Do you have old 45 or 78 rpm vinyl records or audio tapes that you’d like to convert to CD or MP3? Reclaim Media and Ferris Mastering both offer such conversion services if you want to farm out this work. [Update March 2013: Reclaim Media closed on January 1, 2013. They are no longer an option for conversions. Other references to them in this article have been removed.]

[Update January 2015: FerrisMastering now appears to be closed as well. References to them in the article have been removed.]

You could be thinking that $10 or $12 per record is a lot if you want to convert 20 or 50 or even 100 records. That’s true. These services aren’t the best choice for records which could be replaced by buying a CD or MP3 versions from the iTunes Store or other online services. These services make sense for rare recordings and in other circumstances.