Best place to sell LPs?

[Ashyukun]

The wife and I recently decided that it would be fun to expand our thrift shop & garage sale hunting and reselling to include LPs. So far I've just been using Amazon as the reference (and where to resell them), but I have to figure there are other and better places specifically for the LPs. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[firewalker]

You’ll find selling “garden variety” used LPs to be a slow, unprofitable process.  It gets a little better when you find a few locals who will buy them for a buck right from your store.  But, even then, you’ll have a bunch of leftovers for the dumpster.  If you want to get into “collector level” used LPs typically desired by collectors, you’ll need to dive into a process of learning what titles are desired and how to grade them for quality, not unlike postage stamp or coin collecting.  Now you’re talking a labor of love since the buyers will be picky what they play on their $5,000.00 turntable.  A website to look into is Audiogon.

[stor_stark]

http://www.discogs.com is the gold standard for finding what records are roughly worth (and it also has an online marketplace). Unless you have existing pricing knowledge or are extremely patient and willing to learn, I would advise against thinking of this as an easy way to make money. The value of records is highly dependent on condition and pressing (original pressings tend to be worth the most). 95% or more of what you encounter at garage sales is worthless junk, so you really have to know what you're looking for if you're intending to resell it.

However, it is of course possible to hit the jackpot and find some really good hauls. This normally takes a lot of work patrolling Craigslist ads and waking up early to beat the rush at garage sales.

Other than Audiogon, I would recommend checking out:

http://www.reddit.com/r/vinylcollectors/
http://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php

I collect/listen to LPs, so I'm basing my opinions off of roughly 8 years of being into the hobby.

[socaso]

A friend used to work at a very large record store and they used past auctions on ebay as an indication of what an album is currently worth so selling there might be worthwhile.

[Ashyukun]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely have to look into some of those.

We don't have any illusions about making lots of money fast with this- it's more just that now that both of us can be looking up prices on things when out hunting since my wife now has a smartphone that we figured it would be smart to look at some of the things we've passed over before like the LPs. We both really like browsing through the books, movies, and music anyway and this is just a way to monetize it a bit.

[stor_stark]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll definitely have to look into some of those.

We don't have any illusions about making lots of money fast with this- it's more just that now that both of us can be looking up prices on things when out hunting since my wife now has a smartphone that we figured it would be smart to look at some of the things we've passed over before like the LPs. We both really like browsing through the books, movies, and music anyway and this is just a way to monetize it a bit.

Cool, the thrill of the hunt is half the fun for me as well.

Let me know if you have any other questions about records, valuation, etc.