Looking To Sell Your Metal Records from Europe? Here Is An Example Deal from Greece

I rarely buy collections locally. I usually buy from different cities in the US and even Europe. Here is an example of a deal I made with a guy in Greece to acquire his heavy metal vinyl collection. You can see a tour of it in the video below.

The seller, who lived in Greece, found me through my sales page on this site. He then sent me a spreadsheet and a few photos of the albums, which you can see below. His spreadsheet gave me enough to work with to make him an offer.

I offered him $4000 plus shipping, which he agreed to. We haggled some about the payment method, he wanted me to send a wire, which would have been very foolish. To avoid scammers, I pay for everything upfront via PayPal using buyer/seller protection, making 99% of these deals go smoothly. The seller protection acts as an escrow for two people who want to do business that will never meet. Seller protection locks me into the deal and keeps the other party honest by using PayPal as an unbiased referee.

Fun With Internation Shipping

Normally, when shipping internationally, your best bets are either FedEx or DHL. DHL is a bit more expensive, but is slightly more reliable. FedEx does the job nearly as well, but for a bit less. Both services are available in most countries. For some reason, the seller had trouble finding a decent price, and normally, I would negotiate by calling local agents. This was difficult, considering the language barrier. The seller found air cargo through Delta, and the price was decent, so we gave it a shot.

Everything arrived fairly quickly and packed very well. Even though the shipping through Delta was a bit cheaper, the fees, taxes, and tariffs piled on made it not worth it. To add insult to injury, a rude agent at Customs and Border Enforcement forced me to go through a customs broker to clear the shipment. Fortunately, I was able to locate one who did a great job. If you ever need a customs broker in Los Angeles, I highly recommend Omega CHB.

Tour Of The Records

Finally, we get to the fun part: The records themselves. All of the vinyl was correctly graded with no major issues. Most records were hard rock, heavy metal, and thrash from the ‘80s through the ‘90s, with many Greek pressings. The cool thing about Greek pressings is that they are not cheap, unlike many European presses. The construction is very high-quality, and the cardboard isn’t flimsy. The pressing of the vinyl itself is pretty impressive and is as good as anything in the United States. There was also a bit of newer and more modern stuff in there.

Below are some of the highlights.