FYI: Selling your music collection?

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jojo999

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FYI: Selling your music collection?
« on: 19 Oct 2012, 07:15 pm »
While in the process of moving to a smaller place recently, I decided to dispose of my CD collection, which I only listened to in the car any more.. 

I had about 1100 CD's, all in VVG to excellent condition.  About 1/2 of the collection were jazz & jazz vocals.  1/4 more was classical and the remained was a mix of everything else (rock, country, world, oldies...).

I called around to some stores but most didn't want to come out to give me a bid.  Instead, they wanted me to come to them with the CD's.  But I refused to do that because then they would have me over a barrel after I dragged all the CD's to their location.

I finally managed to get someone from Amoeba to come out but the guy proceeded to give me what I considered to be a low-ball offer of $500 for the whole collection.  Sheese.  I told him no way.

I was also in contact with someone named Cameron for the Rasputin store in Berkeley.  I had called a Rasputin store in Mountain View previously but they were not interested in coming up to the Burlingame area to look at the collection.  Cameron kept promising someone would come out but they kept missing appointments.  However, I persisted and after about 4 weeks, someone from the store managed to show up.  He turned out to be a knowledgeable person and we had a good conversation about music.

He spent some time looking through the collection and ultimately wound up making a very fair offer of $2200 for the collection, significantly more than Amoeba offered. 

So if you are selling music (CD or vinyl), I would recommend trying Rasputin but definitely avoid Amoeba.

jarcher

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Re: FYI: Selling your music collection?
« Reply #1 on: 19 Oct 2012, 07:24 pm »
Doesn't seem to me unreasonable for a store to ask you to bring the collection in for a quote.  Sending someone costs time & money - and they don't know in advance if you have a collection full of John Denver / Yanni / Englbert Humperdink or a gold mine.

No, I'm not an apologist for used record stores and don't work at one or have an ownership interest.

Seems to me if you want the most $ for your collection, you make a catalog of it & then shop that list around : either to the stores, online trader places like AC, or else sell off each title on ebay or whatever.  Of course all of that takes more time & effort.

And that to me would be the learning lesson : how much is people's time worth?

jojo999

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Re: FYI: Selling your music collection?
« Reply #2 on: 19 Oct 2012, 10:32 pm »
It is unreasonable to have to schlep large collections to a store.  The cut off number for "large" seems to be 500+ or so.   

As to a list, I would wager heavily that your version of quality is not going to be the same as the experienced store person, which is why no one will accept a list.

Remember, the stores NEED a new supply of good quality music to continue to remain in the used music business, which is why they offer to come out.  You can think of it like a business person who offers an initial consult for free in the hope of getting your business. 

Regardless, there is no need to argue about this.  These are the facts and this is the way the business generally works. 

My intention was simply to point people who may be interested in selling their music to a source (Rasputin) that respects good quality and might pay them more than they would otherwise get from other companies (Amoeba, in this case).


jarcher

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Re: FYI: Selling your music collection?
« Reply #3 on: 20 Oct 2012, 01:07 am »
I shouldn't even care as I'm not in the SF area or even in CA, but I didn't find your conclusion or method that particularly useful with respect to selling a CD collection, even if the result was to your satisfaction.  Presumably AC is about sharing information and opinions that have interest & merit outside of one's self. 

I.e. "I called a bunch of places to come to my house, most of whom didn't want to come, two that did, and one that gave me what I wanted.  So of the two that came, don't do business with the one that gave me less". And down the road there's someone else that got more for their CD collection from Amoeba than Rasputin for whatever reason - the person was feeling more generous, the selection was more what Amoeba wanted, whatever.

Seems to me that if you - or anyone for that matter - really wants the most money possible for your CD collection, you need to be more flexible and make more of an effort than you did.  Maybe you would have gotten on average $3 a cd vs the $2 that you did.  Whether that extra effort merits the potential extra revenue is more subjective (and partially subject to luck).   Hence what I thought was a fairly obvious conclusion : what's your time worth?

jojo999

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Re: FYI: Selling your music collection?
« Reply #4 on: 20 Oct 2012, 02:05 am »
Whew.  I guess all I can say is thanks for sharing your thoughts.