One of our projects for this weekend was going through the record collection and breaking it down into four roughly equal piles: Get Rid Of It, Think About It, Replace It and Over My Dead Body. Having put the latter away, it's time to start figuring out how we're going to dispose of the rest.
So, a few questions. First, is anybody here actually still keeping / acquiring old LPs? They're an extremely mixed bag: besides the usual 70s and 80s pop and rock, there's a bunch of classical (and a little period), a modest amount of folk, and assorted eclectica ranging from Firesign Theater to Wendy Carlos to the Berrymans. Most of what we're getting rid of can at least theoretically be obtained on CD -- we're tending to keep the albums that are genuinely irreplaceable, but we're not spending a lot of effort trying to figure out whether particular classical/early recordings exist on CD. I can produce an index if anybody's seriously interested, but probably won't bother otherwise.
Second, any recommendations of what to do with these? I'm assuming that a few of them are worth a bit of money, but most aren't terribly rare. My initial guess is to try Freecycle, but if anybody knows any good stores that are still interested in record collections that aren't entirely trite, we might check them out...
I was surprised to learn that some of my LPs are apparently worth non-trivial money, but I haven't decided what to do about that yet. Mostly I think it's interesting but not worth the costs of setting up as a seller somewhere and then dealing with packaging and shipping individual LPs. (They're worth money but not enough money...) I, too, will eventually be looking for non-wasteful ways to relocate our LPs, so I'll be reading comments here to see what non-Boston-specific ideas I can harvest. :-)
I'll actually have to chew on that -- while I have all the necessary pieces set up already, this does sound like a better system in a few respects...
I know there is a used record store in Cambridge on Mass Ave, but I am not recalling its name.
Ah, I think I know the one you mean -- down near Bowl and Board. I'll look into that -- thanks!
http://www.iye.com/html_index.cfm?page=home
Nothing on their website (at first glance) specifically about their buying LPs, but worth a call.
And...who doesn't love Brattleboro?! {grin}
There's a really nice used record store up on the North Shore somewhere, I'm having trouble remembering which town it's in, but I think it might be Gloucester or Marblehead or maybe Beverley. Sounds like the Harvard Square suggestion you've already gotten is more useful.