Best Place/Way To Sell My CD Collection?

The going price for average demand used CDs at the only remaining local B&M record/CD shop that deals with them is $6-$7 max. "Budget Bin" titles go for as little as $1.00 up to about $5. Rare still in demand hard to find titles (mostly imports) get more.

Used prices you can get on ebay tend to reflect this I find as well however shipping costs typically $3 postal media rate per CD must be factored in lowering the actual sale price accordingly.

It can be time consuming to maximize the value of selling $1000 CDs . The best approach is to identify any high value CDs up front and sell those individually, then sell the rest in multiple lots at auction as best as possible to keep shipping costs low. But even then, you have to take the time to list our details of each lot to get maximum value. So if you must sell and that is too much work, just take it all to the local used CD store (if there is still any nearby) and let them do the work and make you an offer.

In any case, identifying any rare or high value CDs up front will probably almost always pay off best.

Theo: The keeping or discarding of prerecorded music after ripping it to a server is really a moral/legal issue.
In reality as of now, the thought police cannot arrest you for doing it.
The issue may arise in the future were they COULD arrest you. Then you may be in the same boat as the few illegal downloaders who discover the legal costs will bankrupt them.

Then morally (to some posters) the point is you legally own the album. If you sell the actual item, you no longer legally own it. And are no better than any thief.
So really it is a personal dilemma.

I would not rip then sell for one more reason. No matter how many ways you have your hard drive protected, it IS eventually going to fail, or be unable to transfer the data. Eventually you will wish you kept those albums...
This is my own paranoia. Plenty of horror stories vs folks claiming no problem. Since i am not a tech guru, I would keep the albums.

And I am paranoid, thinking just MY luck I would be the first person the RIAA decides to drag into court for having 200,000 songs i cannot PROVE* i own on MY hardrive..
LOL (this is where still owning the real albums is the proof. NOT still having them means you are just S.O.L.

I would suggest assigning a value to them, and donating them to Goodwill, who will give you a receipt. They can then be claimed as a charitable donation. Trying to sell them individually , or as a lot will be more hassle, take a lot of time, and is unlikely to net you enough to be worth the effort.
By the way, Goodwill is a great source for records and CDs.
Good Luck.

Elizabeth, I keep an extra back up copy hard drive just in case the original hard drive fails. I also still have my 5000+ Cd's.

Hi Richard.

A compromise way of selling them, after pulling any "audiophile gems," might be in lots of 10 or so, organized by lots of artist, genre, etc. I've bought this way, and I'm guessing the yield might go as high as 5-6$ a disc, for the interesting stuff.

The donation/tax deduction route might be attractive; I'm guessing you could claim, on average, more than you could sell for, and "fair value" times your effective rate might make an attractive proposition. You'd want to know the cutoff after which a donation of goods must be be professionally assessed; I'm guessing 5k, but don't quote me.

On the topic of ripping and reselling, I'm uncomfortable. Not because of loss (I have a duplicate hard drive "off site" at work), but because I feel a little ethically uncomfortable. Not sure what the right thing to say is.

I do have the following rule of thumb: I'm reluctant to let people rip my discs if I suspect that the artist makes less than I do. This counsels against sharing for many of the sort of artists I (and you) like; a fact that, unfortunately, says more about the music biz than my earning power. Doesn't much help with the rip and resell question, though.

I like Channel Orange, btw, though it won't make it into heavy rotation.

Cheers,

John