Selling your Collection

[j j]

I would love to view a list of those Mr Sleeper???

j j

[6anbatte]

I foolishly did it in the early 80s and have regretted it ever since! Don't do it!

[kalcidis]

I think it's important to trim one's collection every now and then. I often sell off records because a lot of music I've bought since first starting my collection are irrelevant today. I want a collection that I know and thoroughly enjoy every record in.

[Gabranth]

Stop teasing us man, come on, show us a list and prices

[Siegi]

@Gabranth nah I have nothing of interest.

But Okay conclusion is: donnot sell the collection as a whole but at the utmost manage your collection on quality and thereby sell at times some pieces. I am doing that already, sort of. But even then you can have regrets. I have regrets concerning one item I sold in the past.

And yes like Vlad said it is about the money. I consider my small collection as an insurancepolicy to be able to be out of work for 6-8 months, but when I feel miserable and unhappy afterworth for the rest of my life then it is a fake insurancepolicy and indeed I need to look for other means.

I let the information sink in. Thanks for the opinions and experiences.

[Return of Jesco]

When you check sites like Lion vibes and come across things like Shaddai Children 7" by the Viceroys on offer for £70 and think "If I sold one or two like that a week I could make a bit of a living..." but then I'd instantly regret it. So I let my family know what a little goldmine they have coming to them some day - unless the boys get the bug too!

[Billy Boom]

I'm now realizing that a lot of the VG+ tunes I've bought in the past really aren't too enjoyable since I upgraded my speakers. My personal philosophy is if it doesn't play clean and clean copies still pop up now and again, then sell it. I'm kicking myself for buying indiscriminately over the past couple years when I had a bit of dunny saved up. Well, at least I can recoup some of my losses by reselling.

One piece of advice I can offer if you plan to sell on ebay is to avoid selling during the summer. Far less people scouring the reggae listings (and ebay in general) during these months. It's a great time for making deals, however, with the little that's on offer. I'm really hoping to make it to October before I unload some tunes on there but I suspect my coffers will dry up before then (largely from buying more reggae). :/

Also a good tactic is to avoid superfluous marketing tactics ("digi killer", "shaka killer", really just the word "killer" at all in listing titles). Does anyone take these descriptions seriously? Reads a bit condescending in my opinion and I usually gloss over them.

[arty]

You may or may not regret it, depends.

Sold mine off a few years ago and haven't regretted if for a second.
I'm reluctant to say it's not about the money after vlad's post, but I got so little for it that it couldn't possibly have been for the cash. Was in a hurry, so sold in large batches to record shops. Could have got loads more for them if I'd had the time to ebay it all - that's possibly the only regret, but a pretty minor one.
It might not have been as large a collection as some here (2 or 3 hundred LP's and a couple of hundred 7's and 12's), but for me, after I had digitised it all, and found I listened only off the computer, the records were just sitting there taking up space. I moved around a lot, often leaving the country, and they were just a pain in the arse to lug about - as you know, a box of records weigh a ton.
I've never been to sentimental though. For me it's about being able to listen to good music, not about possesseing a load of plastic. I think the way some people are attached to their records is like a kind of fetishism (no offence intended), it becomes less about the music and more about the artifact.
For some reason I didn't get rid of the 2000 or so CD's, and likewise, they all sit in the cupboard taking up space, so I've started selling those off - getting surprisingly high prices for some (I never imagined people would pay £20 - 40 for a CD), but it's time consuming.

While we're quoting, I'll quote Patrice:
"The things you possess end up possessing you"

I quite like to have as few possessions as possible - only stuff that I actually need. Makes life much easier. Less to worry about, easy to move, etc, etc. There's more to life than accumulating stuff - and as for talk of passing on collections to family - do you really think it's going to be of much use, and they're going to look through, pricing and selling each? Just as likely someone will just dump the lot at a lucky record shop for a few quid.

[kalcidis]

I think the way some people are attached to their records is like a kind of fetishism (no offence intended), it becomes less about the music and more about the artifact.

I would even stretch so far to say that is nothing else than fetishism. Karl Marx has written a very interesting text about this in volume one of his book Capital.

It's available to be read for free here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... h01.htm#S4

Not trying to come with a socialist agenda here but I can highly recommend it.

[vlad]

1) I wonder if our beloved (alive) reggae artists /producers collect records...

2) Another quote: "Money is a good servant, but a bad master." Apply the same to your collection: "a servant, or a master?"

3) If think collecting is also about "power".- "Owning what others want and don't have". I think there are "positive collectors" and "negative collectors", the ones who're happy to "own & control", and the ones who're happy to "own & share".

4) Finally, I think the best collection is the smaller one, vs. the completist which has 4 pressings of the same tune, and all the recordings of an artist regardless of the quality of the music