(NEXSTAR) – Your old CD collection — once the centerpiece of your media center and perhaps even a physical manifestation of your personality — is now collecting dust somewhere in your basement. But it’s still possible that someone, somewhere, is willing to pay big bucks for a few of your (formerly) beloved compact discs.
Just as soon as everyone chills out on vinyl.
“Collecting is gaining and gaining and gaining, and with CDs, I know it’s going to gain,” Garry Shrum, the director of Entertainment & Music Memorabilia for Heritage Auctions, told Nexstar.
Shrum formerly operated Blue Meanie Records, a record shop in San Diego County specializing in imports, bootlegs and other hard-to-find rarities. He also maintains a massive collection of rare recordings himself, embracing pretty much every format imaginable.
Shrum and his wife are currently looking to “cut down” their collection — and right now, they’re finding plenty of buyers for older CDs on the internet.
“Some are selling for $75, $100, $150. So it’s starting,” Shrum said.
Still, it’ll take a little while before CDs begin to approach the popularity of vinyl as the go-to format for collectors — perhaps even years. But there’s always someone out there looking to find an out-of-print version of something they loved in their younger years. And in some cases, it’s the teens of today who are seeking a copy of an album they weren’t alive to experience upon its debut, according to Shrum.
“I’m seeing tons and tons of really young people collecting old music,” Shrum said. “Lots of girls looking for blues, psychedelic music and R&B.”
The specimens that are most desirable, however, usually aren’t the most popular releases from any given band. Shrum said plenty of online collectors are looking for specific copies of imports, live recordings, or CDs with alternate artwork or track listings.
“It happens with vinyl, it’s gonna happen with CDs. They’re looking for the CD singles that have the extra track on them … or the single off the album, and there’s two tracks on the B-side that are live, and the only way you can get them is on the German import.”
In extremely rare cases, some of these hard-to-find CDs have also sold for thousands of dollars, according to Discogs, a database of audio recordings frequently referenced by collectors. One of the highest prices ever paid for a CD, according to the site, was $3,250 for a copy of the 2003 album “Midnight Over Honey River” by American singer-songwriter Valerie Carter — an album only released in Japan.
Other pricey sales concerned a CD released in South Korea by American heavy metal band Runner (which went for $3,000) and a sought-after CD single of Michael Jackson’s version of “Smile” — a release that was canceled at the last minute — that sold for $2,989, according to Discogs.
Heritage Auctions, too, has sold at least one CD for more — $3,750, to be exact — though that CD was more of an art piece than a traditional album: Conceived by street artist Banksy, the album was an unsanctioned remix of Paris Hilton’s debut album “Paris” — complete with doctored images of Hilton on the cover and within the liner notes — which the artist hid in record shops around London for unsuspecting shoppers to find.
It’s likely, though, that most widely-released CDs would be worth considerably less.
That said, there are always collectors looking to complete a set, or replace a popular CD they owned in their younger years. And whatever they might pay — be it $5 or $10 — isn’t a bad price for something that’s been gathering dust in the basement, Shrum noted.
“It’s a trophy for some people,” Shrum said. “People can say, ‘Hey, I first met my girlfriend when we saw this band.’ You don’t know why some people will want things.”