I will always be a bookseller first, but as an avid audiophile, I am always on the lookout for out-of-print music, and I fear that a vinyl fetish may be blossoming.
With the steady rise of digital sales, many CDs would fall under the category of not WBW (worth bothering with). However, for the savvy bookseller, there are still opportunities to be had in this category, although your percentages of finding sell-able items are obviously much lower.
My most successful categories have always been Classical and Opera Boxed Sets, scarce debut albums, Gold CD original master recordings like this one by Stevie Wonder- Innervisions
, soul, funk and jazz albums from minor labels and out-of-print albums with a cult following (collectors willing to pay hundreds of dollars for the ACTUAL album).The first taste I had of compact disc gold happened many years ago, when I used to download the Buyers Waiting list from Amazon and use arbitrage to buy low and sell high. I found a seemingly ridiculous pre-order of a CD for $750, and placed wants/wish list orders on several websites. When a copy became available via half.com for $40, I snatched it up immediately and resold it the next day. I didn't do the happy dance until my International customer emailed to say that he had received the item and was very happy, considering the fact that he had been fruitlessly searching for this out-of-print album for many years to no avail. The album in question is "Tight" by Mindless Self-Indulgence, "an electronica band who are heavily influenced by 80s sub-culture with a sound that frequently shows the influences of hip-hop, rock and acid punk."
As you can see by the current price, the supply for the CD is now much more plentiful, and demand appears to have cooled off over time as well. If you didn't believe that this sold for $750, check out the recent EBay auction for a Promo Copy of one of their albums, which netted over $1000!
My latest score was yesterday- a $250 sale on Amazon for an out-of-print debut CD for Russian pianist Virtuosa Valentina:
If you are a Terapeak subscriber, make sure to check out her completed listings, and you will find that just about anything with her name on it is in high demand.
I hope this information is useful to a few of you who dabble in formats other than books. Please feel free to share the stories of your most successful CD sales via the comments section. Happy Hunting!
4 comments:
About 4 years ago picked up 2 shrinkwrapped Jonas Brothers CDs at a Borders clearance sale for a couple of bucks each. They sold overnight for $150. Small happy dance there. Bubbering Rich!!!!
Not CDs, but I have a similar story about DVDs, which are also not my normal media.
We have a "salvage" chain in my area that buys up other stores' stocks of fire damaged, liquidated and etc. stuff. At any given time, you can find snowboards, hot sauce, and lawn furniture under the same roof, sometimes at a substantial discount. In fact, a bookstore stock at this place is what got me into book sales in the first place.
A few years ago, they picked up a stock of rental movies, a large percentage of which were Polish films. They up the discount on items that don't sell, so over the course of a few weeks, I picked up a few every time the price fell. I ended up with about 40 DVDs and then also bought some new cases as the originals were ragged out. My total investment was south of $100. My first sale was in excess of $100.
Although I listed most of these as being in acceptable shape due to missing booklets and the like, I have steadily sold these Polish movies for the past two years. Surely, I am the biggest seller of Polish film in South Mississippi :)
My favorite sale was the Bio of Warren Zevon (not ALL were Polish), which I watched, cried during, then sold the next day for $75.
I don't often pick up movies or music, but I always keep my eyes open for the hidden jewel.
Ladies and gentleman, the once reclusive blubbering Rich makes an appearance, and shares his insider secrets! Haha, I knew you would come around old buddy;)
TC, thanks once again for your insightful comments. I have now added eclectic Foreign DVDs to my radar, although I tend to stay away from media which I can't translate, unless of course it has an ISBN/UPC. Did the Warren Zevon documentary have subtitles? I think "Keep Me In Your Heart" is one of the top automatic tearjerkers of all time.
Oh, the stock was a Hasting's rental stock, so all of them were not Polish. The Warren Zevon wasn't, for example. I have no idea where the Hastings store might have been where it was lucrative for them to have so many Polish rentals. Funny.
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