Are C.D.'s obsolete?

[Trevor Bodiam]

When i moved from Oz to Hungary i shipped a very large collection of C.D.'s including many hard to get Beatles bootlegs which i am an avid collector of. Of course shipping was very expensive but to me worthwhile.
Then came covid and we packed up everything and sent to England. Again very costly.
Now everywhere is opening up and we have decided to go back to Oz, and i thought i would thin out my collection to reduce costs to send all back.
Despite various shops and dealers advertising for C.D. purchase and claiming willingness to travel to purchase not one has taken up my offer of about 150 discs that i'm willing to part with.
These are very good release including Beatles, Sones, Pink floyd, Who, Kinks, Fleetwood Mac etc.
Also offered about 50 rock books all in great condition, plus many Mojo mags which they could buy for a song, and still no-one is interested.
So it will be the markets for the next few weeks to see what the public will pay for them.
So, do any of you still buy C.D.'s and why.
All the dealers were quite prepared to travel for vinyl, but sold all my records in Australia where i used to buy and sell for many years doing very well at record fairs.

[Graham Shaw]

Well I guess you want some feedback Trevor.These are just my experiences and thoughts.
Yes I suppose CD'S might have become superseded by streaming from the internet,just as e-books are an alternative to hard copy books,but I think there will always be those who want something tangible,whether that's a CD case to read the sleeve notes or a book that you can place on your bookshelf-you know where to find them,instead of not being instantly accessible on your computer, which can often mean having a little panic and finding your beloved music is nowhere to be found but stowed away on something they call 'the Cloud '!

Now,let's not forget the collectors market.There will always be someone who wants your Paganini's- Variations on a Theme , or The Spice Girls Greatest Hits Volume 3- but do beware of the Chinese copies though !,and are willing quite often to pay a good price for them.
Your true collector will want to handle them,read them,fondle them,even mount them ( I mean in a glass fronted display case !) in his or her collection.
How would that work out if it's all stored on an iPad or a USB stick?....

After the loss of my partner eight years ago now,I downsized after a couple of years from a house to an apartment,and found myself short of storage space obviously. The huge (around 800) classical music CD'S of my partner sadly had to go,so I listed them on e-Bay as a single lot for £500-I certainly wasn't going to take time out selling and posting individual ones .I was fortunate,the owner of a music shop in Cornwall said he was always needing new stock as he also had a market stall and ,offered me the £500 , plus he would pay also the courier costs.I duly packed them off to him-6 boxes,got the money paid first by Paypal into my account,and I got my money.Happy !

Next I wanted to thin out my own CD pop collection,and offered them to a chap who always advertised in our local paper. I had about 150 ,some quite rare,and when he came to view,to my horror he started picking and choosing all the good ones out."No,no" I cried."Just make me an offer for the lot-I need rid of them " He offered £40 for the 150 CD's,and I presume he was a market trader so I reckon if he sold them for 50p each he would probably still make a good profit. I got my £50 after he hummed and ha'd-but I could see he wanted those rarities.So that lot was gone!

Next there was a collection of my partner's Folio Society books,many in mint condition.They went off to a bookseller in the back of her BMW,well down on the rear suspension, to her shop 100-odd miles away-cash being neatly folded away in my pocket.

I was fairly fortunate in my transactions,
but that was about 6 years ago now,so I don't know if the pandemic has affected the process. Probably not.

I do think though that ,like the chap who I sold my pop CD's to , buyers want you to almost give them away. You have to be realistic in setting your price and be prepared to let them walk.If they really want your items they will pay what you realistically suggest. Good Luck !
Graham
Listen.gif ♫ ♫

[J Gowers]

I have transfered (ripped) all my CDs, maybe a couple of hundred, on to the PC and the origionals are now packed in a box in the loft. For playing in the car I just transfer a few dozen to a USB stick and plug that in. I have no idea when I bought my last CD but it must have been over 10 years ago and probably longer than that. I do not have a stand alone CD player now and just use the PC to play music and have a nice set of Creative speakers plugged into the PC. I do have a small collection of about 50 or so LPs though also ripped to the PC.

[Bill Morrison]

When you were brought up with make-do and mend it is difficult to discard things you now have. Music wise vinyl LP's 45's, cassette tapes and CD's I still have most never played these days. When Deep Sea on one ship just about all the engineers and stereo reel to reel tape recorders mine was a Sony TC 230 which I still have, getting pre-recoded tapes were hard to come by unless you did trips to the States. The few I have one would be of interest to Trevor!
Bill.

[Trevor Bodiam]

Very nice Bill and now quite rare and of value to collectors. I had Revolver on reel to reel and sold it at a record fair for about $25 at least ten years ago.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

WE gave all our vinal records to our Daughter who now plays them in her studio when she paints, all old classics.
I spend afternoons listening to the Shadows, Pavarotti, or jazz piano on my cassette player, earphones on ,Bliss.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Here in Oz there are companies that buy such items, could always use E bay as well.
Might get rid of a few there.