Shifting old records

Giving it go at a local car boot sale

For years I’ve scoured car boot sales and charity shops in search of vinyl, slowly building a collection that had already grown beyond what I could ever listen to in my spare time. Even though my collection is tiny compared to more serious collectors, I’ve still come to the conclusion that I own too many records, most of which were rarely played. It was time to let go, declutter, and maybe even raise some money for something I’d actually use. 

During the first wave of the pandemic, I’d sold a load of old chaff on Facebook Marketplace. At first, there was interest, shifting a couple of batches for £50 each. But the momentum quickly died, and I wasn’t keen on the slow process of selling online… the thought of packaging and shipping records individually was more than I could bear. So, after years of procrastination and a dwindling enthusiasm for digging in the wild, I decided to take the plunge and sell them at a local booty.

I’d been talking about doing this for years, but the thought of having to go through my unorganised collection kept me from seeing it through. However, something snapped this bank holiday weekend. I simply thought, "f*ck it", and got on with it. I spent a few hours sorting through roughly 700 records that I had in my shed (where all the cheapies live), quickly dividing them into “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” piles. By the end, I had around 300 records to take with me. My pricing strategy was straightforward: £2 each, or three for £5. All I had were LPs and 12"s.

The alarm went off at 5 a.m., and by 6:30, my son and I were pulling into the car boot sale, where 80% of the sellers were already set up. As I opened my boot, a small crowd gathered, eager to rifle through the records. “Great,” I thought, “these’ll be gone in no time!”

The initial flurry of activity saw about 25 records sold, and I felt optimistic. However, as the public started to trickle in after 7 a.m., I was surprised by the lack of interest. In my experience, the best finds at car boot sales are usually gone by 9 a.m. Here I was, offering hundreds of decent(ish) Jazz, Funk, Soul, Disco, and Hip Hop records, and yet the buyers weren’t fighting each other off.

One of the other sellers popped over for a nose. “I just wanted to see what you had in your bags”, she admitted, “Got any heavy metal?” “Hmmm, no, sorry” I replied, while making a note to take the records out of the bags and line them up in clear view of the punters, ensuring that the most colourful sleeves were always visible at the front. The sale didn’t end until 1 p.m., so I held onto the hope that the serious diggers perhaps were having a lie-in this morning. But the rush never came.

Despite the slow sales, the day wasn’t without its highlights. One old chap bought a stack of records from me. He’d been collecting since the early ’70s and, even in his seventies, still DJs monthly in Tamworth. He told me he owns over 200,000 records and simply can’t stop collecting. I could see he was having trouble getting on his knees to dig through and even more trouble getting back up to inspect the vinyl closer. Thankfully he’d developed a great technique of effortlessly dropping them back on the floor if he didn’t want them. “You’ve got some good records there” he said. “I don’t normally come over to this boot sale but my local one has been sh*t recently so I thought I’d give it a go, glad I did now”. Amongst his purchases was a copy of Mille Jackson’s ‘It hurts so good’ LP, “I don’t have this one. I love Millie Jackson. Seen her a few times live. She’s a filthy bugger. Proper potty-mouthed”. 

Another buyer, who picked up some Hip Hop records, claimed to have the largest Hip Hop collection in Leicester. He was my age, born in 1973, and had a vast collection spanning from 1982 to 1995, with a strong focus on Electro. Like most hip hop fans my age he was a big fan of the Street Sounds Electro series, “Number five’s the best”, and boasted he had the Beastie Boys record that came out “before Licensed to Ill”... He obviously wasn’t aware of the one that came out before Cooky Puss and the ‘one-upmanship’ tone was kicking in at this point so I resisted the temptation to mention it, and just enjoyed the exchange with a fellow ageing B-Boy.

By noon, I’d made just over £100—not nearly as much as I’d hoped. I was surprised by some of the records that remained unsold, ones I thought would surely catch someone’s eye. When I got home, I went through them again and found myself putting a few back into my collection, realising that I wasn’t quite ready to part with them after all. The remaining 125 records were promptly listed on Facebook Marketplace in the hope of shifting them quickly for £100. I’d taken a video going through all of the records which was about eight minutes long. Marketplace only allows up to one minute so I uploaded it to YouTube and included a link in the description. Despite this, one potential buyer messaged me asking, “Can you send me the video? I don’t use YouTube” After explaining that he didn’t need to join YouTube simply to watch the video he replied, “Never mind mate I’ll leave it, best of luck” (What is wrong with these people?!).

Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about too many more weird Marketplace conversations as I ended up selling them privately within a few hours, and I’m glad I managed to offload a couple of hundred records even if it was for less than I wanted – averaging out £1 each which is probably what I paid for most of them to be honest. It’s weird to suddenly see space on a shelf that I definitely plan NOT to fill with more records… but then again as I type I do have Juno open in another tab…