When we all come to that moment of truth when we have to dispose of our cherished record collections, the question arises: What is the market for vinyl records today?
Forbes Magazine wrote in a recent issue: “As CD and digital sales decline in the wake of streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, vinyl record sales are on the rise. In fact, the format has seen 260% growth since 2009. While CDs sit on shelves, vinyl suppliers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand. It may not have seemed possible 10 years ago, but vinyl is back.”
This surge has also impacted the used record market, according to Nick Boor, who has been shipping LPs, 78s, 45s, and reel-to-reel tapes all over the world from his warehouse in Scottsdale, Arizona for the past six and a half years. He is known as the Vinyl Record Dude and has built up an inventory of a half-million records representing all genres. Working 70 hours a week with two employees, he ships an average of 70 packages a day, which amount to 21,000 shipments during the year.
Nick had been running an IT company, but wasn’t happy. A graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh with a degree in industrial design, he got tired of feeling like the fireman who constantly put out other people’s fires. He had been collecting records since his teens which led him to buying and selling records on line. As he described it, “I did it
