During the process of cleaning and sorting out everything in Anders’ uncle’s house, we filled 4 large paper bags with old record albums. Since vinyl is making a comeback these days, we thought there might be a possibility that there was something of worth in them, even though a quick flip-through showed that it was mostly old dansband and trumpet music. Anders decided it was best to take them to a huge used record store in Malmö that has apparently been around forever, to see if there was anything of worth.
We went on a Saturday afternoon, lugging the VERY heavy bags 2 blocks from where we found street parking and went into the store. It was packed with customers and buzzing with energy. We asked at the counter, where several people were frenetically working, and were ushered aside to wait for the “expert” to have a minute to come look at our bags. After about 10 minutes, he came over and started flipping through the records. flip-flip-flip-flip, super fast, he flicked through them, bag after bag. flick-flick-flick, and after a few seconds he pulled out one, then another, and finally a third. Of over 50 albums, he chose 3 and offered us 80 kronor. Cash. Approximately 7 dollars. I don’t even know which ones he took! 😀 Everything else was stuff they either already had too much of or couldn’t sell.
We said okay and then asked if they were willing to just take the rest as a donation. Honestly, he told us, we’ll just take them to Goodwill when we dump the next batch of donations. And he opened the door to a back room and added our bags to a ceiling-high pile of similar bags of record albums. So much for any goldmine LPs from the 60s.
After doing the minimal amount of research online about how much records as worth, despite the huge renewed interest in vinyl LPs these days, if you don’t have super rare, super mint condition albums, your records proabably aren’t worth much. I’ve been going through Anders’ and my collection, googling the artists and “vinyl used” to get an idea, and the highest prices I’m seeing for what we have are between 100 and 200 kronor for albums in mint condition. Ours aren’t in mint condition, for the most part. And many of the ones Anders has are very well-…um loved. Turns out that’s the case for most people. Records are worn, scratched, generally poorly cared for, and the covers and cases are worse.
And like a complete idiot, I wrote my name on most of mine. Drrrr.
Anders has a few that are signed but they’re not in good condition, and they’re by artists that no one has ever heard of, even here in Sweden, haha. We gave Martin and Karin first pick, of course, and they each took a few (Martin actually has a record player), but to most of them their response was “Who?”
I have several record albums that belonged to my dad, from the 50s and 60s: The Buffalo Bills, and Johnny Mathis, for example, but they are also worn and not even close to mint condition. I took them purely for sentimental value, since we don’t have a record player (though we do have a RokBlok, which I gave to Anders for Christmas in 2017. It’s a little wireless device that RUNS AROUND your record and plays it), and have no intention of getting one. I’m getting rid of most of them now.
I had a little white turntable when I was in 5th grade, that had red and blue details and a removable cover. I remember that the turntable part bounced, which now seems like the stupidest possible feature for a record player. My sister and I both had Donny Osmond records (I had A Time For Us) and I had a double album of The Carpenter’s The Singles 1969-1973 that I played over and over and over and still, to this day, know all the words to.
It’s hard to figure out how to go about this. We can take them to one of the dozen stores in Malmö or Lund that buy and sell vinyl but we have no way of knowing whether they are offering a good price on any that we think might be worth something. Or we could list them online, but then we have to deal with keeping track of them, figuring out how to price them, and mailing them when and if someone actually buys them. UGH. Not sure I have the ork for that. Or we could say, fuck it, and drop the rest off at a secondhand store.
When I asked my team for tips about where to sell records, two of them very excitedly said, “TO ME!” but I’m not sure they’re interested in Yaz, Men at Work, Three Dog Night, or John Denver’s Greatest Hits, (to name just a few) and my stunning collection of ’90s 45s that include The Georgia Satellites (Keep Your Hands to Yourself) Tone Lōc (Wild Thing), and Love and Rockets (So Alive). I might have better luck selling them some of Anders’ stuff which includes Fleetwood Mac, Wilmer X, Status Quo, David Lindley, lots of reggae, and a rather disturbing looking record by a Swedish-English/Irish band named Scafell Pike (named after England’s highest peak). They released no less than 8 albums including a Greatest Hits, between 1971 and 1982 and yet their Wikipedia page is ONLY in Swedish. I’ve never heard of them.
For now, I’m making price piles based on the average prices I’m seeing online, but still have to check each one individually to make sure there are no scratches on the actual vinyl. At least it’s nice to have a project that keeps me busy, might net us a little money, and gets more stuff out of the house.
Mood: busy
Music: Scafell Pike—X-Ray Vision
The vinyl record is a technology that’s existed since the 1880s. It was garbage as soon as the first digital CD came out a hundred years later in the 1980s and is still garbage 40 years after that. I have no idea why people think that dragging a piece of metal through a plastic groove will produce better sound than a digital recording, but if that’s how they want to walk down memory lane, then whatever. But vinyl records are still garbage, so I’d get rid of them the same way as any other garbage.
Tell me how you really feel, Russell! 😀 Hahahaha! If my colleagues want to pay me the equivalent of $82 AND carry away the old records they have claimed, I am certainly not going to complain!