rocky's e-commerce business

I've started cataloging my record collection on the Discogs website. It's saved me a whole a lot of time, because the website has data on most albums ever released. It's just a matter clicking on the pressing I have and then entering the condition of the record and any personal notes. It's still a lot of work. I've completed my jazz collection (around 800 LPs) and just started my pop/rock collection, which may be three times the size of the jazz collection.

Discogs is also a platform for buying and selling records online. Using historic data on past sales, the website calculates the low end, median, and high end value of one's record collection. I know already that, aside from my house, my record collection is my most valuable possession.

As I've been cataloging my records, I've been culling records that I want to get rid of. I've been dividing them into three piles by their value. There's the less than $10 pile, the $10-30 pile, and the probably-more-than-$30 pile. I took the first pile to a friend who owns a record store, a really nice guy who always gives me a discount when I buy his already reasonably priced records. I just gave him the box of records. When he asked me how much I wanted for the records, I told him, "it's gratis." He looked at me quizzically, either confused by the word or the concept.

I've started listing records from the over-$30 pile on the Discogs website for sale. Five have been listed. So far, two have sold. My first sale was a German pressing of Pearl Jam's Ten that was rendered redundant when I found an original US pressing. It was returned to its country of origin, bought by a guy in Germany. I basically recouped what I paid for it. My second sale was an original pressing of Smashing Pumpkins' Gish. I had two copies. It was priced below its market value. Someone got a deal on it and rocky made a 5-fold profit. Everyone wins! We'll see how this e-commerce business turns out, whether it's worth the hassle and potential headaches.