Start With Patience, Not a Clearance Van

Inheriting a record collection is rarely just about the records. There is grief, a house to empty, a deadline from the solicitor, and a spare room filling with boxes that smell faintly of dust and old cardboard. In that frame of mind, the easiest option is to accept the first bulk offer that arrives. Please don't, at least not yet.

The gap between what a bulk buyer pays and what the same collection realises when sorted is often startling. A job lot might fetch a few hundred pounds; the same records, sorted, graded and sold individually or through a specialist, can comfortably reach several thousand. Give yourself a few weeks before you commit to anything.

Sort Before You Value Anything

Resist the urge to price as you go. Sorting first makes every later job faster and safer.

• Separate by format: LPs, 12-inch singles, 7-inch singles, box sets, 78s and any shellac. Shellac is brittle and needs its own box.
• Pull out anything unusual: picture sleeves, coloured vinyl, numbered editions, records still in shrink wrap, imports, private pressings and anything with handwritten labels.
• Check inside every sleeve: inserts, posters, lyric sheets and order forms matter enormously to value. So do the odd ten-pound note or handwritten note tucked between records.
• Quarantine damp or mouldy items immediately: mould spreads. Store those separately, in a ventilated room, until you decide what to do with them.

Keep a simple spreadsheet or notebook: artist, title, catalogue number, condition. It feels fussy for the first hour and invaluable by the tenth.

Grading Honestly Is Where the Money Is

Buyers grade the record and the sleeve separately, and the difference between one grade and the next can halve a price. Learn the standard ladder – Mint, Near Mint, Very Good Plus, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor – and apply it ruthlessly. Near Mint is not "looks lovely to me"; it is close to as-new, with no marks that affect play.

Grade in daylight, not under a warm bulb. Check for scratches, scuffs, spindle marks around the centre hole, groove wear on the loudest passages, edge chips, warps, and label damage. Then play-test a random selection on a decent turntable, because some pressing faults and wear only reveal themselves in the groove.

Sleeves matter too: ring wear, seam splits, sticker damage, laminate lifting and writing on the back all reduce value. Be honest with yourself. A dealer will be, and an inflated self-grade just wastes everyone's time.

Research Values Without Losing Weeks

You do not need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the market, but you do need to check the items that carry real money. Focus your research on the unusual records you set aside earlier.

• Compare sold prices, not asking prices. Anyone can ask; only sold listings tell you what people actually paid.
• Match the exact pressing. Catalogue numbers, label designs, matrix numbers stamped in the run-off groove, and mono versus stereo all change value dramatically.
• Check the same title in different conditions. A Near Mint copy and a Very Good copy of the same LP can differ by a factor of five.
• Keep a note of your sources and dates, so you can see how consistent the figures really are.

Time-box this. A fortnight of evenings is usually enough to identify the twenty or thirty records that matter, plus a broad value for the bulk.

Bulk Offers Versus Specialist Buyers

If speed and simplicity are what you need, a bulk offer is legitimate – just go in with your eyes open. Expect roughly ten to thirty per cent of retail value, because the buyer carries risk, cleaning, storage and selling costs. Get two or three quotes, and never accept one over the phone without an itemised list of what is included.

For the records you identified as unusual or genuinely high-grade, use specialist routes instead. Dealers who specialise in a genre, auction houses with regular record sales, and collectors' forums and fairs all reach buyers who will pay properly for a scarce pressing or an immaculate copy. Commission and fees eat into the total, but usually far less than a bulk discount does.

A hybrid approach works well for most families: sell the top slice individually or through a specialist, then move the remaining run-of-the-mill records as a single lot to a dealer or at a local fair. If the collection is large, ask whether a specialist will appraise on site before you decide anything at all.

Look After Them Until They Sell

Value leaks fast through careless storage. Keep records upright and firmly packed, never stacked flat, and never so loose that they lean and warp. Store them in a cool, dry room away from radiators, sunny windows, damp cellars and boiling lofts.

Replace torn inner sleeves with anti-static ones and put anything valuable into a clean poly outer sleeve. Handle records by the edges and label only. If a record is genuinely grimy, clean it properly with a carbon-fibre brush for dust and a dedicated wet-cleaning method using distilled water – tap water leaves limescale in the groove and can do more harm than good.

Above all, don't rush. A fortnight of careful sorting and honest grading is the single best thing you can do for the value of an inherited collection, and it gives you space to decide what you actually want to keep.