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June 19, 2008 5:51 AM Subscribe
Help please. I am a new member. I have never posted but I have been a member for more than a week now. I would like to list some old albums
to see if they have any value. Can you give me some help with this?
Thanks!
This post was deleted for the following reason: poster's request -- jessamyn
How do a post a question?
Congratulations, you did it!
Seconding PowerCat. Even if you don't want to sell on eBay, you can still take an average of those prices as s starting point for listing them on Craigslist or wherever you intend to sell them.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:24 AM on June 19, 2008
Congratulations, you did it!
Seconding PowerCat. Even if you don't want to sell on eBay, you can still take an average of those prices as s starting point for listing them on Craigslist or wherever you intend to sell them.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:24 AM on June 19, 2008
Run into a bookstore - they will have books on the value of records. I'd take pics of the actual vinyl as there were many many pressings (different versions) of records that change the value and without the version numbers the books are not that helpful.
Even then it is a buyers market so if something is listed at a million dollars you'll still have to find someone willing to pay that amount.
posted by doorsfan at 6:28 AM on June 19, 2008
Even then it is a buyers market so if something is listed at a million dollars you'll still have to find someone willing to pay that amount.
posted by doorsfan at 6:28 AM on June 19, 2008
As a rule of thumb, no, old albums do not have any [significant] value. There are exceptions, of course, but mainstream releases in average condition aren't usually worth more than a couple bucks apiece, maybe less. Of course, if it turns out that you're sitting on a bunch of white-label Beatles singles or something, well, those are the exceptions.
posted by box at 8:02 AM on June 19, 2008
posted by box at 8:02 AM on June 19, 2008
This may belong in MetaTalk, but I'm not sure if this question is about MeFi or not.
posted by oaf at 9:33 AM on June 19, 2008
posted by oaf at 9:33 AM on June 19, 2008
People have used Ask Metafilter to inquire about the value of things in a general sense before (i.e. are my old action figures worth anything? type questions). I think posting a list of actual albums looking for values would not be a good use of Ask.
There is a ton of stuff online that can help with looking for values for particular albums. I have had good luck simply searching for full album titles in quotes in Google. EBay and Craigslist are actually, in my opinion, very poor places to value and sell record albums. I have consistently had better luck selling stuff to honest stores (particularly the type owned and run by a person I could deal with individually, those these are becoming a thing of the past, and it's been a few years since I pretty much sold everything I wanted to part worth and was worth the effort).
As others noted most old albums aren't worth much. For an album to be worth more than a few dollars it almost uniformly has to be rare, have some importance musically, and be in great condition. So to self-appraise you have to read up on condition ratings as well, and don't be generous when you rate the condition of your old albums, because buyers won't be. In most cases even notable and rare stuff is seldom worth more than the 20-50 dollar range. It might be worth looking it all up if you're not dealing with a large collection. The few times I tried to sell even decent stuff piece by piece online it was way more trouble than the money was worth. It was a lot easier to track down a shop owner with a reputation for being honest and just sell a big batch and be done with it.
posted by nanojath at 1:54 PM on June 19, 2008
There is a ton of stuff online that can help with looking for values for particular albums. I have had good luck simply searching for full album titles in quotes in Google. EBay and Craigslist are actually, in my opinion, very poor places to value and sell record albums. I have consistently had better luck selling stuff to honest stores (particularly the type owned and run by a person I could deal with individually, those these are becoming a thing of the past, and it's been a few years since I pretty much sold everything I wanted to part worth and was worth the effort).
As others noted most old albums aren't worth much. For an album to be worth more than a few dollars it almost uniformly has to be rare, have some importance musically, and be in great condition. So to self-appraise you have to read up on condition ratings as well, and don't be generous when you rate the condition of your old albums, because buyers won't be. In most cases even notable and rare stuff is seldom worth more than the 20-50 dollar range. It might be worth looking it all up if you're not dealing with a large collection. The few times I tried to sell even decent stuff piece by piece online it was way more trouble than the money was worth. It was a lot easier to track down a shop owner with a reputation for being honest and just sell a big batch and be done with it.
posted by nanojath at 1:54 PM on June 19, 2008
This has been asked previously, and again, more recently than the link, but the answer's usually, don't get your hopes up, the market for used vinyl is very small.
posted by Rash at 8:24 PM on June 19, 2008
posted by Rash at 8:24 PM on June 19, 2008
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Here's a good tip on finding the value of things.
Get on ebay and register. Then do a search. On the left hand side, there's a yellow area where you can narrow down the search, check "completed listings only".
Using this technique, you will only see ended auctions, and at what price it went for. This can help you.
posted by PowerCat at 6:00 AM on June 19, 2008 [1 favorite]