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The value of secondhand vinyl

J

JezmondTutu

pfm Member
So I don’t know if there are any other ignorants out there, but a friend recently mentioned the value of some used records. Lo and behold, I register on Discogs, start cataloguing and my jaw drops open.

I appear to have been one of a select few who continue to buy albums on vinyl in the 1990s!
 
Yes, that period between about ‘93 and ‘00 before the revival started holds a lot of very valuable titles at present!
 
A few years back a mate asked me if I had my Tom Waits from the 90s on vinyl.
Luckily for me, I did.
 
Tony L said:
Yes, that period between about ‘93 and ‘00 before the revival started holds a lot of very valuable titles at present!
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Perhaps even mid 00s. My two 'most valuable', in Discogs terms anyway, from that era are both Paul Weller titles, Illumination from 2002 and As Is Now from 2005.
 
Tony L said:
Yes, that period between about ‘93 and ‘00 before the revival started holds a lot of very valuable titles at present!
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As someone who didn’t own/buy CD’s till 2009 (I always seem to be late to the party), I would extend that date of 2000 into the first part of the first decade of the 21st Century. Getting anything but seriously mainstream and popular tiles on LP could be challenging until around 2004-5.
 
Tony L said:
Yes, that period between about ‘93 and ‘00 before the revival started holds a lot of very valuable titles at present!
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It’s bonkers isn’t it Tony!

Mind, I bought Clean Bandit’s album when it came out in 2014 (before they were commercialised by M&S - Meh) and that’s now selling for ~£100!

What I have done subsequently is flog some titles that I have no interest in and purchased a load of new albums instead - win!
 
JezmondTutu said:
What I have done subsequently is flog some titles that I have no interest in and purchased a load of new albums instead - win!
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That’s always been my approach. I’ve got a lot of valuable items lurking in my record collection, but nothing I don’t like or wouldn’t want to play. I’ve always viewed my collection as fluid. I’ve regretted selling and ended up replacing things at times, but very rarely.
 
I have never bought anything that I didn’t want to play, some of it is worth hundreds, but that has never been the reason to purchase. If I needed the money then I would dab in and sell some valuable but rarely played discs, but I would have to be desperate.
I know that all of my kids want various bits of my collection, same goes for the HiFi.
 
If you have a collection on Discogs and click on the min/median/max columns, you can get a pretty good idea of your most valuable discs; it's then a decision as to whether or not you want to sell them. Of course, you might not necessarily get anywhere close to the max values, but I found it to be a good tool for shifting a few discs.

The most surprising one for me is an original copy of Corinne Bailey Rae's first album from 2006. Look it up...
 
Big Tabs said:
I have never bought anything that I didn’t want to play, some of it is worth hundreds, but that has never been the reason to purchase.
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I certainly have, and many times, e.g. third albums by bands that had maybe one and a half good albums in them, albums bought on a punt because of great cover art, reputation or whatever. Those are all now long gone. It is increasingly hard to weed anything else out now, everything is there for a reason, everything is a really good condition example. That’s the benefit of being a dealer!

PS I regularly get to process collections for sale and I can’t recall ever dealing with one where a fair few are unsellable. Most people, even audiophiles, tend to have some real junk lurking somewhere!
 
Tony L said:
I certainly have, and many times, e.g. third albums by bands that had maybe one and a half good albums in them, albums bought on a punt because of great cover art, reputation or whatever. Those are all now long gone. It is increasingly hard to weed anything else out now, everything is there for a reason, everything is a really good condition example. That’s the benefit of being a dealer!

PS I regularly get to process collections for sale and I can’t recall ever dealing with one where a fair few are unsellable. Most people, even audiophiles, tend to have some real junk lurking somewhere!
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Never had the cash to do that (2nd, 3rd copies) but it makes sense.

I liken the phenomenon akin to folk collecting bottles/crates of wine and storing it knowing that the price will increase.
Takes some knowledge and experience.

My The Wife has a good eye for Art, whether it be painting, sculpture or whatever. I cannot think of anything she has purchased that hasn’t significantly increased in price. The same rule applies though, The Wife will not purchase anything we don’t like for the sake of an investment. Especially as we have to look at/walk past the Art.
 
I see my collection as an appreciating asset, I may move some of it on when I retire. All the valuable stuff was bought because I liked it at the time.
 
I’ve only ever bought music to listen to…apart from a short period when I bought a few collections mainly for selling on at car boots etc. Some of the items from then I kept on “must listen and see if I like” basis. Some of them took me years to get round to listening to and deciding I didn’t want them. Some appear to be worth stupid money…£50+. Which is nice!
 
While record values have shot up, one must also bear in mind that realizing that value requires effort and time - grading, listing and processing the sale, not to mention the risk of fraud and returns. Unless you are a record dealer, with a large collection these things can end up being a second job and it will take a quite a while to execute. If you need to sell quickly, there's no way a used record dealer will pay you anything near the prices that Discogs seem to indicate.
 
Not only do I have very few LPs worth more than 50p each, I'm certainly not going through the faff of grading, listing and dealing with the hassle of selling the bastards. The local charity shops will probably benefit when it comes to downsizing time.
 
Big Tabs said:
I have never bought anything that I didn’t want to play, some of it is worth hundreds, but that has never been the reason to purchase.

I know that all of my kids want various bits of my collection, same goes for the HiFi.
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Similar situation here, though I'm not sure of the values, most of the records I have were bought new between 88- present day, with a large portion being bought in between 93-2005, my eldest is getting my hifi and records when I move on to the happy hunting ground , she can either keep them or sell them, her choice, but I think she'll keep them.
 
Despite getting a CD player in 1986, after a year or two of falling for the perfect sound forever hype and paying double the LP cost for a CD I mostly returned to buying vinyl. When I could that is, which through the 90s became more difficult, getting on for impossible. I remember one 1991 LP I just couldn't find, so wrote to the record company office in Ireland and got a free promo copy with the reply.

I would buy every new album (and singles with unique B sides) of any artist I liked enough, so ended up with a few discs that were slightly less than stellar and consequently hardly got played. This being before the days of streaming and t'interweb unless a mate or the library had a copy there was no way to hear a new LP other than buying it, so I picked up more collection filler that way (Ian McCulloch's second solo album anyone?).

Recently I've been selling off some of my stuff, with the thinking behind it being that most of the buyers are going to be of a similar demographic to me and are picking up stuff they missed in their younger days, but being say in their 50s I don't imagine they'll be doing it for that much longer. Plus the stuff I have often didn't sell in huge numbers at the time so can command a high resale price. Sure it may go up further but the gain now is sufficient enough and (taking note of Tony's personal collection's evolution) I like the idea that an album goes to someone who's going to really appreciate it rather than me glance at it on the rack for the 93rd time and mutter, 'nah'.

It is a time vampire though - I had last week off work and ended up spending most days listing, doing sales admin and walking back and forth to the Post Office. If I could just drop that day job...
 
deebster said:
had last week off work and ended up spending most days listing, doing sales admin and walking back and forth to the Post Office.
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I dislike intensely packaging records and going to the Post Office. It takes me ages. On the plus side, I often get complimentary feedback regarding my over-enthusiastic packaging (all recycled)

I wouldn’t do it if I had to pack up loads of records every day. It would do my nut in.
 
I find records shooting up in value a bit of a mixed blessing. The cash will obviously come in handy if I flog them but there are quite a few records now that I think twice about playing - if it gets damaged am I going to want to pay £80 or whatever to replace it?
 
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