MALDEN, MASS. — In a large — but not quite large enough — warehouse here earlier this month, a young man was shrink-wrapping a set of chess pieces by hand. On the other side of the room, another young man was taking those packages and placing them, along with four vinyl LPs, a sticker sheet and a booklet, into a larger box, creating a somewhat ornate treatment for a deluxe edition of “Liquid Swords,” the 1995 debut album by Wu-Tang Clan’s GZA.

That album went gold in its day but is better remembered as a favorite of connoisseurs. Now some of those same connoisseurs are the minds and hands behind the record label Get On Down, which since 2010 has primarily specialized in deluxe reissues of hip-hop albums, and which has been slowly redefining the role and shape of the reissue in the digital age.

The reissue market, more than the market for new music, tests what it means to be a fan and consumer of music when music itself has declining value — look hard enough, and almost any album one might want exists online, either legally and cheap, or illegally and free.

Given that, a traditional reissue campaign — cramming together previously available material in bulk, and selling it at a premium to die-hards — seems conceptually dead in the water. A logical response to that is to unearth previously unheard material and sell that, but Get On Down takes a different approach.