scale.

I had quite the baseball card collection years ago and I fell on hard financial times. I knew what it was worth on the market if I had the time to sell them in small lots or as individuals, but I didn't. So I took the whole she-bang and wound up with pennies on the dollar.

Talk about liberating and eye-opening all at once. I'm a collector by nature, but I can't ever see myself collecting something on a grand scale again thanks to that experience.

I would agree that you're probably not going to move much in your sale and it can be very traumatic to see people going through your stuff as junkbox mentions. If you have the time/inclination I'd suggest auctioning the *valuable* stuff on eBay and maybe donating the rest of the LPs. The CDs you might have slightly better luck with, but still... depressing.

I took a slew of CDs to the used media store in town and got credit. They sell books as well, so I got some reading out of it, then took those books to another used bookstore for credit. I've been really good at doing this for some time now and I'm almost to the point where I've gotten all I can out of the deal and will have to actually pony up some cash next time I want to get a book. Or, you know, visit the library.
posted by FlamingBore at 11:13 AM on August 22, 2005

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by matildaben at 11:34 AM on August 22, 2005

If you're going to sell, sell in small lots. My uncle has just begun to sell his record collection. He takes about 30 at a time. The guy takes half, pays him $30-50 and that's that. He goes every two weeks. If you try and sell all at once, you WILL get ripped off.
posted by mr.dan at 11:35 AM on August 22, 2005

Um, that's my own 40-something attachment talking. I've avoided doing such a thing myself. The only thing that would make me do it is if I were moving to another country. But I'm a major pack-rat with various collection neuroses so you don't want to take advice from me. Do it. Be an inspiration.
posted by matildaben at 11:36 AM on August 22, 2005

Please note that this question is not about LPs and CDs; it's about emotional attachment to memes that no longer apply, and how/whether others have overcome said attachment. Junkbox and Flamingbore are more on the right track.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:40 AM on August 22, 2005

(Apres preview) ...and matildaben.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 11:41 AM on August 22, 2005

With me, it wasn't so much that I'd outgrown the music but that it took up too damn much space. Decorating-wise, I was going from eclectic and weird to zen and sparse and modern and scads of CD's just didn't cut it.
So I burned all the CD's to MP3's and stored them on CD's. 4-8 albums on one CD. A single 100 CD spindle now holds my entire collection. Now that's small. And easily hidable and easily accessable.

I then went to amazon and priced each CD on the used market. If it was worth at least $3, I listed it for sale on amazon used. Less than that, it got traded to the local used CD store.

Collection intact. Yes.
Stuff exiting rather than entering my abode. Yes.
Cash flow, um, flowing. Yes.

Win win!
posted by willmize at 11:42 AM on August 22, 2005

even though I never listen to them now.

And there's the key. I've got more junk socked away than I (nor my annoyed wife) know what to do with, on the off-chance I'll "need it someday."

Number of things I've gone back to? Maybe a tenth of a percent. Unload everything except any super-rare collectibles. Anything you end up really wanting to rediscover can be found again.
posted by jalexei at 11:47 AM on August 22, 2005

Keep the small % of items that evoke a sense memory for you, and any ultra-collectibles. GEMM is a great resource for ascertaining the $ value, and for selling.

I regularly go thru all the stacks of CDs and LPs to weed out ones that no longer have any sense memories attached.

However, I'd certainly like to paw thru them all at your garage sale!
posted by omnidrew at 11:54 AM on August 22, 2005

I asked a very similar question a while ago which you should peruse.

What I've ended up doing is giving myself a small box to save select nostalgia items- think of it as a time capsule. The rest of the stuff I've been getting ruthless about. Gone.

If you live around a college town, then September-October is a good time to sell the stuff for fresh college students who are willing to accumulate.
posted by jeremias at 12:01 PM on August 22, 2005

I've been lugging around crates upon crates of vinyl, hither and yon, from one time zone to another, for decades now -- and I haven't even owned a turntable since late last century. But I felt, as a Music Geek, that I could!not!let!them!go!

Flash forward to the last time I moved apts. here in LA. I have absolutely no place to store all the damn vinyl at the new place, so I store them in my sister's basement. A week later, LA gets hit with the worst rain in a century. The basement floods. My vinyl is, presumably, destroyed. I felt a mild-to-moderate twinge of sadness that lasted about half an afternoon. Since then, I've been nothing but relieved to think that I'll never have to drag around all that crap ever again.
posted by scody at 12:01 PM on August 22, 2005

Whenever I come across something I own that I think I should maybe throw away but hesitate because it either has emotional value or "I never know when I'll need this!" then I hang onto it for a year. If in that year I haven't used it, and still feel the same way, it gets purged from my life.
posted by Robot Johnny at 12:05 PM on August 22, 2005

(FWIW, I'm 46.)

I recently sold off my nearly complete collections of Vampirella and Fangoria, as well as a 600+ CD collection. I also sold a bunch of music equipment and pretty much everything else I owned. This after getting rid of a library of 1000+ books three years ago.

Liberating does not begin to describe the feeling! Those collections were a huge anchor. Now, I can move to wherever I want/need to go with little more than a couple suitcases and a carry-on for my laptop.

I still have 3 guitars and a keyboard stashed at my parents' about which I am still undecided.
posted by mischief at 12:14 PM on August 22, 2005

One intriguing suggestion that I read in a similar discussion, which Robot Johnny reminded me of, was to rent a storage unit and put the stuff in the storage unit. If a year goes by and you haven't given a thought to any of the items in the storage unit, get rid of them.... Maybe I will try this some day. Keep inspiring me, people.
posted by matildaben at 12:24 PM on August 22, 2005

mischief, a chill just went down my spine, thinking of my children (who are now toddlers) still cluttering my house up with their crap when they're FORTY-SIX YEARS OLD.
posted by glenwood at 12:27 PM on August 22, 2005

i've purged all the music I had in a digital format (well, everything the record store would take). Anything that was on a CD i figured I could either obtain again and/or burn. My basic rule of thumb is "can I get it again?", and if the answer is yes, then I toss it.

It seems like you can probably ALWAYS get something again, it just may tend to cost you a heck of a lot more when you want it back (thus the large market for nostalgia items). Still, i wouldn't underestimate the cost of having less junk cluttering up your life. 95% of the stuff i've "collected" sits in boxes, and when I'm looking for something else, i'll flip by it and think "oh hey cool", but it really hasn't done anything for me. Awhile ago I threw out all my guitar mags (which I sorta regret now, because I wanted to check out some of the tabs they had in there again, of course, i can always "get it again" on the internet) and also (i think) all of my skate mags, (which i regret more, because I think I tossed out most of my early issue copies of "big brother", which I probably *can't* get again. So it goes.)

Using this rubric, I'm reluctant to get rid of records, because they can often be hard to find. That said, if you're not a collector or a record snob, it doesn't really make a heck of a lot of sense to keep the vinyl around, aside from maybe showing a future child that you weren't a total square, and that you didn't always listen to NPR.

if you've got a lot of punk vinyl, particularly on 45, that shit can be worth cash. guess punks threw their stuff away and then wanted it back. (also there just weren't a heck of a lot of it made in the first place).
posted by fishfucker at 12:46 PM on August 22, 2005

I had a collection of probably over a thousand LPs (yeah, I'm a boomer) and hundreds of CDs. The LPs got pared down to about 700-800 but were never played. Then when my wife remodeled, she found some great LP and CD stands, all polished steel and far too much money. But now the collection looks impressive.

While in the midst of this giant decoration, she decided that our old stereo was unsightly. Thank god. I got a new turntable, speakers that were gorgeous and kick-ass, and some truly righteous amplification to drive it all. Now those old LPs sound golden again and actually get some use. And while this was far more expensive than liberating myself of the entire collection, I find the reward to be far lasting. (But I did experience the liberation of dumping 500 audio cassettes in the dumpster, that was pretty good).
posted by Ber at 12:51 PM on August 22, 2005

it doesn't really make a heck of a lot of sense to keep the vinyl around, aside from maybe showing a future child that you weren't a total square, and that you didn't always listen to NPR.

ZenMaster, if you have any kids, you might consider keeping only the records that mean/meant the most to you for the offspring to discover at some future time (if they're little). I remember well discovering my dad's old Beatles, Stones and Janis Joplin LPs when I was about 11--they may have been my first chance to peruse and explore that kind of music (as opposed to just listening to the junk on the radio).
posted by scratch at 1:16 PM on August 22, 2005

I'll take another tack at this since I jumped in before they clarified the question and the issue they were struggling with.
Another possible solution.
1) Gather up stuff
2) Put in box
3) Tape box closed so tight that not even an angry zombie could bust out of it
4) Write the the days date on box
5) Fast forward a predetermined period of time later (90 days, 6 months, etc.)
6) Is the box opened? Seal still intact? Then you haven't needed anything inside it (not even the zombie), so take it to the dumpster immediately, tape intact.
7) Repeat as necessary to empty all the crap out of your place.
posted by willmize at 1:19 PM on August 22, 2005

I've sold a ton of CDs and LPs in the past five years. Selling on eBay versus walking into record stores: lugging boxes into a store is a lot faster and easier than sorting, selling, and packaging each disc individually -- but eBay yields a lot more money.

(Not "a lot of money." Just a lot more.)
posted by cribcage at 2:03 PM on August 22, 2005

On the other hand, I'm having a hard time getting my mind around the idea, even though I never listen to them now.

It sounds like you're not quite done with the emotional attachment. When you're completely over it, you won't have any problem selling/destroying/giving them away.
posted by krisptoria at 4:33 PM on August 22, 2005

I'd go through them and choose a specific number to keep (since some vinyl can be very hard to replace), then purge the rest (or digitize them if you have the means and then purge them). I'm an incorrigible pack rat, and I lost a ton of stuff in an apartment storage space clusterfuck a few years ago - aside from the occasional "awww...too bad that's gone", I'm glad to have unloaded all that junk I'd been carting around for years.
posted by biscotti at 5:34 PM on August 22, 2005