Oops, HOUSE FLOOD!! Audiophile vinyl collection got soaked. Where do we go from here?

So I'm not alone, sorry to hear that.

You're right, I'll take a big hit in divesting.  I fortunately have maintained a vastly detailed collection spreadsheet along with partial pics dating back to the late-70s through early-80s when mostly collected, and invited our homeowners insurance company to take a look while drying still was in process, so will be coming away with at least some amount of insurance settlement.  Coupled with the several thou (who knows?) I expect to get when listing here the remaining mix of roughly 180 pristine never-played-and-once-played-to-tape vinyl in not-pristine-but-presentable covers, overall loss shouldn't be totally terrible.

Appreciate your comments on making sure drying is complete.  The cardboard itself was stuffed with paper toweling to hold open for professional restoration company drying fans to do their job (they were here anyway for drying other portions of the house, so re-aimed to blow over the albums the final four days).  The background drone of fan noise took some getting used to, but they did the job.  One unforeseen result was that many of the covers retained a misshapen open condition after the toweling was removed, but four more days' flattening  under 2' x 2' boards topped with considerable weight mostly resolved that, so as said above, ended up being not-pristine-but-presentable.  Overall we were pretty lucky, dealt with the damage quickly, vinyl was untouched, and covers got back to reasonable respectability.  Some other collector overall also will be pretty lucky on divestiture pricing.  I'll take the hit, but cushioned by the partial insurance recovery, so definitely softens the blow.

Really appreciate all your comments.

I was fortunate in this incidence in several ways, First, the flood water was overflow of a foundation-level sump (sump pump had failed), so was clean and odorless runoff from the outdoor foundation drain tiles. Second, the albums were shelved reasonably high above ground, so only the bottom few inches were under water, moisture wicking up the cardboard sides being the real cause of damage. Third, catching the problem quickly allowed (i) immediate removal of vinyl to safety; (ii) spreading of paper-towel stuffed covers all over the house for individually-effective and odorless drying; and (iii), after several days’ pressing, substantial avoidance of cardboard warp and cover art damage. Finally, it helped that I have maintained over the years an extremely detailed excel spreadsheet for the 173 albums (378 data rows x 30 spec columns,1 row per platter side, many multi-platter albums), so had all that was needed to support a somewhat sort-of reasonable insurance recovery.

On the subject of divesting, responses so far have suggested either eBay or here on Audiogon as listing sites. There’s no way I’ll sell the albums piecemeal (well, other than if really good individual album offers are received), am way too old to administer all that. So I’d appreciate any other suggestions that would ease selling the whole collection as a single lot. Using album prices obtained pre-flood over several recent years from all over the net, the individual album lot total amounted to just over 14k, of which I was prepared to negotiate down to somewhere near half. Now post-flood, with covers substantially respectable and vinyl still pristine, I guess I’d consider some amount near half of the half, at least as a starting point. I certainly don’t want to be giving anything away, and it’s nice to think the value really lies in the music, but realistically collectors are looking at the whole package, so guess I have to be prepared. One thing for certain, it will be an interesting negotiation.

Any other suggestions, please bring them on. Anyone caring to see the spreadsheet, just ask. Again, thanks to all you responders, been a big help in accepting the reality of the thing, and in swallowing hard.