How much do large Vinyl collections go for these days?


What is vinyl pricing doing these days? Is good used vinyl appreciating or depreciating?

I have a collection of about 1700 Jazz LP's. 95%+ are VG+ or better (I bought them that way and clean records every time on a Loricraft)

About 500 are earlier (50's, 60's) issues like Blue note w42, NY USA, a few Lex Ave, Bergenfield Prestige, Columbia, Savoy, Verve, Riverside, Atlantic etc.

The rest are OJC reissues, and other later good jazz labels like Enja, Soul Note, Inner City Mo fi etc.

Many were purchased from big jazz collections on Ebay over the years. About 20% were purchased new and have seen only a few plays (given there are so many). The rest were mostly purchased from the Jazz Record Center in NYC and anyone who knows them is well acquainted with the quality of their records.

I estimate I paid about 50K in total for these, so an average of $30. The best stuff was $100 or so on Ebay. The OJC's were $8 years ago new from Acoustic Sounds. Would you hold or sell?

I know the answer is "it depends" but any other insights are appreciated.


128x128jyprez
I recently acquired a 3500 classical record collection from the widow of a close friend.  I investigated a couple of dealers --- one of which "cherry-picked" the collection and paid 50 cents a disc for 300 discs.  Six hours of my time for $150 !  Another dealer estimated 25 cents a disc, maybe 50 for some and a rare occasion of $1 for those few.  The only real interest was when I mentioned my personal collection of about 12,000, of which about half are "pop" albums.  I will investigate "discogs" --- thanks for the suggestion.   Vinyl is great stuff !
I believe those who've suggested individual sales correctly understand the record market. Otherwise it is truly likely to be pennies on the dollar. (I assume yours are cataloged.)
It's like a large collection of anything.  The dealers will cherry pick the good stuff and trash (or not take) the rest.  You may as well skip the middle man and sell the good stuff on ebay and donate/trash the rest.  Unless you have unlimited time to sell albums at $10 a pop.
As a point of reference, I have about 900 LPs’ in my collection; all but 150 were purchased new by me. The album jackets were covered with a 3 mil plastic resealable sleeve as soon as they came out of the shrinkwrap. 95% of the vinyl is in NM condition so the collection is truly lustworthy. My local used record dealer offered me a paltry $1500.00 for the lot and he knows I’ve got a lot of goodies: MFSL, Japanese and UK pressings etc.

I realize that selling each LP individually would be much more profitable but I have no intention of selling ANY of them. I plan on being buried with them.
Dear JYprez,

If you are still interested in selling your collection, I would be very interested.

Kindest regards
Walter