Vinyl solutions?

January 8, 2007 1:07 PM

I need to get rid of my collection of vinyl records - approx. ten feet-worth of LPs, 12"s and box-sets. But now Beanos is going out of business, where else in London or south-east England will buy them - and is that my best option?

It's an eclectic collection: pop/rock/electronic/dance/industrial/avant-garde/minimalism. Bits of it, I know, are very collectible but a lot of it's rubbish. I want to maximise my return while minimising the time I have to spend to get that return.

Questions:
1. What shops around London are likely to buy this kind of collection?
2. I'd prefer to sell it all to one purchaser, but given the time I'd have to spend cataloguing the whole lot, would I be better off putting the collectibles on eBay and hauling the rest to the dump?

posted by Hogshead to shopping (12 comments total)

How much do you want for it (including shipping to NYC)?
posted by one_bean at 1:14 PM on January 8, 2007

If you have to go to option #2, rather than hauling the rest off to the dump, put an ad on Craigslist or Freecycle to give them away. Or donate them to a charity thrift shop.
posted by winston at 1:15 PM on January 8, 2007

Look at Reckless (three shops in Berwick). If I lived there that's what I'd be doing. Maybe even look into Rough Trade Shop. I think they still deal with used vinyl.
posted by horseblind at 1:34 PM on January 8, 2007

I would cherry pick the plums, ( above £ 20 book value ) and list them on eBay with honest grading, low start price and no reserve. Dump the rest as a lot on Loot, Craigslist or Gumtree. If desperate take them to Music and Video Exchange ( Record and Tape Exchange as was ) were they will insult your manhood and your musical taste and offer you peanuts in return.
posted by Dr.Pill at 1:45 PM on January 8, 2007

Haggle Vinyl
posted by criticalbill at 1:47 PM on January 8, 2007

You could try selling them on eBay in 50 record lots, with each lot containing a couple of desirable records. When questions roll in about what is in the lots just give generalities and say you can not be specific because you are in the process of selling so many. Some people will be intrigued enough to bid. Vinyl is back. (Another alternative is to just get yourself a good turntable and join the vinyl junkies.)
posted by caddis at 2:35 PM on January 8, 2007

Please post again and let us know what you decide, and if it worked. I am in the identical situation (right down to acreage of records, limited time to sort and advertise, and low-ish-but-significant proportion of collectibles in among the dross).

I thought for a while about seeing if an unemployed friend wanted to sell them on my behalf, and split the proceeds 50 / 50 with me, but personally I missed the window on that one. Would be an elegant solution I think - a good incentive for them to do the research and identify the collectibles (Record Collector price guides are available in libraries I believe), although obviously you'd need to trust them implicitly.
posted by bifter at 2:54 PM on January 8, 2007

Just in case either Hogshead or bifter are in the unlikely position of having large record collections in London without ever having been to any of the Music and Video exchange shops here's a link. As Dr Pill points out, the customer is rarely right in an MVE store.
posted by calico at 4:52 PM on January 8, 2007

pay a friend a 15%-10% commission to put each and every one of them on ebay. If you use an ebay-posting application it's easy and fast.
posted by Señor Pantalones at 10:46 PM on January 8, 2007

Another vote for Haggle Vinyl.
posted by influx at 12:40 AM on January 9, 2007

Thanks Calico, I bought a fair number in Record and Tape Exchange in my day... Thing is, they pay so badly that it doesn't seem worth the effort of carting them there in the first place (to me at least). Particularly with collectibles, where they routinely try to fob you off with 1% of the value, only to put them back up for sale at 4* the price a serious collector would offer.
posted by bifter at 5:04 AM on January 9, 2007

pay so badly that it doesn't seem worth the effort of carting them there in the first place

Amen to this. They can be pretty charmless too. When they had a Fulham shop I was a regular but now it's just Notting Hill I can't be bothered.
posted by dmt at 6:12 AM on January 9, 2007