How to dispose of a record collection?

Trying to help out a friend of my wife's.
This woman has been storing the record collection of her deceased ex-husband for 10 or 15 years, and since she's planning to sell her house and move, doesn't want to pack and bring along a record collection she has no interest in or sentimental attachment to.
I'm vague on specifics of the collection right now - basically, it's more than a thousand, LPs and 45s. I don't even know the genre at the moment - will update when I do.

She doesn't have a clue as to the value of the collection. Her (adult) children don't want the records. She would like to make some money from selling the records (rather than just having Goodwill come pick them up), but she REALLY doesn't want to have to go through and catalog everything - so eBay doesn't seem like a good prospect.
Any suggestions? Are there services that catalog a collection for you so you can sell it elsewhere (eBay, etc.)? Are there any reputable record shops that will come look over a collection and give a fair price (this is Brooklyn, N.Y.)?

Thanks in advance.
Dave

man she realy shoyuld catlog em and do ebay. but if she dont do that maybe find a colecter and see whats he offewrs or garage sale

There are a few stores in Greenwich Village that specialize in vinyl. Give some of them a call.

wow. that's like a hip hop producer's dream.

I wish I could look through it!

I still keep a turntable connected. Some stuff I ONLY have on Vinyl!

Dave, I would recommend not rushing into anything as far as "disposal". It is possible that she is sitting on a "goldmine" of vintage vinyl. "Retro" anything is a booming business right now, and there are people who pay dearly for it.

Unfortunately, I have no specific insight or advice. eBay presents a large market, but is labor intensive. The ideal solution would seem to involve finding a knowlegeable and trustworthy person to help assess the value of the collection and offer advice on it sale.

Peter

I got quite a few hits from just entering "selling your record collection" on google and some of the sites seem pretty useful.

I agree, there is potential gold inside that collection. There should be a lot of used music stores in NYC, all big cities have them. Let your fingers do the walking, pick up the Yellow Pages and make some phone calls to see if some store will be interested in buying the entire lot. You won't get the full monetary value of all the records, but it will be a case of somebody buying at a low price hoping there is some valuable vinyl to be found. Doing this any other way will result in some collectors cherry-picking out the best stuff and you will be still stuck with getting rid of the rest.

The other possibility is a consignment service. I have heard that there exists some for Ebay. They take about a 20% cut, but may get the best price with no hassle.

My dad has a whole closet full of records. You can see some of them here http://www.oldmansoldrecords.org he doesnt want to sell them, but wants to put them online for others to share. I have no idea of the value. I have heard the covers can be worth more than the record. According to him some he could legally put online in the elecronic format, but I am a bit unsure about that.

Otherwise we had considered going to a store like an antique one and see what they would offer. We guessed 300 bucks for them sounded good, although be nice if we could get a few thousand.

As to dispose of the records. I perfer to use them as frisbys, but my dad about has a heart attack when he seems me hold a record in the manner to throw it like a disk.

Remember when fifties stuff was so cool in the 70's? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
Now it seems like anything before 1980 is special and harder to find and easier to treasure. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

I have a bunch of old 78's from helping a family friend move about 15 years ago. I called around asking music stores if they had any value. Most said they weren't interested. One guy told me if I brought them to him, about 10 miles away, he'd maybe give me a penny each for them. I told him they'd be great for skeet shooting at my brothers farm but thanks for the offer. I could hear him yapping as I hung up the phone. I still have the records and now maybe I'll look into selling them again.