Wasn’t to sure where to post this question, thought this would be the best place to try.
A close relative has a large vinyl collection approx 2500+ lp’s ranging from Beatles, The Who, Frank Zappa , Led Zeppelin the list goes on…
Also on a very quick inspection some have letters, bills, invoices for gigs all random forms of paper related items, I would guess probably from managers of the bands also random notes which could be musical lyrics from band members, all sorts of stuff.
They have tried local record shops that handle s/h vinyl they have all said it’s out of their league.
I believe they have tried to use Discogs but struggled to make any headway.
I guess because I have a system they thought I maybe able to help.
Hence the thread, can any members offer any useful advice or guidance on the best way to sell these items, guessing some of them could be valuable.
Definitely discogs. Pick out a few niche ones and list with quality photos; grade them as best can be done, take guidance from similar items for pricing.
This approach worked for me, when I came to sell my late Uncle’s collection of Militaria. Definitely not my thing, but a visit to a fair found me a helpful Militaria Dealer, who linked me up with an Auction House, who held Militaria sales.
Thanks for the speedy responses , to be honest I think they are totally overwhelmed by the task facing them, they are not into the era of music, they recognise certain bands but that’s about it.
Thanks IanRobert hadn’t thought of that, I have been given a box to look through and play, all led zeppelin albums, several copies of each some as many as four copies of the same album, new heavy weight albums still in their shrink wrap, probably 30-40 albums and this is only one box of a total of 60+ boxes, in fact you need a van just to move them.
@silverback – there’s no right answer to this question because it depends on what your friend wants to do – just get rid of the stuff or maximise income.
If you want to do the latter, then selling each item on Discogs or eBay is the way to go – but it will take a lot of time and effort.
If the former, I suggest offloading to a specialist – one is rare vinyl dot com or vinyl-wanted dot com; another way to go (especially for memorabilia) is a specialist auction house, such as Omega.
The OP said there were special papers, lyrics, handwritten notes etc?
I’d pick out based on the extras; eg if there are band signatures I’d start with these. Easy to know if it’s a well known album, which could help with sales. If it’s really special; mono Beatles first press with signatures then I’d seek out a specialist as has been suggested for max promotion.
Selling a collection is not easy. It’s a bit of myth unfortunately that people are sitting on a vinyl fortune.
I tried to off load my 300 vinyl album collection last year. Hawking a list of my collection to various shops and local on-line collectors in Kent & London with not a lot of interest and this was a classic rock collection in mint condition.
Essentially most of these people run their businesses on a shoe string and don’t have the capital to layout on buying collections.
As mentioned discogs and eBay if your friend has unlimited time and wants to wait for the buyer to come along at some time.
Here is the bottom line the albums are worth if you’re lucky from £2 - £5 and expect to get someone cherry picking them.
Seems like you could do with getting a specialist record dealer involved. The easy way out would be to let them go cheap and be done with it. The hard way is to research the actual value of your exact copy (use Discogs) and try to get somewhere close to their actual value. Either way, you’re going to feel like you took a beating. Sorry, but I’ve been there.
My local auction house has sales of vinyl and musical stuff a couple of times a year, with lots divided up (e.g that box of Led Zep would make an obvious single lot). I think that is the way to go - the only work required is seeking out a suitable auction house. I imagine many will have occasional such sales just as does my local one, but if it is a big collection with other potentially interesting memorabilia then a more specialist auction house might be better, though how to find I have no idea. Having said that, even my local auction house has an online presence these days, through a site called easyliveauction .com. Maybe that is a site to check out - a quick look tells me they currently service 353 auction houses in UK, plus several overseas, so a bit of time searching there might identify specialist houses or specialist auctions.
