My great uncle recently passed leaving behind his extensive collection of DVDs, VHS, Laserdiscs, books, CDs, and records. In order to cover the costs of repairing his house we are looking into selling bits of his collection, especially to people who would cherish them as much as he did. We have many family members who know about the price of things such as his records, but as for the laserdiscs, no one has that sort of knowledge. As I am in college I will be trying to sell laserdiscs during my summer off months and perhaps a little in the next few weeks. I know very little and would appreciate any information I could be given that would help me start off. In addition if there are discs you’re interested in or are particularly rare, it may help me if you mentioned them so that I could keep an eye out for them. I know there are quite a few collectors addition type discs and Japanese prints as well. He mainly specialized in classic cinema, opera, and music, but there are also more modern films as well. Anyways, thank you for reading this and I eagerly await your responses.

Respectfully, Mr. Holladay

I'm interested in anime.
Let me know what you have, if you have a list and I can offer.
Where are you located mr. Holladay.

Or let us know when you list on ebay.

I unfortunately do not have any anime. The only animated stuff I’ve seen so far has been the Disney archive collection. Perhaps there could be something like Akira hidden somewhere, but it really wasn’t his style, so I wouldn’t hold out much hope. I am based out of Abilene, Texas for future record. As for listing on eBay, I will most likely start doing that around May 10th ish, since that’s around the end of my finals this year.

I would suggest entering the entire collection into LDDB. It will really help you know what you are selling since there are so many versions of so many movies. You could also create a shop here. If the collection really is that big it will be a lot of work to sell it all.

I enjoy the filing system for laserdisc very much. I’ve entered 43 into the database so far and it’s given me a msrp for them of $2,400 I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I do know I entered a few that were more desired like Tron archive collection and The Beatles Anthology. It’s very convenient that the spines contain the catalog number. I think the real thing I will struggle with is grading the discs. Most of his collection is sealed in the original wrapping which makes that easy, but I currently don’t know what the difference between sealed and mint as that is what the database groups the price categories into. As for the size of the collection I counted a shelf and then multiplied that by the number of shelves. Using that method there are roughly 7,000 discs.(vhs box sets, books, and a few records in that room made it appear to be more laserdiscs than it actually was) Also I’m pleased to announce that I played my first laserdisc as a test for our player at home. I played the most uncharacteristic movie he had in that collection which was Seven the criterion collection. My fiancé hasn’t seen it and I knew she’d enjoy it. I enjoy the laserdisc format much more than I expected.

https://www.lddb.com/help_grading.php



It's accurate.... but pretty useless

MSRP is only the original street price when it sold new 20+++ years ago.

For most recent prices, eBay or the past selling stats are available.

Example for Se7en Criterion: https://www.lddb.com/past/6954/

=> MSRP $125, today's price between $12 and $40.



Are you checked the HELP sections?

https://www.lddb.com/help_grading.php

Julien

Thanks for that last comment, I was wondering how the MSRP setup worked and I’m glad I now know. It will be interesting to see how much he spent on all of the discs. As for the grading system I hadn’t checked that out till now. It seems odd that many discs appear more expensive in mint condition than sealed, even though theoretically sealed should be better. Under that classification most of the collection is sealed at a 9 or 10, most of the others are mint condition at 8 and 7, and a few that look like they may fall under the used catagory, even thought they are difficult to find. It’s fortunate that he never exactly seemed that interested in laserdisc. He recorded VHS at home when that first became possible and seemed to collect laserdiscs as a secondary thought, then he collected DVDs as they came out. Because of this I’d say 70-80% are unopened, but still a mix of 10s and 9s as the wrapping on the outside seems to be in rough condition on some. Thanks for the help, it’s tough balance researching this and my studies.

Just a quick suggestion: If you're looking to add the entire collection onto your LDDB account, so speculators can go through it, a simple UPC reader will really save you some time. In most cases the barcodes are in the database and can be searched for with ease. This goes especially for US releases as those are generally mostly covered.

Sealed...... the LDs could be broken/cracked or in some cases it could be a resealed item (does happen - mostly with US titles).

Used "mint" or "near mint" LDs mean you can check for damage or ask the seller to check, can also be played to check for the dreaded "rot"

Forgot about that, according to MSRP my collection is worth 30,000.

Wonder what collections are worth now if you figure our "investment"

I suspect you'll end up keeping a small collection for yourself before this whole thing is over. It's a slippery slope.

Since it's unlikely you'll be able to sell this to a single collector (even at $0.50/ea) take the great suggestions here and add the collection to the dB and open up a shop here. You'll have a very targeted audience and you can direct traffic there from places like the FB groups. That said, the thought of shipping 7K LDs seems tedious at best.

Hell, what do I know maybe there IS someone who wants 7K LDs and has the money and storage space. I just got rid of about 200 LDs for $1/ea that were just overflow. I'm still amazed they're gone.

Don't stress too hard on grading them if it appears they were taken care of and are in reasonably good condition.

Can please share a general photo of these 10,000 - 20,000 LDs?

So what store did your uncle work at or own?

First, sorry to hear about your great uncle's passing.

As other people mentioned, the MSRP is kind of a joke and has no real-world application to current evaluation. For mainstream titles, I am usually paying $1 a disc with local sellers. So that gives you a little better perspective. As others have mentioned, if you are interested in selling this one title at a time, then you should enter all of it in the database. Buy a bar code scanner. It will make your life a lot easier. Keep in mind that if you sell them one disc a time, it will take forever and you will never truly sell all of them. Not to mention the thousands of hours you will spend on packing and shipping discs. With 20k discs, this could become a full time job for years to come. Do you really want to make that kind of commitment? You could put the entire lot up on ebay and try to move it all in one transaction. As others requested, I would love to see some photos of this massive collection.

I believe it's in the constitution that you should always be able to get back MSRP no questions asked at the store of purchase. If that store no longer exists then the government and the taxpayer should pay!! I demand refunds!!

Interested in horror movies if you have any, as well as any special interest LD's (not p0rn), like car dealership LD's or any in generic Pioneer Laserdisc Sleeves.

Thanks for the UPC reader suggestion, that definitely makes a lot of sense. As for the grading system thanks for saying that last bit. It makes sense now. There are sealed things that are clearly only desired by fans of the content(like Star Wars persay) that aren’t necessary fans of the format, so the fact that it’s sealed matters more to them than the actual discs condition. As for whether or not his discs were ever resealed... I know he never did anything like that, so it would only be the case if someone sold them resealed. When he was buying them this type of market didn’t exist so the odds are pretty low. Some of them do have aftermarket protective sleeves, but they are clearly aftermarket. Back on the UPC reader, how would I be able to use that with the database? Does the functionality already exist? Or will it simply record the catalog numbers and I’ll be able to manually add them?

Their is a "bulk add" function on lddb.com. The reader will simply pull the upc codes directly into that field and then you submit the lot.

I've downloaded a UPC reader onto my phone and it works well for the most part. It still isn't terribly fast. Also Iv'e made my collection public, so as I go through the collection and add things they will be visible to you. Currently In the collection I have a few miscellaneous piles and part of the A's alphabetized section entered. The alphabetization is only done by first letter, not entire title. Also there is a large unalphabetized section. So if you don't see something you're looking for there is always the possibility that it will show up in eventually, although of course no promises. Also, as I continue to add the collection to my profile you should get a feel for what types of movies there are in the collection. Please tell me what you think. I'm not sure if there will be anything of tremendous value, or anything else of note. I know nothing about rarity yet, so if anyone spots anything that is important and needs extra care, please tell me.

I have a new question for everyone. I have been approved to open up a shop, I just looked at a few other shops and I was wondering how exactly I should ship various amounts of laserdiscs. Also what level of protective packaging should I use? I don't know how durable the discs are and of course I don't exactly wish to find out. I know a family friend has shipped stuff through media mail in the past and they have good rates: however, I don't exactly know how gentle they are. I don't wish for there to be any issues in the shipping process. Also I was wondering which payment formats people are most inclined to use. It seems like paypal is popular, but if there is another format for payment that is safer and more preferable to everyone, then I want to look into being able to provide that as an option. The bottom line is I've never set up a store like this before and I want to be someone that people enjoy dealing with. Thank you for reading this and any potential advice.