Classical music on LP and CD

[Cockney Sparrow]

Agree with this. If money is the only concern here I would start with the oldest lps. Then start a search on eBay or Discogs to see if you can find the same item and what prices they are commanding. CDs just don’t have much value these days. The prices on Amazon for deleted CDs are ridiculously inflated and we wonder if anyone ever pays them

My local Oxfam bookshop priced the CDs using the Amazon App - the price without the delivery. Someone must, I presume, have bought them as they never reappeared at a lower price. I stopped looking when I realised that, on occasion, I bought a CD to justify the time spent there. Now, I use streaming services, You Tube and if I really want a CD, pay the price of an internet seller. Over a year, that would be markedly fewer than previously.

[Braunschlag]

I am not currently playing lps but when I was a few years ago isopropyl was considered the best, and it seemed to do a decent job.
Most lps from days of yore could really benefit from a good cleaning with a machine, but as purchasers don’t expect sellers to do this, although some sellers use this as bait for a sale

Careful now! I remember cleaning some LPs with isoprop which very efficiently dissolved the ink on the label!

[crb11]

I can't believe that CRB2 binned the CDs, I'm sure someone on here would have taken them off his hands. Where are you in the country? Do you have a local 2nd hand CD/LP shop?

The ones I got rid of were mainly early Naxos issues of standard repertoire recorded by not-such-good orchestras, which I reckoned you couldn't even give away with the number of better recordings in circulation. (He did have a lot of good material, which I'll be looking to find a home for, so expect a list on this site in due course, but probably not for a few months.) My father had a lot of stuff, and none of us live particularly close, so we're having to be a bit selective in what we take and what we leave to the house clearers. (The ones I did take filled six 51 litre crates, getting on for half a car-full on their own.)

[Petrushka]

The ones I got rid of were mainly early Naxos issues of standard repertoire recorded by not-such-good orchestras, which I reckoned you couldn't even give away with the number of better recordings in circulation. (He did have a lot of good material, which I'll be looking to find a home for, so expect a list on this site in due course, but probably not for a few months.) My father had a lot of stuff, and none of us live particularly close, so we're having to be a bit selective in what we take and what we leave to the house clearers. (The ones I did take filled six 51 litre crates, getting on for half a car-full on their own.)

I've mentioned on here before that I have very many CD duplications mostly due to buying the big boxes in which they also reside. At the moment, they're stored in an upstairs spare room but I'm desperate to get rid of them somehow.

Charity shops round here are hopeless and the nearest Oxfam is nearly 20 miles away. Musicmagpie is hopeless as they don't want most of the CDs you key in. I don't want the hassle and time wastage of preparing lists so I'm presently stuck with them.

I got rid of a batch of previous duplications to Foyles in Charing Cross Road but it meant lugging a heavy suitcase all the way down to London and don't feel up to repeating that. Gramex near Waterloo had a batch from me as well but I'd guess he's packed in, or passed away, by now. A Forum member also had a batch.

I suppose I could get away with infiltrating a few CDs a week into local charity shops, or alternatively to look at offering them up for auction as a job lot. Has anyone done this?

If any Forum member wants to take them off me, they are welcome but it's a case of buyer collects, I'm afraid, as I don't drive. As for content, think of those big boxes that have appeared, think single discs of Karajan, Solti, Abbado, Szell, Bohm etc, etc.

Any offers or suggestions welcome, otherwise I can see a New Year clearout coming.

[oddoneout]

I've mentioned on here before that I have very many CD duplications mostly due to buying the big boxes in which they also reside. At the moment, they're stored in an upstairs spare room but I'm desperate to get rid of them somehow.

Charity shops round here are hopeless and the nearest Oxfam is nearly 20 miles away. Musicmagpie is hopeless as they don't want most of the CDs you key in. I don't want the hassle and time wastage of preparing lists so I'm presently stuck with them.

I got rid of a batch of previous duplications to Foyles in Charing Cross Road but it meant lugging a heavy suitcase all the way down to London and don't feel up to repeating that. Gramex near Waterloo had a batch from me as well but I'd guess he's packed in, or passed away, by now. A Forum member also had a batch.

I suppose I could get away with infiltrating a few CDs a week into local charity shops, or alternatively to look at offering them up for auction as a job lot. Has anyone done this?

If any Forum member wants to take them off me, they are welcome but it's a case of buyer collects, I'm afraid, as I don't drive. As for content, think of those big boxes that have appeared, think single discs of Karajan, Solti, Abbado, Szell, Bohm etc, etc.

Any offers or suggestions welcome, otherwise I can see a New Year clearout coming.

Freecycle, or are there any local online groups for posting such things? Facebook Marketplace buys and sells so might not be of use if there's not the interest locally?

[gradus]

I've mentioned on here before that I have very many CD duplications mostly due to buying the big boxes in which they also reside. At the moment, they're stored in an upstairs spare room but I'm desperate to get rid of them somehow.

Charity shops round here are hopeless and the nearest Oxfam is nearly 20 miles away. Musicmagpie is hopeless as they don't want most of the CDs you key in. I don't want the hassle and time wastage of preparing lists so I'm presently stuck with them.

I got rid of a batch of previous duplications to Foyles in Charing Cross Road but it meant lugging a heavy suitcase all the way down to London and don't feel up to repeating that. Gramex near Waterloo had a batch from me as well but I'd guess he's packed in, or passed away, by now. A Forum member also had a batch.

I suppose I could get away with infiltrating a few CDs a week into local charity shops, or alternatively to look at offering them up for auction as a job lot. Has anyone done this?

If any Forum member wants to take them off me, they are welcome but it's a case of buyer collects, I'm afraid, as I don't drive. As for content, think of those big boxes that have appeared, think single discs of Karajan, Solti, Abbado, Szell, Bohm etc, etc.

Any offers or suggestions welcome, otherwise I can see a New Year clearout coming.

Auctions work pretty well if you have a nearby auction house.

[Petrushka]

Auctions work pretty well if you have a nearby auction house.

There are some good ones round here, including well known names from TV programmes like Bargain Hunt. Could be worth exploring.

[mikealdren]

I've mentioned on here before that I have very many CD duplications mostly due to buying the big boxes in which they also reside. At the moment, they're stored in an upstairs spare room but I'm desperate to get rid of them somehow.

Charity shops round here are hopeless and the nearest Oxfam is nearly 20 miles away. Musicmagpie is hopeless as they don't want most of the CDs you key in. I don't want the hassle and time wastage of preparing lists so I'm presently stuck with them.

I got rid of a batch of previous duplications to Foyles in Charing Cross Road but it meant lugging a heavy suitcase all the way down to London and don't feel up to repeating that. Gramex near Waterloo had a batch from me as well but I'd guess he's packed in, or passed away, by now. A Forum member also had a batch.

I suppose I could get away with infiltrating a few CDs a week into local charity shops, or alternatively to look at offering them up for auction as a job lot. Has anyone done this?

If any Forum member wants to take them off me, they are welcome but it's a case of buyer collects, I'm afraid, as I don't drive. As for content, think of those big boxes that have appeared, think single discs of Karajan, Solti, Abbado, Szell, Bohm etc, etc.

Any offers or suggestions welcome, otherwise I can see a New Year clearout coming.

Where are you based Pet?

[MickyD]

I wish I had the luxury of all those charity shops here in France - there is nothing like that in the towns near me. Part of the pleasure is having somewhere you can browse and finding nice surprises.

For my part, I sell CDs on Amazon marketplace and quite often I get a good price for them - though it has to be said that quite a lot of titles are of a rather esoteric, specialist nature and have long been deleted, so probably sought after by fellow early music anoraks like myself.

[Mal]

I've mentioned on here before that I have very many CD duplications mostly due to buying the big boxes in which they also reside. At the moment, they're stored in an upstairs spare room but I'm desperate to get rid of them somehow.

Why not sell the duplicates from the big boxes ten-to-a-box on ebay? Cheaper to post than the original CDs, and you get to keep the original with the booklet, etc.! Encourage people to mix and match - for instance, if someone wanted five disks from Box A and 5 from box B then you could shuffle the boxes, before bidding starts, to at least start to make a sale. Announce the sales on here (subject to admin. approval, of course...) and I suspect many would bid! As you're happy giving them away, you can start the auction at £0.01 + P&P, so you at least have postal charges covered.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Petrushka - can I suggest you phone your nearest Oxfam bookshop and get to speak to the shop manager, or even the person who prices their classical CDs. If you describe what you have, that it isn't unsaleable then they might be willing to organise a collection (volunteer near you?) for a decent quantity, making the exercise worthwhile.

A friend prices vinyl for our local Oxfam bookshop (don't know why, he left vinyl behind with the advent of CDs) and he says anything obscure / potentially lvaluable goes "upstairs to the internet sales posters..... OTOH, a choir acquaintance enjoys browsing and buys classical vinyl there - he's rediscovered the joys of vinyl - I suspect, as a retired engineer, largely fiddling around with old record decks.

I've been going through an epic disposal of books, and felt a bit concerned about the quantity I was delivering to charity shops. I know Oxfam sorts them, with unsaleable going into the paper recycling - I observed a sixth former on community outreach tossing them expertly into different bins. Oxfam they make enough profit to bear the cost - although I am told they don't pay for paper disposal. I also got talking to the manager of a local hospice shop, who told me she would take quantities - boxes - of any decent book by arrangement, because they sold any surplus to a trade buyer, using an app to get a flat rate price (mentioned 50p, minimum usually). Another friend got an Oxfam bookshop to collect 10 boxes of books.

[Dave2002]

Auctions work pretty well if you have a nearby auction house.

I suggested that earlier. I'm not sure what the best strategy is exactly. If you have "dross" [e.g. magazine CDs, freebies, or the Naxos CDs you didn't want before, etc.] that you'd like to get rid of, I think one strategy is to make up a box or two with a mixture of the ones you think nobody will really want, but some "goodies" which people in the know will want. Really depends if you just want to shift them, give them away, or try to make some sort of profit.

A mixed box with a few good ones might get £60-£100 if you're lucky. I have seen some very good collections in the auction house near us, which would be great for anyone starting a collection [that is, not really dross at all ...], but - surprise, surprise - most of the boxes have a large number of CDs I've already got. I did wonder about putting in a fairly high bid to get boxes with a few good items I might want, but then I'd probably have to take those out and put the box back into an auction later on - otherwise I'd just have made my own storage problem worse.

The good thing about auctions is that they will shift the stuff, but there's no guarantee on financial benefits. There can be a big difference between auction houses - some of which specialise in certain types of items. Many are just general - so won't get a high return - but they can shift anything you don't want, and that'll save the bother of having to sell stuff yourself, or otherwise dispose of it.

[Dave2002]

Freecycle, or are there any local online groups for posting such things? Facebook Marketplace buys and sells so might not be of use if there's not the interest locally?

Freecycle can be patchy. Sometimes works, and we have had quite good stuff ourselves from Freecycle.

Sometimes people take stuff from Freecycle, then sell it and make a profit. Sadly we have done this ourselves, but not intentionally. We had an exercise bike from Freecycle, and when we wanted to move we put it back on Freecycle. No takers, despite several attempts. Eventually we advertised it for sale [Gumtree, I think], and the phone didn't stop ringing, even after it had gone. Sometimes people's priorities mean that things have to move fast. We had quite good stuff which people had to shift as if they hadn't they would have been charged for leaving their home with stuff in - and they had fixed deadlines to vacate. Effectively we did their removal of one or two large items for them at no charge, and saved them any penalty payments.

[Petrushka]

Petrushka - can I suggest you phone your nearest Oxfam bookshop and get to speak to the shop manager, or even the person who prices their classical CDs. If you describe what you have, that it isn't unsaleable then they might be willing to organise a collection (volunteer near you?) for a decent quantity, making the exercise worthwhile.

A friend prices vinyl for our local Oxfam bookshop (don't know why, he left vinyl behind with the advent of CDs) and he says anything obscure / potentially lvaluable goes "upstairs to the internet sales posters..... OTOH, a choir acquaintance enjoys browsing and buys classical vinyl there - he's rediscovered the joys of vinyl - I suspect, as a retired engineer, largely fiddling around with old record decks.

I've been going through an epic disposal of books, and felt a bit concerned about the quantity I was delivering to charity shops. I know Oxfam sorts them, with unsaleable going into the paper recycling - I observed a sixth former on community outreach tossing them expertly into different bins. Oxfam they make enough profit to bear the cost - although I am told they don't pay for paper disposal. I also got talking to the manager of a local hospice shop, who told me she would take quantities - boxes - of any decent book by arrangement, because they sold any surplus to a trade buyer, using an app to get a flat rate price (mentioned 50p, minimum usually). Another friend got an Oxfam bookshop to collect 10 boxes of books.

There isn't an Oxfam shop or donation point here but there are several in towns dotted around so this looks like the option with the least amount of hassle.

Considering the type of music on the CDs and the more likely affluence of the area I'd say the Lichfield shop looks a good bet.

[Dave2002]

I've been going through an epic disposal of books, and felt a bit concerned about the quantity I was delivering to charity shops. I know Oxfam sorts them, with unsaleable going into the paper recycling - I observed a sixth former on community outreach tossing them expertly into different bins. Oxfam they make enough profit to bear the cost - although I am told they don't pay for paper disposal. I also got talking to the manager of a local hospice shop, who told me she would take quantities - boxes - of any decent book by arrangement, because they sold any surplus to a trade buyer, using an app to get a flat rate price (mentioned 50p, minimum usually). Another friend got an Oxfam bookshop to collect 10 boxes of books.

We had an epic number of books to get rid of years ago. Some of the more valuable ones were shown to booksellers, and I believe that some resulted in a modest payment, for some of the antique or rare ones. Some of the books could have gone to "worthy" places, such as a university library, but we were put off that one by a few episodes. In one, someone else left books and other items to a university when her husband died, and later she received a letter of thanks informing her that they'd been sold off (somehow) and the proceeds would be put towards the construction or repair of a car park. At that point my father in law threw up his hands in horror, and suggested that we look at other ways of dispersing his collection. We had visions of a sign being put up over the toilets "These toilets were supported by a generous donation from the late alumnus XYZ".

Most charity shops were OK, though they might have become suspicious with our repeated visits. One charity shop had a manager who when she saw someone emerging from a car with a bag of books leapt out, and said "If you're bringing any books here, you can take them straight back". We never went back to that one after that, and advised others similarly. Then we went further afield and found a nice charity shop miles away where we took several car loads, without such objections.