Selling choral music on ebay

Comments

1. Ryan Kelly says

   January 3, 2011 at 6:58 pm

   I used to save every single octavo I owned, thinking that even if I didn’t like it now, my opinions could change later, and I might need the piece. The older I got, the more I realized that I could identify quality music from its opposite. And though I might not direct a children’s choir now, I could identify quality 2-part music, so I still keep that. Likewise, I can identify poor quality children’s choir and university choir music, and know that I will NEVER program it. So, at conventions, I have a stack of of quality (keep), unsure quality (to keep and review again), and poor quality (which I immediately dump, recycle, or give away).

    

   I have found, though, that undergraduate music-ed students love to get new music they haven’t seen; so, now I often keep a stack of my duplicates, discards, and convention extras for a year or two, and then at our ACDA student chapter meetings I put them out as a free stack for those who want them. Usually the extras are gobbled up.

    

   Long story made short–I keep GOOD music, even for level-choirs I don’t direct, as in the future I might need a library of that and would otherwise be in a poor position to start collecting. I discard BAD music regardless.

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2. Allen H Simon says

   January 3, 2011 at 2:27 am

   I don’t know how you came by this idea. Nonprofits sell stuff all the time. Ever been to a UNICEF store? If they give away the assets, or give away the money they get from asset sales, then there would be restrictions on that. But selling something is just changing one kind of asset (something tangible) into another kind (bank balance). IRS publication 557 (which summarizes nonprofit law) only refers to selling assets in the case of dissolution of the corporation. (Here’s the California equivalent.) Large nonprofits often maintain investment funds of stocks and mutual funds and the like; they’d have a big problem if they couldn’t liquidate them as needed.

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3. Alan Davis says

   January 3, 2011 at 1:01 am

   I have well over 700 pieces in my library. Im 25 years old and hope to eventually have 3 or 4,000 individual pieces of choral music. All mine is cataloged and I have (5) copies of each piece. The J.W.Pepper store people use to think I was crazy coming in there (when i was 19, 20, and 21) and buying $100’s of choral music every couple of weeks!

    

   Hoarding tendencies, sure…. but for the purpose of our own education and further literature understandings, I’d say its all totally worth it!  

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4. Bill Paisner says

   January 2, 2011 at 8:30 pm

   I’m going to go out on a poorly-supported limb here and raise the issue of whether non-profit public benefit corporations (as many choruses are) are allowed to sell significant numbers of assets to the general public. At least in California, it’s my understanding that music and other musical assets purchased by the corporation or donated to it are “held in trust” for the people that the corporation benefits and because of that can only be sold or donated to like organizations, not private citizens.

    

   I would like a musical lawyer in the field of non-profit law to comment on this. If I’ve got it entirely wrong, I’d like to know.

    

   Bill Paisner

   Director, Southwest Women’s Chorus

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5. Christopher Hoh says

   January 2, 2011 at 11:11 am

   I have the same symptoms but don’t see it as a problem!  Although the 30 unopened cartons from a music library discard that clutter our basement do create some tension at home…  Someday it will all be a great, organized library to bequeath.  And until it’s all catalogued, Death can’t come a-callin’, right?  

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