[texasvinyl]

How do you guys pick what to sell from your collections? I am at a point where I probably need to shrink this monster down a little. I've thinned out & cleaned it up a few times, but it is getting harder and harder to pick out stuff that I want to let go.

Like right now I put on a George Benson + Jack McDuff double bill on Prestige. It has been *ages* since I listened to it last. But I'm sitting here with headphones on listening and thinking "damn, these are two chill jazz sets from '64 and '65, right when George Benson was finding out he was a cool ass jazz cat with serious guitar chops (and before he decided to be a shit pop singer). And sure I could get maybe twelve bucks for it. But........ but I should keep it, right?"

Except I think this for like every record....

Maybe I need to NOT play them first and just price 'em out.

ANYWAY. It looks like Austin is in for some good shit from the personal collection of TEXASVINYL at the record fair in June. I need to cut the umbilical on a good number of these babies....

[ScoJo]

@texas -

Honestly, I'm probably the last person to advise on this, cuz when I need to move things on I'm both brutal, and (almost!) never look back/regret.

Before Xmas I sold around 500 lps to my local record store, and got a decent price which allowed him to make a few bucks too. I just don't have the time nor the will to list stuff individually/do record fairs etc, where with patience and luck I'd obviously make out a lot better. The main reasons for the sale were a) space, and b) funds. But there were other factors involved that made the decision making easier.

It was mostly rock, pop and jazz, inc. a lot of stuff that meant a great deal to me as a teen/younger feller. But my rational when going through was pretty simple: when was the last time actually pulled this out and spun it? Am I holding on to it because I know it's a 'nice' copy/edition/sorta collectable/1st pressing etc etc, rather than because I need to have it to spin on wax? (as in, would I be happy having it digitally for those rare times when I do actually want to hear it?) Especially with box sets, where I hadn't even cracked the seal for fear of 'depreciating' their value. I just thought....fuck that!

I mean honestly - don't most of us with busy lives play the same (say) 50-100 favourite lps (tops!) in some sort of rotation, with new stuff getting spins too as they come in? (As a side note - I'd be interested to hear about folks own listening habits, and whether anyone actually has a system for crop-rotating through their collection in any kind of methodical way that ensures LPs get playtime....)

When I applied those criteria, it was relatively easy to sift out 500 titles and know that I wouldn't beat myself up a year later when I remembered that I'd moved so-and-so on.

I can't imagine this helps much at all in your own decision making, but there you go.

[monsterworship]

having this same dilemma myself. just had to buy another kallax for storage over the weekend, and already filled it with books and records from crates on the floor so i'm gonna be in the same situation again in a short time.

unfortunately for me as a collector, the rate of stuff coming in is far greater than the stuff going out.

i have a few conventions coming up in the next few months, so i want to get rid of few hundred LPS, its probably best just to go straight to the crates instead of listening to decide.

[Little Walter]

Spencer mentioned how he was now selling all of his records without obi strips, a move that anyone who's starting a record store can understand. You have to be cutthroat whether space is the issue or if you're keen on having a well-stocked inventory, so you need to draw a line across the board and be cold about it. I put everything into my store that wasn't a first edition in near mint shape, without question (excluding alternate covers, deluxe versions, et al). You just need to find your own line.

[texasvinyl]

Thanks. I think I'm gonna have to do something similar. And any records I like will just be priced closer to market value, and what goes goes. It probably didn't help that I went on an insane library bender last month. Oops.

[NathanLurker]

You could sell your Egisto Macchi records (to me)