Does anyone still use or like vinyl?

[Dave2002]

You don’t always have to attend the actual sale. Go to the pre sale viewing, and then put in a written bid. Work out your own strategy - which might mean you don’t get the box, but then you can be smug and think that someone else has paid more than the box was worth to you. Just don’t put in ridiculously high values, or you’ll be the person paying over the odds.

Just thought I'd add a comment to the previous. I suspect that some collectors or dealers spot the "good" things in each box at auctions, then if they are successful they extract those and then top up the boxes again with the usual kind of dross, and put them back into another auction. Whether that's really worth doing I'm not sure, though I've considered it. If you can get a box (say) for around £80-90, then extract a couple of items worth say £20-£40 to you (or more if you can find a buyer to sell them on, then put your unwanted CDs or LPs back into the box and put it back into another auction you might hit lucky and get £60-£80 back. So with luck you might just about break even, but get some rare items you really fancy, and clear out some of your "junk" at the same time. In the worst case the auctioneer may sell off your box at a real cut down price, or not sell, in which case you'll get it back. I guess sometimes there is an item in a box at auction which someone really values, or thinks they can sell on for a substantial profit. I have bid on boxes [of CDs] and when I queried what the box went for [typically £80] the auction house office staff told me that the winning bidder was really pleased as the box had somthing he particularly wanted. One merit of putting a bundle of items together is that you may think you know what the high value items are, but other people may have differing views, for all sorts of reasons. What you think of as junk might just happen to be something that another person really wants.

Needless to say the auction house always makes a profit, even if small.

[gradus]

Around here boxes of LPs unsorted often go for a few pounds.