# 90 year old with thousands of cd's (opera & classical), where do I start to organize?



## Sinking In Cds (Apr 25, 2021)

*90 year old with thousands of cd's (opera & classical), where do I start to organize?*

My 90-year-old father-in-law has thousands of cd's, all opera and classical. I don't know much about his music preferences, but I've been tasked with organizing all of his cd's to try and sell them as a collection to a buyer. I don't know where to start with organizing the cd's, or where to find a possible buyer. My father-in-law is still of sound mind, and was not exactly happy to give up his cd's, but he agreed that it was time. He recently got some Alexa Echo's in the rooms where he spends time in, and she plays enough of the music that he loves by voice command, which works for the best for him, since he can no longer get around on his own to access and play the 1000's of cd's that he has. At one time when he moved from a house to an assisted living place, he had us put the majority of the cd's into the binder type cd storage cases, some with the paper inserts saved, but most without. At the time, he just wanted to compact his collection and didn't care about the jewel-cases or the inserts for most of them. It was his music and he just wanted to be able to keep all of it at the time of the move. Now, some years later, he finally admits he can't get to the music anymore, and he prefers to live alone (in assisted living), so family is not there to help play all his music for him, and like I mentioned, the Alexa Echo's do the job for him now. Now, these huge "cd binders"/organizers are filled with cd's, some are in sets, easy to organize, but some have been pulled out, listened to, and put back in the wrong binder, and many aren't part of any set. So, I've started to do the first pass of organization by sorting by record label, so that I can then go back through and hopefully be able to put sets back together again. But once I get sets put back together, there's still thousands of stand-alone cd's. Do I then sort by composer, or by instrument, it's overwhelming! The names are mostly unfamiliar to me. I've read through some of the blogs here, and recognize a lot of names that you all talk about, just by having gone through his cd's. I'm probably about a thousand cd's in on the first pass of sorting by record label.....should I continue, or would a possible buyer rather I just not sort, and have them buy them "as-is" in the binders. Thanks for your input and advice in advance. I feel overwhelmed and lost in so many cd's!!!


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

No jewel-cases or (more importantly) the original packaging booklets/sleeves?
Yikes.
Not that 2nd hand CDs are worth much anyway, but if it's just the silver disc and nothing else...?
You'll do well to give 'em away I reckon.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Here second hand Classical music CD's typically go for 25-50 cents a piece in thrift stores, so I would agree with GraemeG that spending loads of time reorganizing this collection is probably not worth the effort. Is there no-one in the family who might be interested?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

It’s a shame because there are some people that would love to have those CDs, Now that there are 1 terabyte external hard drives the size of a credit card, one could digitize 1500-2000 of those CDs. The lack of the jewel cases is not that big a deal, but the lack of the inserts/documentation is. 

There might be some people who would pay $200-300 (totally off the top of my head) on eBay just as a ‘grab-bag’ type of sale. Another possibility is to write down the basic information on the CDs in the form of a straight list (without trying to categorize them) which might bring a higher price. If there are truly ‘1000s’ of CDs (which I’m a little skeptical about knowing how much space 100 CD disks take in CD ‘booklets with sleeves cases’), then if people had an idea what the works were, they might pay up to $500 which would be 25 cents or less a CD.

The above is just a suggestion. If making a list and selling on eBay seems daunting then you might want to just take them to Goodwill (U.S. thrift store) or some such.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

That's a shame.

Without the cases and inserts the discs are almost worthless, even if the music on them is timeless.

They could be digitized, but that may take some time. Each disc could take about 3-7 minutes each, so you could do about 12 in an hour. 1200 CDs might take a hundred hours.

Even to listen to them all would be a monumental task. CDs vary in length, and might be 42 minutes, or 75 minutes.

But if you're talking an average of 60 minutes, it would take you 1000 hours, or 41 days to listen to 1000 CDs, if you never stopped. If you listened to one each day, it would take you roughly three years. You likely don't even have an accurate count, as you simple referred to them as "thousands of CDs".

Anyway, you might call a few libraries and universities and tell them your predicament.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

That said, I'd have likely organized by composer, rather than record label, although that will work fine for getting sets back together.

After you've done that, it's probably best to sort by composer.

And, if you've delved into some threads here, you'll find that sorting Classical CDs is a tough road.

What do you do with multi-composer CDs (assuming there are any). Should you make a set for Operas?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

As others have said, these have no monetary value without the accompanying documentation. The only way to get any $$$ would be to sell them as a bulk item on eBay.

Other options:

1) If your local library has an annual sale (many do), donate the collection to them. They'll sell them for 25 or 50 cents per disc, which may net the library a reasonable sum. You might be able to convince the library to give you a receipt for tax deduction purposes, as a charitable donation.

2) If you have a local used record store, they'll do the same. They *might* give you a token payment for them.

Good luck. I suspect, unfortunately, that the majority of this collection is destined for a landfill.


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## Clloydster (Apr 19, 2021)

That is a shame. There was a time that I might have even made an offer, just in the off chance that there are enough decent ones in the "grab bag." But like your father-in-law, I've also gone the streaming route - I have Apple Music and just call up whatever I feel like listening to, with no need to dedicate a massive amount of real estate in my already cluttered office for physical discs.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

For the average person, selling a music collection piecemeal is more trouble than it's worth. Say you sell a CD for $5. If it took you about an hour to photograph it, write the description, post it, print the shipping label/postage and drive to the post office, you've just made $5 an hour. That's $2.25 below the federal minimum wage, even further below the minimum wage in some states or cities. Then subtract from that the ebay/discogs listing, and paypal transaction fees. You're better off selling or donating the whole kit and caboodal to a dealer.


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

I wouldn't worry about organizing them. Just make a list of each CD and sell them on ebay as a batch. If it doesn't sell and you're feeling ambitious , as some had mentioned, you could digitize them and sell them on a flash drive. It would be technically illegal to sell just the digitized version (assuming the copyright hasn't expired) but if you sold the CDs plus the flash drive I believe Ebay would allow this. Good luck.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Put it on Craigs List and have a place where people can come rummage through and take what they want. Give them away free. If you had jewel cases and bookleets you could sell them to a music store, but just disks is not worth much. Some thrift store may pout them in a bin for 25 cents a disk if you donate them.


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