This is a big deal. A lifetime accumulation of records. You’ve seen quite a bit on MyVinylCountdown. They are part of my life; they are touchstones; memory triggers of good times and bad.
I’m selling them.
Not all at once, But starting Friday (March 6) through Saturday (March 7) at Gardendale Civic Center I will be selling or offering up for sale somewhere in the neighborhood of 175 albums. That’s from my collection/accumulation of 678. That number was the count when I started September of 2017 about 6 months after my diagnosis of Lewy body dementia.
Even to those familiar with my blog, there’ll be some surprises I’m sure. I have some relatively higher priced 78’s and some cheap CD’s. But the focus will be on vinyl.
My overhead costs are already in the $150 range likely to rise — getting a table at the event ($75), bins (cheap laundry baskets ($25), plastic outer sleeves and inner sleeves ($40) and couple other doo-dads.
The most labor intensive part of this has been to value the records. How much to sell them for. My wife Catherine says I’ll probably overprice them because I want to keep them.
What? I say.
Have you ever heard Bad Company? They put the classic in classic rock. You wonder if $25 is too much? OK I’ll take some it down to $19.99. Jeesh.
Actually, I think I have my Bad Company (debut album) listed at $7. I keep second guessing myself on some of these. Maybe it should $6?
There are ways to assess value. I often use DIscogs and look at what the ‘Median” price is for sales. This works when their are plenty of sales to get a good median. I also look at Popsike which has records and what they sold at auction — eBay also offers those kid of numbers. It’s also good to look at prices the record is currently selling for on Amazon. Etsy is another one, although I don’t use that one much at all.
There are also sites that specialize in 78 rpm records.
I hate it when somebody explains to me for the 405th time that a product’s value is the cost a willing buyer and wiling seller agree to. Of course that’s obvious but there are so many parts of negotiation. Some love it and some don’t. I have come to enjoy it — to a degree.
The websites are certainly not magical I think the best assessment is made with your experience: ‘What would I pay for this?”
Some albums like my Bob Dylan box set ‘Biograph,’ I am choosing not to sell at the moment. I”ve got to have a few untouchables, windows to the past, where I can see and hear what got me here. “Oh but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”