We gladly buy your unwanted stuff - well, not all of it, so here's the general rundown:
We are most interested in vinyl, especially DJ collections, 12" singles, 1970's classic rock, disco, and soul, 1980's rock, pop, dance, punk, soundtracks, and most newer stuff from the 1990's through today. We also have some interest in jazz (more "blue note" than "big band") and CD's without scratches from those same categories, as well as really decent 7 inch singles with original sleeves. (Also especially interested in CD maxi singles and promo singles.)
We are generally not too excited about (and don't even have a section for) classical music (Beethoven, etc.) country music, big-band/swing, crooners, showtunes, polka, etc. No disrespect to those genres (I love Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow) but they have never sold well for us.
With that said, if you are bringing in a thousand records, and 10% of them are some mix of classical, showtunes, Babs, etc., we'll probably make an offer for the whole collection and let the chips fall where they may. We prefer to buy entire collections when we can rather than "cherry pick" and leave you bringing boxes of leftovers to Goodwill.
Some things to check before you bring your goodies in:
Probably the most important thing is the condition. A record or CD without scratches is generally worth more than one with some scratches. A record or CD with some scratches is generally worth more than one with many scratches, or even one deep scratch. Scratches can make records skip. When records skip, people don't buy them, or they buy them and return them. At some point, even if it's a great title, they degrade to a point there is no value to them because they won't do what they were made to do: play the music without any issues.
Another very important component of condition is checking for warps. What are warps? Take one of your records and hold it up as flat as possible in front of your face. Does it look flat? Turn it a little and look again. Look while you're turning it. Does it still look flat? Does it look a little bit like a bowl-shape? Or does it look like the brim of a southern lady's hat (high on one side and low on the other?) If it's anything other than flat, it's warped. (Even better than holding it up in front of your face, put it on your working turntable and play it. Do you see the needle going up and down? It's warped.) Sometimes warped records will play. Sometimes they will skip. It depends on the degree of the warp and the turntable it's being played on. Either way, just like scratches, warps will affect the value of a record. A flat record is worth more than a record with a slight warp that plays fine, and a record with a slight warp is worth more than a record with a bigger warp. At some point, it becomes too warped to play successfully, and even if it is a good title, has little to no value.
To avoid warps: store your records upright, never stacked flat on top of each other, in a climate controlled space.
The condition of the sleeves also matter. Records come in cardboard or sometimes plastic sleeves. Those are important to the value of the item. Generally we won't buy a stack of records without sleeves. We can't resell them efficiently. If the sleeves on your records have "splits" (spots where the record is pushing through the sleeve) or stains, or writing on them, etc., bring them in anyway, but be aware that a record with a clean, intact sleeve is worth more than one with a worn sleeve.
In some cases, we are forced to "cherry pick" only because the majority of a collection is in one way or another "bad" or unsaleable. We try to avoid this, but if we look at a collection that is mostly scratched but there are a few nice pieces, we'll make an offer for the few nice pieces.
A very common question we get is, "What do you pay for records? I have X number of boxes..."
That's a really hard question to answer with a simple sentence. To compare, it's very much like saying to someone, "I have a jewelry box with jewelry inside. What do you pay for jewelry?" Well, that won't be the same every time because pieces of jewelry vary so much in value. Gold is worth more than silver. Diamonds are worth more than rubies (unless you have a diamond with bad cut, color and clarity and you have a stupendous, perfect, large ruby, right?) Again, there's no simple answer.
The value of records can vary tremendously from one to the next - even if they are the same record! There are so many different versions of the same record. There are so many differences that go into pricing.
What I can tell you is we will pay a fair price for your records and CD's based on what we can sell them for in our store.
With rare exceptions, we are not selling your records on eBay. That's a whole different world (with which we are very familiar) and eBay sellers take risks selling records on eBay that are not brand new. Grading is very subjective, fees are significant, there is a risk of never getting paid, and a risk of items getting damaged or lost in the mail, returns, claims, etc. It's not quite as simple as it looks. The point is, please don't bring your records into any record store and expect to get eBay pricing or even close to eBay pricing for them. That's not realistic. The only way to get that kind of pricing is to put them on eBay yourself and take your chances. (Side note: "asking prices" on eBay or any site do not justify any price. Only sold items give any indication as to what you might get, and those sold prices vary wildly based on many factors.)
If you have any questions about selling, please call us at 954-671-9482. We have made many people happy by paying a fair price for a collection and then charging a fair price in our store to get them into new homes!
We also trade, and you will always get more for trade-in value than for cash!