Sometimes you have to buy a whole pile of records to get the ones you want. I try not to buy the whole lot, but the seller at the flea market doesn't want to take them home and the price is too good to pass up.
What do you do with the rest, especially if they are the common ones nobody seems to care about. (black Deccas,red Columbias,RCAs,etc.) These are mostly post WW2 stuff.
I hate throwing things away-but I do make exceptions.
Will they become valuable one day?
I was going to ask the same question, maybe stick them on ebay?? I think i will keep a few or more for styling at vintage events, just wondering how to utilise them though, Mmmmmmmm.......
The eternal dilemma! The people who say that you must never destroy records as you are destroying history soon change their minds when you offer them a few hundred free of charge. Personally, if the content is anything other than classical, I really make the effort to find another home for them, but the orchestral classical ones get dumped in a pile in the workshop and then broken up to mix epoxy glue and fillers on. Those post-war ones will undoubtedly be valuable one day, but not in our lifetimes!
Throw them in craigslist for a small fee? Let them be someone else's problem. When I got ny first machine I just bought a few big lots on ebay but a lot got smashed in the mail. I am tryibg to catalog them just so I know what I have but I know nothing about value or what is a desirable recording. I just play anything that will make my son dance.
I've actually been spending a lot of my time this summer going through literally thousands and thousands of this stuff that I've had to take when buying entire collections. I've never felt guilty about throwing out absolute junk like completely worn out 40s crap. I'd hung onto so much of the nicer condition stuff for so long and occasionally would find someone who would be interested in some and send them home with a few crates full (or more!). Now that I've decided that my space is getting full and too vaulable for it, I've found two great ways to rid myself of it all. One is a local charity shop (NOT Goodwill or Salvation Army, sorry) that gladly takes decent 78s and has people that come in regularly and buy them. The second is even more convenient, one of my close friends is also a collector, so I'll load up my wagon every few weeks and bring them to him. He goes through them and takes what he wants and put the rest on Craigslist for free. They're usually gone in the same day and each time it's been the same "newbie" who's been taking anything he can get his hands on to play. Everyone's happy and I'm just beginning to get some space back, at least until the next collection...
I keep all the records ! I often get strange buy requests such as 50 Hymns ! I guess you will alwys bin those . I often also sell 78s for use in stage plays there are a couple where the actor has to break them during an argument . Even so the quantity just goes up and up ! What happens when I depart this mortal coil ? Not my problem !
Give away what I can to collector friends. How nice that is when they're pleased with something!
Keep a few hundred good 'seconds' of popular things I like, to play to death with steel needles when 78 DJing acoustically.
Keep a few hundred other popular records in reasonable or better condition to sell occasionally, e.g. at events as above.
Mostly though - let the near-rubbish records pile up to a thousand or two, then list a job lot on eBay which invariably sells for anything between £20 and £75. Occasionally I get a nuisance buyer but very rarely. It's usually extremely pleasant meeting such people too!
Orchorsol wrote:Keep a few hundred good 'seconds' of popular things I like, to play to death with steel needles when 78 DJing acoustically.
I just can't bring myself to throw records away.
I also keep 'seconds' of my favorites for the same reason, it's nice to be able to play something acoustically without guilt. Among those are also things I keep in the same place so when somebody asks me if I have extras of anything in particular, I can walk over to that wall and check since they're alphabetical. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind a bit there and suspect I'm going to be a few more months getting things in better order. The toils!
Trust me here, if you saw what I've thrown away, you'd agree with me. It has to be stripped down to nothingness for me to toss it. It's a very low percentage compared to the stuff I donate.
Unless they are really grey and completely worn out, or badly cracked, or with sticking groves I really hate to thrown anything out. 78s that I am not all that fond of may just be somebody else's cup of tea. And what is too new to appeal to collectors today are the treasurers of tomorrow.
Next time I thin out I will likely put them on Craig's list at a low price, or if I have time sell some off on eBay. Some records I would think maybe worth a quarter bring a few bucks on eBay, and sometimes bring a lot.
I hate to see history go out with the trash.
Clay
Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume's Laws of Collecting
1. Space will expand to accommodate an infinite number of possessions, regardless of their size.
2. Shortage of finance, however dire, will never prevent the acquisition of a desired object, however improbable its cost.
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