How many albums is enough albums in a collection?

RHANDMJ said:
For the most part, I brought them in batches to a local store I know well and trust. They give usually 50% of Discogs median, sometimes more for very rare, occasionally less for very common. That is what you should look for from a used vinyl store.

I do a list of stuff in Excel before I take it to the store, listing the records and Discogs median, and give that to them as a reference. Saves them time, and with my stuff, they don't need to go through each record to check condition, as they already know mine will be NM.
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Awesome. Thank you.
 
I think of my music like I think of my books: more as a library than a collection. It isn't about getting as much as having, and isn't about having as much as enjoying. I have a child, so that factors into my curation and what I keep/let go of, in addition to what I like, what I think is important, what I enjoy listening to on vinyl.

I have... about 9 kallax cubes of records? I don't have space for many more. It feels like a reasonable number for this point. I have a handful I need to PIF, and eventually I'll probably take a stack to a local for store credit, and that keeps room for the 6-12 records I buy a year.
 
GritNGlitter said:
I think of my music like I think of my books: more as a library than a collection. It isn't about getting as much as having, and isn't about having as much as enjoying. I have a child, so that factors into my curation and what I keep/let go of, in addition to what I like, what I think is important, what I enjoy listening to on vinyl.

I have... about 9 kallax cubes of records? I don't have space for many more. It feels like a reasonable number for this point. I have a handful I need to PIF, and eventually I'll probably take a stack to a local for store credit, and that keeps room for the 6-12 records I buy a year.
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You're going to need to run those by me first :ROFLMAO: Tradsies?
 
Fun thread.

I think the gist is there are no wrong answers. Whatever works for you is the right answer.

I'm lucky to have a large space dedicated to all things audio so I've never really had to make a tough decision based on amount of storage. My collection is around 5K. At the same time, for the most part, I've kept it intact over all these decades so it's been a slow accumulation. Hey - I still have the first LP I ever bought back in 1973. And yes - my wife is a saint.

I don't buy just to buy. There are a few artists I'm passionate about and I might have a play copy and an archive copy, but that aside, I've listened to every record in my collection. I'm in it for the music, not a vinyl color, a limited edition or a numbered pressing. I feel there are lots of folks who care more about FOMO, the package and the pageantry rather than what's in the grooves. And while I think that's missing the whole point of this hobby, I stand by my statement in line #2.

I've done some limited purging in the past, mostly during college and mostly based on economics. I'd tire of a record a bit, something would come out that I felt was more appealing and I'd do the trade-in. With that said, there have been many instances where I eventually repurchased things that I traded in or sold. Over time, I decided the trade/sell one or two to get a new one wasn't for me. I'd ask myself if the credit I'd receive for a record out valued owning and enjoying that record. Most times, the answer was no.

My favorite part of hanging on to all this stuff over the years is the constant thrill of rediscovery. I can put down a record for a month, a year or decades, come back to it and immediately get transported to a specific moment in my life and experience the thrill of hearing it again for the first time. You can't beat that visceral, emotional reaction.

That's what works for me. You do you.
 
Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
My favorite part of hanging on to all this stuff over the years is the constant thrill of rediscovery. I can put down a record for a month, a year or decades, come back to it and immediately get transported to a specific moment in my life and experience the thrill of hearing it again for the first time. You can't beat that visceral, emotional reaction.
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This is 100% what I love about it as well. My memory isn't typically that great but almost every album that I pull out from years ago can transport me to the time I bought/first listened to it. It's quite crazy as usually these memories are incredibly detailed, I remember what was going on at that point in my life, where I was, what I was eating, etc.

Pretty great reason to hang on to some really.
 
wmeugene said:
This. I have found that the time and aggravation in selling isn't worth it for less than $25-30 an LP. So the PIF thread can be super helpful to unload something you don't have a need for, but is still a desirable product.
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Agreed, and actually if said album/s don't appeal to anyone in the PIF thread I have them accumulating in a separate bin. There aren't many, and to this point nothing has actually made it to my local, and to @Yer Ol' Uncle D's point, these aren't "Wanted" albums so to speak and if any local would give me much for them would be a shock.
 
I'm nearing 1100 and am running out of space. We decided on building built-in shelves in our family room in a year or so, and once we do that, that will dictate my maximum storage...but I think I'll try to hover around 1200 now.

But before that happens I am going through my collection and deciding on things that, while I don't listen to often, I want to keep but not necessarily to play often or at all.
A good example is my mom's Carly Simon collection. And when I first started shopping for vinyl again I bought stuff like The Dells, Big Joe Turner, The Platters, Jackie Mason. I don't reach for any of those often, so they might all become milk crate storage items. Which means I'll have my displayed/easily playable collection plus my crate digger collection in the basement.

I had to slow down from what I did when I first joined VMP, I bought so many artists' records based on one song I previewed. So lately my buying habits lean more towards artists I already like; whether a current artist's new album or finishing up/adding to collections of Radiohead, Tom Waits, The Stones, etc.

And I've been trying to PIF some of my albums, but it seems the albums I deem clunkers, everyone else does as well. I think I have like six unclaimed PIFs in my 'to sell or give away' bin.
 
Last month I topped 1000 and it had taken years to get there. I thought I'd feel a relaxation and sense of collecting accomplishment. There was some of that but there are still so many that I really would like to have someday and have been really lucky in that wherever we've moved there's always been plenty of space for what I have and more. I think that the only correct answer is what you can afford balanced with what you have to spend. Also, I guess whatever you can get away with keeping that doesn't rankle the person/people you live with too much (My wife is very understanding - I also collect books/novels, comic books, prints/posters, sneakers and looking in my top desk drawer today...apparently busted-ass old iPhones). Parenthetical aside - my Discogs wantlist hovers around 6000 records, for whatever that info may be worth.
 
Joe Mac said:
Honestly I’d have to move out of Dublin or be buying with someone else to afford a house so I’ve just got to make do with what I have and to be honest if bedroom 2 does change use it’s likely to be to a WFH office with a sofa bed given the last year.

Moving out of Dublin could potentially get me more space but I’m not sure that as a single person that it would make the most sense sanity wise 😂
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Do you know any of the TRY people?
 
Corycm said:
Quantity of my collection, particularly some arbitrary top end number, literally never crosses my mind. I’m not saying I buy every flat black thing that crosses my path,
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But you're also not not saying that...
Matt M said:
You're going to need to run those by me first :ROFLMAO: Tradsies?
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I usually offer things to you first 😂. I'm so sad you're moving out of the 'hood.
Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
My favorite part of hanging on to all this stuff over the years is the constant thrill of rediscovery. I can put down a record for a month, a year or decades, come back to it and immediately get transported to a specific moment in my life and experience the thrill of hearing it again for the first time. You can't beat that visceral, emotional reaction.
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I love this too. I have a bunch of my parents' old albums, and while some of them are definitely the worse for wear, they take me way back.
ranbalam said:
I am going through my collection and deciding on things that, while I don't listen to often, I want to keep but not necessarily to play often or at all.
A good example is my mom's Carly Simon collection.
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Yes, this is a thing for me too. Some of my folks' old albums are almost purely sentimental. I have one LP storage box and I'm thinking of getting another for keeping those and off-season Christmas records in the basement.
 
RHANDMJ said:
I have over 4,500 records. If I take my age, remaining life expectancy, time in a week available for listening - fact: I don't have enough time left to listen to them all.

Regardless, I take some comfort in having them all there. They are in some ways a guidepost for my life.

The pandemic has been great for my record collection. I have gone through 3 culls at least, and probably shifted out 500 or more records. Value was not a consideration. Whether the record has stood up, is one I really like, or will ever listen to again was the criterea. When I started looking through my collection, I was surprised at what I found. I had a fair number of duplicates - all gone now. I had some that, looking back, I think - why did I ever buy that? It was liberating.

At the same time, the pandemic brought me to reconsider my collection overall. I used the opportunity and the extensive cull to fill gaps and get into stuff I should have years or decades ago. I spent more time and money on Discogs in 2020 that I have in all the years before.

I have discovered more music in the past year than I had in ages, and rejected a fair bit as well. It has been a journey of evolution and revisiting - that I may not have taken had I not been stuck at home.

All in all, I now have a more diverse collection with the gaps mainly filled and the filler all gone.

At some point, I was collecting. Now, I am not. I am back to exploring. That is much more interesting.
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I loved all the points in this point
 
Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
I'm lucky to have a large space dedicated to all things audio so I've never really had to make a tough decision based on amount of storage. My collection is around 5K. At the same time, for the most part, I've kept it intact over all these decades so it's been a slow accumulation. Hey - I still have the first LP I ever bought back in 1973. And yes - my wife is a saint.
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Pretty much nailed me on this one. Brothers in Arms we are. One check mark ✅ for each point with a double check ✅✅ for the “Wife is a Saint”. :-)
 
This has been a fun read. Echoing many others -- I'll say that "right" is deeply personal and I certainly don't have a number. At this particular point, I'm not actually sure how many records I own? I just started entering things into discogs and given that data, plus eyeballing the remaining storage, I think it is probably 1300 - 1400 (ish, +, ?) I'm guessing that 700+ are jazz. I'll report back if this is still going when I finally get things entered.

What has been more interesting for me has been reading the views on how people get to valuation, what has made for responsible collecting, etc. I find that I'm a little all over the place and that 2020 had different filters to it. I sort of struggle within these ranges:
  • I like supporting artists and music. I've been incredibly lucky in my life and given how much music impacts me emotionally and how grateful I am for it, I try to buy artists in support of it all. This has sometimes resulted in my buying mediocre records at the merch table at the show, and bad impulse decisions (see whisky, also bourbon, and well, beer... wait... gin!) late at night. I'm mostly trying to do better at that -- but I like the memento and point in time for the shows. For 2020, sometimes it was a desperate need to connect or support that art -- and maybe some of those choices might be a disappointment (TBD) but they will always be a part of that year
  • Comparative math is deadly: I live in Boston and a cocktail can be $12-18. I don't drink expensive wine -- but I have friends for whom that is their jam. When I think of the joy that I'll get from spinning a record, I've often looked at it through that filter in terms of "absolute joy" -- almost always, music wins that math. This sometimes has ended up with clutter, but hell -- I'm not drinking it.
  • Great design is sometimes about restraints: I think that actively building toward something within a construct of limitations or rules can give you the opportunity to learn more about areas because the filtering forces a different decision process. I've watched some on here building a consciously great collection of jazz OGs, or pink floyd, or >>insert here<< and I'd like to tailor my purchasing more in that direction. It's hard though because it all gives me so much joy... but it would be an interesting vein to explore and see what I might learn
  • Jazz is transcendent for me: There is little that for me "feels" like a great jazz record. I can comfortably say I have regretted only a small percentage of the jazz records I've purchased overall and the ones that inspire are -- for me -- like little else
  • It is all history, personal and collective: From my life, to a point in time collectively, to when those things meet and owning that can be fun -- many times I wish I'd started down an originals path, but each record still a marker in life
  • Kids: I've got a lot of passions around music that I absolutely don't listen to around my young kids because of either content or just tone. That's shaped my buying for 5+ years and is probably going to have an influence for at least 5 more. I'm very interested to see how that evolves and how it changes my collection. Be it Rollins Band Hard Volume, or just Curtis Mayfield's (Don't Worry) If there's a hell or well...lots, and lots, and lots -- some of it is just on the horizon for them -- and I'm excited, even if my shelf space isn't...
Final note...I've collected music ever since I first had my own money to spend. I got rid of vinyl on an early move as I'd already lost the turntable. As CDs became the default I started buying those. At one point I consolidated the CDs to books/sleeves -- and I really lost something.

While space and finances permit, I won't make that mistake again with records. In terms of culling -- I'm closer to a PIF...
 
GritNGlitter said:
Yes, this is a thing for me too. Some of my folks' old albums are almost purely sentimental. I have one LP storage box and I'm thinking of getting another for keeping those and off-season Christmas records in the basement.
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Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
I can put down a record for a month, a year or decades, come back to it and immediately get transported to a specific moment in my life
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This is totally helping me decide how to create some space. I'll create my underground library...and log it as such.

By the way, great thread @AnthonyI
 
ranbalam said:
This is totally helping me decide how to create some space. I'll create my underground library...and log it as such.

By the way, great thread @AnthonyI
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Thank you :)

...........and this part of the conversation has actually got me thinking of separating out the albums that I want to keep, but aren't in "heavy" rotation so to speak. Or possibly pulling out my blues/Jazz/Soul into its own smaller 2x2.

Where there's a will, and an understanding wife/partner, there is a way ;)
 
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