Selling CD collection?

[JL13]

Trying to declutter further, but this one is tricky. I've got a collection of about 130 CD's. They're a more eclectic collection, not a bunch of Smash Mouth /Lincoln Park/50 Cent. So I think there's a higher demand for them than would be justified for the $0.50 or $1.00 each I'd be offered by the local store.

I was considering sending them all to Amazon for the fulfilled by Amazon service and charging $8.99 each or so. This way I don't have to make 130 trips to the post office and maybe they'll be more likely to be ordered since they'll be Amazon Prime. My net should be about $4 each.

Have to individually wrap and tag them gives me pause, however.

Any other suggestions for dealing with this?

[jacob]

This one is very tricky indeed!

I got rid of all my CDs several years ago except a handful. It's only slightly easier than getting rid of VHS tapes

Mass produced stuff like Smash Mouth etc. is practically worth nothing as a CD. The target demographic now prefers mp3 files or streaming services. If you list them, I predict that after an initial burst of 5-10 sales, it would take years to get rid of the rest. I ended up giving most of these away on freecycle in groups of 20---nobody is going to drive to get one free CD. I never tried eBay, but I did buy a collection rather cheaply once (that was in the early 2000s).

Audiophile recordings that are hard to obtain e.g. Maria Callas, obscure jazz remasterings, ... a lot of the stuff from Decca will still be worth something to people who own $2000+ HiFi systems. I'd list those on amazon. If you're not the lowest price, the odds of you selling are very low indeed. Amazon now has a match lowest price button, so expect some daily upkeep clicking buttons and updating prices if you want to move your inventory. Look at the amazon sales rank before listing. With books, I don't think anything over #500000 is worth the effort of listing, and even that is pushing it.

PS: I actually have some surplus packaging stuff (bubble sleeves, correctly sized envelopes) that should be ideal for sending CDs and DVDs. I can send that to you if you want to go that way?

[FBeyer]

I Gave about 500 cds away for 5 good beers. In these days of digital music, cds are practically worthless.

[Peanut]

With few exceptions, CDs are worth what records were in the 80s--almost nothing. The difference is I don't think they will ever increase in value again like LPs have, because it's the analog experience (now defined as luxury) that is driving that demand.

[JL13]

I don't know about worthless. Here's just one from my collection (offered by someone else):

http://www.amazon.com/These-Songs-Curse ... are+cursed

[jacob]

The problem is that it has a sales rank of +1M which means it's highly illiquid. FWIW, I have an old A-ha CD (technically, I have it because I stole^H^H...borrowed it from my sister about 25 years ago) listed at $350 but it has a rank of +1.8M. It's been listed for more than two years by now if not longer.

[JL13]

Oh I see. Interesting. So what's your cut off for what to keep and what to get rid of? You keep anything that's hard to stream?

[jacob]

Well, for CDs, in my case, it's extremely low.

The general rule (I'm thinking books---which mean more to me than CDs) is to keep anything that's hard to source. Have you ignored it for the past X years? Get rid of it(*)! Can you get it online? Get rid of it. Can you get it from the library? Consider getting rid of it knowing that if you move, the next lib might not have it? Can you buy it later? Then get rid of it. Do you mind a storage box full of CDs? If not, keep them.

(*) For music, it seems that most people are mainly attached to whatever music they listened to during their teens. For me it's 8-bit music, so that's easy. So consider keeping that and dumping the rest.

[JL13]

Haha! Really? As in NES soundtracks? Have you heard bit-brigade?

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... it+brigade

[jacob]

Exactly, as in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NeTZ3AHfpY ... or anything that came out of a home computer between 1985 and 1995.

I bet if you ask a random person aged 60-70, they're way more into the Beatles or the Rolling Stones than Adele or Meghan Trainor. Humans imprint their musical preference on whatever they lived through their teenage years.

Thanks for the link BTW. Added to the list. I won't be buying the CD

[C40]

I had a lot of CDs (i don't know, 800 maybe), maybe 1/3 of which were original retail copies. I just gave them all to my girlfriend instead of trying to eek out a few bucks here and there from them. Maybe someone would've bought them all as a lot? I don't know.. I don't think I would've gotten much money for them. Maybe one option is selling them on Amazon? (Where you send them all to the amazon warehouse and they get sold as used copies.

[Ego]

Amazon makes it fairly easy. Search the CD > Look at the lowest price to see if it is worth your effort > click the USED section > click "Have one to sell" then list your condition and price. If you are efficient you can list one a minute.

CD mailers are available on ebay for about 35 cents each.
Postage is about $2.75.
Amazon takes 99 cents per transaction plus 15%.
Amazon charges the buyer $3.99 for shipping
Shipping labels cost about 9 cents each

(Sales Price -15%) -20 cents = profit

Only you can decide how much it is worth your effort.

[FBeyer]

With few exceptions, CDs are worth what records were in the 80s--almost nothing. The difference is I don't think they will ever increase in value again like LPs have, because it's the analog experience (now defined as luxury) that is driving that demand.

The storage lifetime of cd's is about 15 years. Most good music on cd will potentially live longer than that in a home, and will need replacement at some point. Vinyl, as far as I know, lives much longer than that. Furthermore 'true' (as in no-true-Scotsman fallacy and all that) audiophiles can tell the difference between a vinyl recording and a cd recording. As far as I know, the really high notes are clipped* on a cd.

* or aliased?

[JL13]

Thanks for the link BTW. Added to the list. I won't be buying the CD

you suuuuuuuuure? I've got a few, only $8.99 each.

[Peanut]

I bet if you ask a random person aged 60-70, they're way more into the Beatles or the Rolling Stones than Adele or Meghan Trainor. Humans imprint their musical preference on whatever they lived through their teenage years.

I'd need to see a study to buy the imprinting theory, as I doubt the random 60 year-old person is actually listening to the Sticky Fingers reissue or anything else. More likely their teen years were the last time they cared about music. --A friend once told me he read that people tend to stop listening to new music after age 30. He didn't explain why, but presumably they get married, have kids, and decide 'music is for young people.' So they stop developing their interest in music, which was likely not strong to begin with.

[jacob]

@Peanut - I thought that's what I said?! That people mainly prefer whatever music was popular during their teen years. Anecdotal evidence only, here---but I can't think of a single exception.

Another "theory of popular music" can be found in socionomics. In this case, the majority dominance goes with the social mood.

[Peanut]

The question is why. I'm suggesting most people aren't into music enough to keep listening to it once it's not an automatic part of being young--clubbing, concerts, etc. But I definitely don't prefer the music of my teens to bands today, partly because a lot of it sucked and partly because I kept listening to new music (whether actually new or old). Of course many people have the same experience, just not the majority.

[enigmaT120]

I keep finding new favorites, thanks to watching Oregon Art Bean and Austin City Limits on OPB. Lately, Jason Isbell and Tom Russell.

[JL13]

My tastes have changed over time as well. I would say that I still listen to only about 5% of the music I enjoyed when I was a teen. I expect this trend to continue, so I think it's time to jettison the collection. The transaction costs are too high to keep the actual CD's. You can buy them for $1-$2 each, but shipping is another $4.

It's funny also, that you can get a used CD shipped to you for $6 on Amazon, but you can buy the mp3 on Amazon for $9.99? Seems like a missing arbitrage opportunity.

[FBeyer]

My tastes have changed over time as well. I would say that I still listen to only about 5% of the music I enjoyed when I was a teen. I expect this trend to continue, so I think it's time to jettison the collection. The transaction costs are too high to keep the actual CD's. You can buy them for $1-$2 each, but shipping is another $4.

It's funny also, that you can get a used CD shipped to you for $6 on Amazon, but you can buy the mp3 on Amazon for $9.99? Seems like a missing arbitrage opportunity.

I don't listen to anything that I listened to as a teenager, with the sole exception of Cannibal Corpse
I actually went against the ERE consensus and got myself a Wimp/Tidal subscription. One of my oldest hobbies is digging around for interesting music and a streaming service has really kicked it up a notch.

I am tremendously happy that I got rid of all my cds (except the first one I ever bought). The money it costs me to pay for the subscription more than makes up for all the new music I'm listening to. A streaming service also eliminates the time sink of purchasing new music as well as getting rid of it when I tire of it.

But a subscription totally depends on your level of commitment to music IMO. I listen to music about 6 hours per day, I get a lot of emotional value out of it, I have the feeling that similarly musically interested individuals would rather have a vinyl collection and publicly display their passion.