A couple of years ago, I ripped all my CD's to a backup hard drive, then sold the CD's to a place that sells second-had books and music CD's and vinyl. I didn't get much money out of it, enough to pay for a decent dinner for the wife and me, but I sure did get rid of a lot of clutter. And I can pull up those albums anytime I want from the hard drive.
Getting Rid of Compact Discs
- Thread starter johnniegold
- Start date
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- #62
Ziffit was offering as much as $16 for it. Although a monster read at about 1000+ pages, I did enjoy it when I read it many years back. Great history of New York.
I don’t take risks when buying new CDs these days. I stream them first and if I really like an album, I’ll buy it in CD form. My two channel stereo system still makes better music than streaming through the surround system I use for the TV. All the CDs are in floor standing racks, arranged alphabetically. I can find an album with zero effort. I’m pretty sure, when we are gone, our sons will box them up and get rid of them, but for now, I like having them around.
Lol'd at the HomeGoods my friend!Almost 5 years have passed since I unloaded about 800 CDs out of a collection that once numbered a little over a thousand. The remaining CDs have sat in a few boxes on a shelf in the garage.
Now Mrs. Gold and myself find that it’s time to declutter once again.
While this thread discussed getting rid of old CDs, this update is about getting rid of old books.
I came across an app that worked in a similar manner as the two that were mentioned when I got rid of the CDs.
This app, Ziffit.com, is specifically geared for books and like the other apps, you scan the barcode on the books, and it tells you how much they will pay for that title.
Although many of the titles I had didn’t generate much money (literally pennies, if anything at all), there were a few titles that they paid a few bucks for. The book by Frank Vincent was a gift that I never even read, but is seemingly a popular title. Who knew?
So, I boxed up a fee books in an old box I had laying around (probably from a shoe shipment), and Ziffit provided a FedEx label. About a week later, the money was paid into my PayPal account.
View attachment 1848150
View attachment 1848159
Hey… $52 gets me a nice bottle of Michter’s Bourbon.
As Mrs. Gold and I continue to backslide fearlessly into senior citizenship, we continue on our quest for the simple life.
This time, with the assistance of an estate sale company, we are committed to ridding ourselves of so many “things”.
The remaining books/CDs are part of the estate sale, along with so many other “things”, some of which I haven’t seen in years or, quite frankly, even knew we had.
Whatever books/CDs remain, will be donated (the less I have to carry, the better).
My house currently looks like a HomeGoods department store.
We inherited a bunch of "stuff" when we bought the family homestead when we married nigh on 36 years ago!
And my poor and lovely War Department inherited ME when she hitched her pony to mine! And with me came my STUFF. Poor lady. I need to declutter so she can be happy again....books are going to be hard to let go of. But CD's I think I can handle. I have not bought any music in 30 years, and I am at the age where "my music" is still on the radio stations. So it's not like I would be sacrificing much for her happiness.
Space_Cadet
I don't have a funny description.
You sold your disks for around 1$ a disk? Do you consider this a good deal?
Here’s another little tidbit about dumping the media. When you buy a commercial work on media, all you are buying is a license. You might own the physical media carrier of disc, tape or record that contains it, but you only get a limited license to the work and art therein. And it is the RIAA that enforces these things on behalf of the artists and their publishers and recording labels.
While the RIAA doesn’t seem as aggressive about it as they were years ago, the physical media used to be the user’s proof of license, and a rip or copy was considered within that license for personal backup or archival purposes only. So if you kept the original media, you were always covered on your personal copies.
And they did go hard after a number of individuals for piracy during the early ripping era, where large digital collections had no corresponding physical media proof. This was also in the early era of Napster, when such services were being misused as the “getaway car” for people mass distributing licensed content. Most individuals they chased settled, and the settlement payments were typically four figures.
Then came the present era of downloadable content, and even more currently, streaming subscriptions, so that today, most people only ‘rent’ their music anyway. And the only proof of license for downloadable content today is what’s imbedded in the files, and whatever DRM they want to place in it. Physical media is for the most part defunct for other than us old dinosaurs.
So technically, all those old CDs still only confer a license, and the disc is proof of purchase for it, should the RIAA ever come a‘ callin.
But they don’t seem to chase that digital horse so much anymore, since they participated in opening the barn to a large extent.
Space_Cadet
I don't have a funny description.
@Columbo
Yes, but a couple of things:
1. Those who buy rare old media for pennies are not stupid either. Some sense in it too. People sold their parents and grandparents old 78s for nothing too, and now they worth gold. Collectors and museums buy them a thousand dollar a piece now.
2. You can always buy something newer. Older? Not as easily.
3. What about the the subjective factors? The sentimental value, etc'. You're selling a part of your life here for a buck. Your decision, but no way no how I'm selling my rare CD collection (I never bought mass consumption) unless I'm getting a really good deal. And if I will have no use for it at all, I rather contribute it to some library or public organization, do that younger people will have access to it and it won't be held and controlled by interest-driven small group of people that want to restrict access.
Yes, but a couple of things:
1. Those who buy rare old media for pennies are not stupid either. Some sense in it too. People sold their parents and grandparents old 78s for nothing too, and now they worth gold. Collectors and museums buy them a thousand dollar a piece now.
2. You can always buy something newer. Older? Not as easily.
3. What about the the subjective factors? The sentimental value, etc'. You're selling a part of your life here for a buck. Your decision, but no way no how I'm selling my rare CD collection (I never bought mass consumption) unless I'm getting a really good deal. And if I will have no use for it at all, I rather contribute it to some library or public organization, do that younger people will have access to it and it won't be held and controlled by interest-driven small group of people that want to restrict access.
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- #68
While I agree that there was a part of me that was hesitant about letting go of something I had spent years amassing, the fact remains that, for me, the time of the CD had come and gone and the time of decluttering and downsizing (once again) had come upon me.
And while I know could have sold many of CDs for more money, I didn’t have the time (nor the desire) to devote the time and energy required to do it.
The only remnants of an 1100 CD collection that remains are maybe 20 or so limited edition Beatles and Stones releases and a few other “hard-to-find” titles.
All in all, I enjoyed collecting them, enjoyed the hunt of finding hard to find releases and have no seller’s remorse (well… now, anyway
).
I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of the books I have simply because I still envision having a library in the house one day. You know the kind you only see in the movies. Mahogany shelves lining the walls loaded with books, big wooden executive desk in the middle of the room, leather guest chairs, one of those globe liquor carts. For now they are tucked in the closet and I keep adding to them as I read. Tossing books in the closet.
As for CD’s….I don’t own a single one anymore. Haven’t for years.
As for CD’s….I don’t own a single one anymore. Haven’t for years.
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- #70
Last week, I gave away the remaining books/CDs/DVDs that were left from the estate sale.
And while it was sad to see them go, it was kinda liberating at the same time.
EclipseRedRing
I smell like a Christmas pudding
We ripped all our CDs, only about 30 of them, to digital files and tried to give the CDs away - nobody wanted them, took them to the charity shop and were turned away; they ended up in the bin. Our small collection of DVDs ended up the same way, as did most of our books as part of our ongoing general declutter - we feel much better for it.Last week, I gave away the remaining books/CDs/DVDs that were left from the estate sale.
And while it was sad to see them go, it was kinda liberating at the same time.
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- #72
My book collection went from this…
… to this.
I must say that now, my book collection is a lot easier to carry around.
… to this.
I must say that now, my book collection is a lot easier to carry around.
My book collection went from this…
View attachment 1853860
… to this.
View attachment 1853861
I must say that now, my book collection is a lot easier to carry around.
Part of me does think it’s odd that I have all these books I’ll likely never read again. But I want to make my library first so I can say “let’s discuss this further in my library”. After that I‘ll get rid of them all.
I do have a Kindle too. 9/10 I read on the Kindle then buy the physical book to ”add to my library”. And the only reason I buy the books is so I can amass a large collection of books I’ve read. It’s a sickness I think.
It's more than I got when I donated all mine to the thrift store a couple of house moves ago.
Again, every time I've moved, I end up donating BOXES of books. These days I download paperback, novel type books to the kindle, but I still seem to come home with one or two reference/ picture books on various subjects every week. Drives the wife mad.
And don't get me started on the children's books. She could have a library of her own.
- Thread starter
- #76
I’m sure there’s a book you can read about this and then add it to your collection.
We’ve donated many, many, MANY books over the years (almost a hundred just a few weeks ago), and more keep coming in. The kids have theirs, we have ours…..
I have a kindle for those books that I’m interested in but not so much that I want a physical copy. I rarely buy hard cover at this point. When the end is near, I can see myself giving friends and family the pick of the collection and then donating the donateable and pitching the rest. I can spare the cleaner uppers that hassle.
I have a kindle for those books that I’m interested in but not so much that I want a physical copy. I rarely buy hard cover at this point. When the end is near, I can see myself giving friends and family the pick of the collection and then donating the donateable and pitching the rest. I can spare the cleaner uppers that hassle.
My book collection went from this…
View attachment 1853860
… to this.
View attachment 1853861
I must say that now, my book collection is a lot easier to carry around.
Just three questions,
What happens if you drop the Kindle?
What happens if the Internet is down?
What happens if Amazon someday refuses to provide books, or removes the books from their library?
I have nothing against digitizing works. In fact, I’m a huge fan of it. Hundreds of thousands of audio, video, pictorial and written works, all on a single enclosure smaller than a toaster, that you can carry with one arm. Incredible, and it’s only going to get smaller in future. I would love to someday hand the whole thing to my son before I go, on one little thumb drive or card, like Mr. Spock and those little yellow cards on Star Trek.
But I refuse to lose ownership and control over it. The Cloud has a lot of advantages. Ownership and control is not one of them. It’s basically a data tenement, and they’re the landlord. And ultimately, it’s an at-will arrangement. They can pull the plug any time they like, and what are you going to do about it? They can do it directly, or they can do it indirectly. The deprivation is the same either way.
Don’t think this can’t happen. We used Netflix in their very early days, back when they were shipping DVDs. And then they stopped streaming and offering many of the family friendly shows and movies we liked. And then their catalog turned really ugly. We dropped them, bought the shows and movies, keep them on local storage, and no one will ever take them from us again.
And then there’s something even more insidious.
Try watching the old Tom & Jerry cartoons from the 1940s. They’ve all been hacked up because ‘correctness’. Like them or hate them, they no longer resemble the original works anymore. Censorship and editing the past is a very real thing again, even in America. Don’t think it can’t happen with books, too. Ideas, even bad ones, are still worth sharing and having meaningful conversations about. Whitewashing ideas is itself a very bad idea.
Someone once said in the last Century it’s just a small step to go from burning books to burning people. I believe there’s still some truth in that.
Some stuff is very rare, and no one offers it anymore. It’s become unobtanium. A couple are items where the old masters have been damaged or destroyed. But we still have our local copies.
Digitizing old books is a good idea. As long as you still control the pdfs, scans or pictures. Then you still control the words, the thoughts, and the ideas, intact. And can pass them on to your descendants. Someday, they might need them to show them the way back home.
Otherwise, you are at the mercy of whatever changes and censorship the future brings.
EclipseRedRing
I smell like a Christmas pudding
This is certainly not a new phenomena - in my 1959 Doubleday copy of Walkabout by James Vance Marshall the Aboriginal boy is referred to as 'darkie', in my 1973 paperback version this has been changed to 'bushman'. I can recall seeing the books my daughter was reading at school less than ten years ago and noticing that many had been edited or rewritten to remove words, ideas, and even characters that are now deemed unacceptable. And yet, at the same time some of the new books that the school provided contained themes and language that I considered to be inappropriate and morally wrong. Maybe I am just not moving with the times - fine by me.
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- #80
Answer:
Drink
Drink
Drink
You bring up all valid points but we will just have to jump off that bridge when we get there.
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