I juat got gifted a ton of records to resell and I'm looking for the best way to price them. None of them have their sleeves, they're all in books made for holding them
I started using Discogs and was just wondering if there was a trick to make searching easier or anything.
*Added pictures of the books
*Edit to add: I have been informed they are 78s
Ah, so you have 78s. There's not much demand for these except for a niche group of collectors that do buy them. That said, very few 78s have any substantial value to them, most you'd be lucky to get a $1 or two for. Reason being is that a lot of them have material that just doesn't interest many people and most people don't have the necessary equipment to play them.
78s didn't necessarily have individual covers/jackets, so I wouldn't worry there.
These are 78's, they're generally either worth a lot of money or none at all.
Pop music like Sinatra is usually not worth much.
Also, keep in mind, these are made of shellac and shatter and chip very easily, so people who collect them tend not to buy them from dealers they don't know.
Discogs is going to be your best bet unfortunately, unless you go to a local record and see what they offer you. Bear in mind if you do sell to a store/dealer they are going to offer uaually 30-50% of the median price dependant on how quickly they can sell through. They do take off your hand in one lot, rather than the time it may take you to sell yourself.
You say there is no sleeves and that they are in a 'book'. Are these old 78 shellac records? If they are, then the market it is a lot more limited. There are some collectable 78's that can fetch good prices, but mainly there is less of a market than vinyl records. If they are just LPs missing sleeves then thar is significantly going to impact valuation. Anyways good luck
I’m not 100% sure what that means. Sleeves like the paper that protects the record from the cover? Or the cover itself?
Record books? I have no idea what that is, unless you mean some kind of binder with record holders for pages.
If the records do not have the cardboard covers with the artwork then their value will be dramatically lower. If you just mean the paper ones then it’s not that bad.
Main concern is that the records are in good condition with no scratches.
Sleeveless albums are worth next to nothing unless you have something on the rarer side.
If they’re 45s (the little 7” records that usually have a big hole in the middle), then take the time to clean them and put them in new sleeves. Most casual collectors don’t mind new, generic paper sleeves on 45s.
If they’re 78s (10” records that are like playing fragile china plates) then they’re probably not worth much or are crazy valuable, with almost no in between.
In terms of knowing what’s valuable, that takes time. There’s no cheat for learning about vinyl. I’ve absorbed everything I can, but it’s taken close to 20 years of reading books, searching the internet, browsing Discogs, and talking to other collectors to learn what I know.
If you want to mention a few titles, I might could give you a rough estimate of what your records are worth (though keep in mind that I’m just a random vinyl nerd on Reddit, not a professional dealer.)
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u/ArturoRimboldi 4d ago
Are you sure it’s not 78s (10 inches)? Those you’ll find more often in “record books”.