What to do with 43 linear feet of CDs?

So I've got this 1250-album CD collection. With multi-disc albums it's around 1350 actual CDs -- it fills 22 two-foot-wide shelves.

Some of the discs are more valuable than others -- there's a dozen gold MFSL discs, some rarities like NIN Halo 15, lots of stuff that's out of print (whatever that means now), etc. -- but it looks like most of the CDs are available used on Amazon for a few dollars each.

The problem is, my home systems have been streaming-only for five years, and I replaced my last car CD player a few months ago. I don't listen to my CDs anymore, so I've packed them up into nine banker's boxes and disassembled the Boltz racks they used to live on.

But now what? I'm kind of inspired by @k4rstar's sale to just put the whole collection up for sale as one lot, but I don't know who would buy it. I mean, you'd have to be a huge NIN fan to want my 32 NIN albums, for example -- but if you're a big fan, you probably already have a bunch of them.

So I don't really know what to do. I've spent around $10-15K on the collection, so I'd like to get at least a small fraction of that back. Anyone have an idea that doesn't involve listing the CDs one by one on eBay, or burning my house down with them in it to collect the insurance?

 

You might find a solution by selling the whole lot to a local record/CD store. Streetlight Records in San José or down in Santa Cruz might be interested. You might want to take photos of the CDs' spines to give them a sense of the collection.

There may be companies that'll buy your collection and come and pick it up from you, although I doubt you'd recoup much of your outlay.

Failing those options, another might be to sell the MFSL discs and the rarities and then follow k4star's great example.

 

Since you know the albums well, maybe you could pull out the rare ones and sell separately on eBay / Discogs, list complete artist collections as lots at higher prices than you'd get in a firesale or trade-in, and then list large lots or hit up local record shops for the rest of the generic stuff?

You could also consider donating them to a qualified organization and figuring out what a reasonable FMV tax deduction would be (if you itemize; if you take the standard deduction then it's likely not worth pursuing this): https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/eight-tips-for-deducting-charitable-contributions. (This does not constitute tax advice!)

Another option is to ensure you've ripped them and then just store the banker's boxes somewhere safe.