So I am in the process of getting all my old cassette tapes into the digital age. Once I am able to get my music digital I plan on ditching the tapes. This will save me A LOT of room.

Does anyone know of any legit companies that buy old cassettes or should I just trash em? Even if I could get a buck a piece.... Id have close to $600 to put towards debt once Im finished with the converstion process.

I assume you're talking about commercial cassettes. I suppose there could be a market for them but I can't imagine it's very big -- for one thing, relatively few people have cassette decks anymore, and for another there are the issues of sound quality, tape wear, and damage over time. Audiophiles and collectors would be more interested in old LPs.

I have a few collectors' item cassettes, such as private artist releases or pre-release tapes of LPs, and I haven't even been able to sell those via the artists' fan clubs.

Thats kinda what I was thinking... I guess off to the trash they go.

Unless you are re-buying the music in a digital form, it's not really ethical to sell the physical media. To me it's not worth the 50 cents or so I would get for an old tape or CD to violate that.

If you are rebuying and/or this doesn't violate your ethical code... I've gotten Half Price Books to take some old tapes. They don't tell you what they're giving you for invidual items, but it seemed to work out to maybe 50 cents each.

I don't understand why it would be unethical to sell old tapes, unless they were bootleg to begin with. There is nothing unethical about selling a commercial tape!

The unethical part is that the OP made digital copies, so selling the tapes theoretically deprives the artist of a sale. Two copies now exist where only one did before.

However, given that I don't think commercial cassette tapes are even available for sales in stores anymore (I haven't seen any in years, at any rate), it's probably not a big deal.

Ah, ok, I get it now...and I agree.

First let me set something straight... the OP (Me) did not make digital copies. I am in the process of getting digitals (ie CD's). I dont have the time or money to try and digitally remaster the quality of the cassettes into something worthy hanging on to. I still have cassette players around the house but Id rather listen to them on my iPod while working or in the car.

The reason for this thread was to try and find out if anyone knew of places buying old cassettes.

Ah, I think we all assumed when you said you were bringing your cassettes into the digital age that you were digitizing them! That's what I've been doing with my cassette collection, but 99.9% of my cassettes are field recordings; I only have a handful of commercial cassettes.

Digitizing does take time, although I have a CD recorder as part of my stereo system that does a remarkably good job -- the final CDs actually sound better than the original cassettes, without me having to do any work other than pressing a button or two. But it is a drag to label and add other info to each track; that's what slows down the process.

I did say "if" and "unless." You could try selling them as a lot on craigslist or ebay.

I am in the same process. Is it unethical to borrow a CD from the library and rip it, then destroy the tape? I did purchase the music at one point. So it fits in with my ethical standard for myself.