Ah yes, for years some kind of purge of my record collection has been puttering around at the back of my mind… But I have just never been quite able to take the step. I have sold many CD’s over the years through ebay, but just never liked the ebay experience.
Enter Discogs. I joined discogs about 6 years ago in an effort to find a way to catalog my records. It is an interesting experience. Some people use it strictly for buying and/or selling records, but many use it for cataloging and a database… I suspect that it is probably the most thorough database of record information that there is. But I never thought much about selling anything there (or anywhere else). Then, one day, I noticed a feature I hadn’t seen before. When you are viewing your collection, there is an option to show a Marketplace Sales History column. This column shows you the historical sales figures for each record. Upon viewing that, I saw that one of my most valuable records was one that I didn’t have much interest in keeping. So I thought about trying to sell it… And thought. For months. Then about six months ago, I bit the bullet and decided to list it for sale… Only to find out that it was currently a record that discogs did not permit to be sold. Well, I was bummed by that, but now that I had the thought in my mind, I opted to list something else.
Enter: Helheim. Jormundgand. I have always disliked this album cover. It’s pageny/folky metal look is not the grim black metal look that I like on my album covers. So I listed it. And sold it. In the intervening months, I have sold about 20 others records through discogs. While it is an odd feeling to be parting with them, I love the enthusiasm that buyers have when receiving them. Moving them from my indifferent hands into the hands of someone who really wants it makes me feeling like I am doing the record a good deed.
Even though these are records that I am not heart-set on keeping, it is still a bit of a wrenching feeling to sell them, and I kind of want to remember having them. So, here is this. Inspired by the stupidrecordcollection blog, here I am at tumblr. Making a blog about selling records. As I am six months too late, I plan on posting both my current sales activity, and posting about the ones that I have already parted with.
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