Record Collection and Music Appraisal services from Music Appraiser Scott Neuman

What is my record collection worth? How can I find the value of my record collection? Should I sell my records at a garage sale? I'm getting divorced, and my wife wants my collection.

Is your record collection worth money? Are you getting divorced? Did you have property damage? Do you have to figure a value for the collection for estate purposes?

Thank you for considering us for an appraisal of your record or music collection. As you know, many records are now valued in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Every day we receive dozens of requests for appraisals. Because of the amount of appraisals that are requested per day, we've instituted a reasonable fee to cover our cost, time and expertise for these appraisals.

Our current fee is $20.00 for the first item of the appraisal and $5.00 for each additional item. For collections with over 200 pieces, please call us at 848-333-8899 for adjusted rates. We accept material to be appraised in either text format or an excel spreadsheet (preferred) format emailed to sneuman@forevervinyl.com. We can take just about any text file and import it into a spreadsheet. We must receive payment for appraisals before any work can begin and payment may be mailed to the address below payable to "Recordweb Communications" or emailed via paypal.com to sneuman@forevervinyl.com or we can also directly accept all major credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, Discover and Amex. 

All information must contain the following information. Artist, Title, Type of item, Condition (1 - 10 is fine with 10 looking like it's brand new), Label and label number. If the item is a 45 single, does it have a picture sleeve? Also, any other comments you'd like to make about the item. Examples could be if it's a promotional or "Not for Sale" copy, if it's a test pressing or acetate, or maybe if it's autographed and so forth.

We can and will travel to your location. We've been all over the country and Canada. For those of you with larger collections, we do work on a rate of $200.00 an hour plus travel, food and lodging expenses if you need us to come to you. This is only by appointment and by reserving our time with a small deposit. Many of our customers have used this service. A deposit of 50% of the estimated job time is required for us to travel to you. Balance due when we leave your premise. Final appraisal forms are mailed back to you within 48 hours or if possible, completed on site.

We also can accept items shipped to us for appraisal. You will be paying for the shipping back to you of the materials. We will charge your credit card for shipping at the time of appraisal. Sometimes it makes more sense to mail a collection to us rather than to spend the time to type out of the information or have us travel to you. It all depends on the size of the collection. Cost is also $200.00 per hour or the $20.00 for the first item and $5.00 for each additional item. We do charge a minimum of $200 to start. After that,  we calculate our fee on whatever is cheaper for you. Feel free to contact us for more information.

CASE STUDY ONE: one of our customers called and mentioned they had a record and picture sleeve on auction with Ebay. The item was about to end and they wanted us to appraise the item because someone had offered them $250.00 to end the auction early. Based on an estimate from a local dealer, they thought that was a fair offer. After reading the description and getting one more piece of information, we made an offer to find a buyer for it for $4500.00 and told the customer the correct retail and wholesale prices. She immediately canceled the auction because someone else had told her the maximum value was only $200.00 to steal the item.

CASE STUDY TWO: We've recently appraised some collections that were valued at $18,000, $86,000 and $295,000 and even over $1,000,000. Our appraisals have been used for charitable donations, estates, property damage, divorces to set a fair division of assets and for resale. We know what the retail market is for pre-recorded music items. Do you know for sure what a record is worth? It doesn't have to be old to be valuable. If it is rare or collectible, we will know it. If you don't know the correct valuation for a record, it pays to contact us for an appraisal before selling a collection or donating it to a charitable organization. Let us know which way you'd like to proceed, and we'll take care of the rest.

CASE STUDY THREE: We recently appraised a collection for property damage. A couple had their collection damaged by water from an upstairs neighbor's pipes. The insurance company offered $1500.00 for about 1500 records. We traveled to the couple's apartment and inspected each record and cover. All had some degree of water damage on the covers. Many were rare Jazz, Rock, and Soul items. Since you will lose almost 90% of the value because of this type of damage, our appraisal came in around $12,000. When presented with this information, the insurance company, rather then go to court with our expert testimony, offered to settle for $9000.00. Over $7500 more than the original offer.

CASE STUDY FOUR: So you come home and see fire trucks in your front yard, half your house is crispy from an electric socket that shorted out. You've lost important papers, photographs, furniture and the record collection you worked 40 years to build. You had over 5000 records, now pretty charred but you can still pick out the covers, the water from the fire department got into everything and you won't be able to recover the collection. Your insurance company will offer .25 cents to $3.00 per record and you are supposed to be happy with that. Your Beatle records, Your Stones records, some jazz from the 50's, your punk 45 collection. your heavy metal collection? It's time to hire us to get an appraisal before you accept that check from the insurance company. Taking the time to make a list or have us come out and inspect the records could increase the value of the collection hundreds of times over. We know what you had and can explain to the insurance company just what the fair market value of that collection was so you can receive the proper settlement, not the one they want you to settle for. We've worked with insurance companies before, and we've worked for insurance companies also. We understand what you are going through so that a fair resolution can be had.

CASE STUDY FIVE: One of my favorites. An attorney called us to place a value on a collection for estate purposes. This particular collection was owned by someone in the music business. For the most part, his estate didn't want the items which contained rare RIAA awards, autographs from artists, CD's, promotional records and books. After appraising the collection for $80,000, we then suggested a consignment company to sell the collection for the estate. The total selling price of the collection via this consignment company was close to $75,000.

CASE STUDY SIX: When is a record not a record, when it's an acetate, a reference disc created by a band or engineer to see how a record will sound before it is pressed into millions of vinyl records. They look very much like a record, but they are heavier than normal and have a nice pungent smell, much like a tire company in Akron, Ohio. They can be one of a kind or just a few made. These have different values, but we recently appraised one and was told it was just a test pressing and we valued it at $500.00 for the particular artist. We also accepted this item on consignment for resale. When we got it in, it was an acetate and not JUST a test pressing. Now, rather than $500.00, we're valuing it at $5000 and up to $50000 depending on the marketplace. Get your collections appraised. Most customers don't have a clue what they have in their possession. A dealer won't tell you and has nothing to gain by telling you and prefers to buy your valuable records for 25 cents to $1.00 each or in most cases, pennies on the dollar. Call me at 848-333-8899 to discuss if you should have your collection appraised or how to get the maximum value in the marketplace for your collection.

CASE STUDY SEVEN: Appraisals were recently done for a Cuban composer's estate based on royalties, a licensing music library worth multi-millions of dollars, a well-known jazz collectors' estate that was donated to a wing of the library of his university he went to, and a private collection of classical music to create a prenup.

Many of our customers rather than sell their collections, will donate them to charity. The benefit to donating your collection to a charity is you get to take the full retail value of your collection off your taxes minus 50%. If your collection is appraised at $200,000 dollars, your tax write off would be $100,000.  You can use our appraisal for this purpose and that write off can be taken over a number of years if you can't use it all in one year. You also get an IRS 8283 tax form from us stating the fair retail value to be submitted with your 1040 form. We are not CPA's and recommend you check with your accountant as to the best way to take your deduction or the amount of years to spread it out. We follow all IRS regulations when it comes to appraising your collection. We can also recommend charities that accept music collections. For more information, click here to visit the IRS rules for collections and who can appraise them.

Referrals!
I'm Christopher Keating and I live in New Canaan CT. I hired Scott Neuman in to appraise a very large and potentially valuable LP/CD collection (4000+ items, 90% LPs) which I had inherited from my father, a former CBS Records executive. The collection , which was largely classical and jazz, but which included a number of rock and folk albums, varied in condition from good to mint/unopened. Scott sorted the collection by condition, rarity, and value, in the process uncovering some truly valuable gems. Scott's work allowed my family to, among other things, distribute this collection in an equitable and intelligent fashion to various relatives, libraries, and charitable institutions. In the process we realized real and tax gains of more than $20,000. I would highly recommend Scott for any such appraisal, as his knowledge of vintage albums is extraordinary.

We look forward to talking to you. 

Scott Neuman
President
Recordweb Communications LLC
Forever Vinyl
1325 Englemere Blvd Toms River, NJ 08757
848-333-8899 (We gladly take phone calls)
Email: sneuman@recordweb.com

Many customers ask about my background. I've been a well known music collector, Radio announcer, DJ and dealer when I opened Back Track Records in Trenton/Ewing, NJ in the mid 80's. I've also had an interest in a record store in Franklin Park, NJ. I was an original Eppraisals.com appraiser. I was a Yahoo Music Expert. I was a registered Ebay auction assistant. I'm a former member of the Universal Autograph Collectors Club. I am a pending member of the American Association of Appraisers. I currently own close to 100,000 albums, 45's, cd's and the like in my personal collection. I've been referenced in many newspapers and magazines and articles for my appraisal work including the NY Post, Oprah.com, Readers Digest, CNN and Rolling Stone Magazine. I am the on call music collectibles expert for the Gannett Newspaper chain's Asbury Park Press. We've been hired by insurance companies for property damage claims, law firms for estate valuation, private companies that have taking items on consignment and want to create the maximum value for the collection in the market place, private individuals that want to put an insurance value on their collection, couples going through a separation that want to put a fair value on a collection and people that want to donate their items to charity and want to make sure they are donating their collection at a fair retail market value. We've also been hired to place collections with the correct consignment dealers that can sell your rare collection without having to give it away. We don't recommend garage sales.

Visit my main website at http://www.forevervinyl.com

Recordappraisal.com

All material copyright. All rights reserved. © 1995-2025 Forever Vinyl™ and Recordweb Communications™. The phrases "Forever Vinyl" and "We Have What You've Been Missing" are trademarks or copyright and are not to be use without our consent. Created by Vinylweb Internet Marketing. Hosted by Recordweb Communications™