Wanted: Your Old Herb Alpert Albums

From ‘N Sync to Neu!, the vast selection at Amoeba Music, with stores in Berkeley and San Francisco, makes it the place to buy new and used music in the Bay Area. With a 45,000-square-foot branch slated to open on Sunset and Cahuenga boulevards in late October, Amoeba recently spent nearly $2 million acquiring 900,000 secondhand albums, CDs, posters and other memorabilia from around the country. In the L.A. portion of the “Record Roundup,” buyers were in the new store space on weekends for 3 1/2 months as sellers lined up bearing milk crates crammed with vinyl memories. “It’s a recycling of culture,” says Amoeba co-owner Marc Weinstein.

Still, a record occasionally gets sent back to the attic: It may be too beat up for resale, or it’s a slow mover. “We’re not judging anyone’s taste,” explains Weinstein. “We just know what sells.” And while a few rare albums command as much as $1,000, an IRA is still a better investment. “The best reason to hang onto records is for romantic value,” Weinstein says. “You either still want to listen to them or you don’t.”

A brief roundup of the roundup

Most-unloaded title: Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.”

Runners-up: The “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease” film soundtracks and, in Los Angeles, the Eagles.

Slowest seller: Easy listening a la 101 Strings.

Could this be a classic?: Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream and Other Delights.” (“We bought dozens, if not hundreds,” Weinstein says.)

“Record” haul: A 28,000-piece private collection in Detroit.

Most heartbreakin’ purchase: 90% of the vinyl collection at the Country Music Foundation in Nashville.

Thrash for your cash: The complete inventory of a Chicago punk rock store.

A city’s vinyl legacy: Recordings from the Sunset Strip’s heavy-metal heyday.

Amoeba’s biggest-ever sale: $15,000 for a recalled Beatles “Butcher” cover.

Why check your old album sleeves?: Dinero occasionally stashed inside.

Another reason: A Lynyrd Skynyrd album contained racy, long-forgotten photos of the seller and an ex-girlfriend. Store buyers passed the snapshots around while the seller shopped.

Next for the sell-back pile: Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and their ilk. “Million-selling pop records become the least valuable,” says Weinstein.