My LP collection has been growing, and I've done a good bit of purging. I still have a 3' stack of albums that I want to keep, but they're just not top-shelf, more like something I might want to pull out every couple of years.

Where is the best place to store these? I live in New England, so I have hot summers and bitter cold winters. Attic stored flat in small piles? Unfinished basement? Unfinished garage? Thanks for any suggestions.

My second tier are in boxes and milk crates in the basement, up off the floor as objects on our basement floor tend to get musty if in tight contact with the floor it in the summertime

I keep them in with the rest of my albums as I never know what kind of mood I will be in when it comes to my next selection. I know of a lot of collections that have been ruined from getting wet in the basement or covers that have dry rot from the attic.

I keep mine all together, too. I don't like them separated from each other...they might get lonely away from the rest of the class. :D

and, I would NEVER store any of my records FLAT...

My listening room is a spare bedroom on the 2nd floor. When my LP collection approached 2000, my wife started to get nervous about the weight of the collection on the floor. To ease her worries, I went through and culled out several hundred "2nd tier" records and put them in plastic storage tubs, on shelves, in the basement. The basement is dry 9 months out of the year and we run a dehumidifier during the summer (we live in Southern Maine). I have my collection catalogued in an Excel spreadsheet. Each of the storage tubs are numbered and I reference the number on the spreadsheet so I know where to find a 2nd tier record when I want to. Works for me.

Bags Unlimited sell (if you want to spend a little cash on organization) fitted boxes for vinyl storage as well as dividers for the boxes so you can catagorize them.
http://www.bagsunlimited.com/cart/detail.asp?cat=2&subcat=14&product_id=xlp65

If space is that tight in your vinyl cabinet (as it is in mine), then store them neatly in fitted boxes (benefit of fitted boxes is that they don't allow the albums to lean if you pack them tightly) and throw a package of dessicants in with each box to deal with possible humidy.

You don't want to lay them flat, or allow any lean in whatever storage container you use.

James R.

Bags Unlimited sell (if you want to spend a little cash on organization) fitted boxes for vinyl storage...

Are they a reputable dealer? They pop up at the top of the list when one googles things like this, but I have no experience with them, and I don't know of anyone who has bought from them. I'd be very interested to hear!

Oooh, nice, thanks guys!
I know you shouldn't store LPs at an angle, but why not flat?
I remember reading something about this, but it's lost to me now.

Oooh, nice, thanks guys!
I know you shouldn't store LPs at an angle, but why not flat?
I remember reading something about this, but it's lost to me now.


Because it increases the chances of ring wear on the jackets and wrapping on the disks. If you have a foot high stack of LP's the ones on the bottom have one hell of a lot of weight on them if the stack gets even the tiny bit out of alignment (and I mean the disks not the jackets!) the pressure will be uneven which leads to warping.

I tend to stack my LP's vertically so that a 2' wide shelf has just enough slop to get your fingers in and around an LP easily but not enough that the lp's show any lean what so ever.

Your Mileage may vary

A warehouse. :D

I keep mine all together, too. I don't like them separated from each other...they might get lonely away from the rest of the class. :D


Plus you don't want to damage their psyches any.

Build a static transporter buffer, and keep them in a feedback loop until you're ready to re-materialize them. Just maintain sufficient power so the transporter pattern doesn't degrade and you loose them forever like poor Lt. Franklin... (Star Trek TNG? Episode 130? The one with Scotty and the Dyson Sphere? Anybody?)

*sighs...* I take one look at my ragtag collection of LPs and generally place all of them in a "2nd tier".
Tom