OK here's how this has gone. When I got into vintage stereo I was up until that time some 47+ years of my life a FM junkie. Happier then shit on a milk house floor (though a colorful metaphor would sound good in my opening statement) to let someone else decide what to stuff in my ears.

Sure we had a few dozen albums stuffed away mostly the wife's as she actually had a decent stereo given to her by her brother around 1976. But nothing that ever seamed to get listened to.

SO I spend a few months and a chunk of change and build what have affectionately become known as "THE SHRINE OF THE VINTAGE PIONEER" I'm happy with what I built I'm happy at this stage with the way it sounds.

SO off to the local CL, Thrift shops and nearby record shows to fill my little shelves with music. At first I go in to it carefully opting for the $1.00 bins and then I find the small collections OH man you can actually buy that much music for that little money.

OK I find a few great deals collections of 70-175 albums costing $40.00 to $100.00. Great I of course start a list (Having collected Model Airplane Magazines for 20 years I know all about buying duplicates that end up sitting in boxes)

So first these collections get dragged home and sorted I pull out the junk the stuff I'd never listen to and of course the damaged and lastly (and this group is set aside for a later sort) the duplicates.

The end result of this work? Well a growing list showing what I consider my collection, a few albums put in a box to give or trade away and yet fewer worth reselling.

I then play a few to see what something I don't recognize might be. Some go in the box some go on the shelf (all carefully sorted by alphabet and in a few cases by artist)

Now I do this a half dozen time I have quite a list almost 500 albums now resting on the shelves. BUT yet it is time for one more sorting (lets see I have done this like 4 times already) This time it's serious the artists I have large collections are put in order of release and the rest are put in alphabetical order even within the alphabetical sort.. I find albums on my list I really don't have while others on the shelves I have but didn't list. I weave in the last collection to be sorted. I have to move albums around a lot as I fill up the shelves (cause I actually have 3 different shelves they all fit on)

I happen to have some really nice heavy covers that came with one of the collections but only the 2 smaller shelves are spaced to allow these larger cover fit into. So these I have to pull off some albums and move others in to them saving them for my Pink Floyd and THE WHO albums. And of course then the lighter weight covers that were on some of those have to be moved where they will do some good.


OK I have them all sorted, arranged, spread out, supported and where I can find what I want in a few seconds. At least until I start cleaning them all in a couple weeks and put them in new inner sleeves and jacket covers which will take up more room so everything will end up shifting again trying to make enough room.

NOW back to the computer and the list I add, move, shuffle, correct my version of the alphabet and delete. Once the list looks to match the albums on the shelf I print it out pages of size 8 font the smallest version I can fold up and carry around and still read nice and quick.

What's worrying me is that this will some how never stop! :scratch2:

I mean the Model Airplane Magazine collection grew to over 4800 issues but except for a tiny few it's virtually done the various titles had a first volume and a last once I had all I was done. Sure there a few I still look for but they are so rare as to show up only a few at a time once or twice a year on ebay if that.

BUT Music and especially Classic Rock and Roll spans from the mid 50's until at least the mid 80's before I loose interest. And the number of bands is mind boggling. So I know I will never be done. Even if I wanted to there would still be more that fit in so nice with what I already have.

It's not the money not the lack of space for storage not the fact I would never be able to catch up in my listening or record washing or buying quality inner and outer sleeves to protect my new music.

It's the damn sorting I'm already real tired of the damn sorting and watching that box full of duplicates grow and grow.

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.....What was I talking about????? Oh never mind. I'll be right back there's an auction for a Janis Joplin I would like on ebay I don't want to miss it. :yuck:


OH shit pretty soon I'll be licking vinyl I just know it!!!!! :yikes:

Too late! You're doing that NOW! :D

This, from a kindred spirit.

I just put 'em on the shelf. Searching gives me something to do while listening and then "hey, forget I had that one!"

What's worrying me is that this will some how never stop! :scratch2:


Just cross out "What's worrying me" and substitute "What makes me happy" and all will be well.

I'm there as well Mark. I am only a year into the hard core collecting, and have already had to re-sort about a half dozen times. Classic rock and Motown are my nitche. I sometimes get confused and buy LP's just because I already have 1 or 2 by said artist...(got damm near 12 rod stewart LP's now :scratch2: ).
Took me and the wife 3 nights to catagorize just my rock stuff on MSexcel, It's a pain for sure when it's time to re-do the list...but it's still fun for us.
I have a solution for the doubles that is great. Every once in a while I build up enough thrift finds for a small complete system. All my friends love listening to my stuff so I offer to put together a nice little vinyl rig for em.
Last one was a nice DD technics TT, Marantz 2218 reciever and some old audio reflex speakers. Set it all up and gave them about 2 dozen of my doubles :music: . They are lovin it, and listening to vinyl just about every night now.

There is a down side though, they are infringing on my thrift route now though....so it aint all peaches an cream :nono: .

Love the vinyl...I will never stop collecting

I actually have a friend of my sons who is a drummer in Oregon States Marching band and I recently ran into him at a record show turns out he collects classic rock so I'll pick up a few to put on ebay for a little fun money and then box up the ones I think he might enjoy and give a college kid on the right track a little music gift.

I hear ya, I started 2 years ago and now I have 2500 LPs. I have a few friends who also listen to LPs so I try to give away my duplicates as soon as I decide which sounds better, I call it my free to a good home pile. :)

My biggest buy was 1200 LPs for $2200 and I put all 1200 LPs in my car in one trip. That was a slow ride home, bottoming out every time I hit a pebble.

Victor

I'm there as well Mark. I am only a year into the hard core collecting, and have already had to re-sort about a half dozen times. Classic rock and Motown are my nitche. I sometimes get confused and buy LP's just because I already have 1 or 2 by said artist...(got damm near 12 rod stewart LP's now :scratch2: ).
Took me and the wife 3 nights to catagorize just my rock stuff on MSexcel, It's a pain for sure when it's time to re-do the list...but it's still fun for us.
I have a solution for the doubles that is great. Every once in a while I build up enough thrift finds for a small complete system. All my friends love listening to my stuff so I offer to put together a nice little vinyl rig for em.
Last one was a nice DD technics TT, Marantz 2218 reciever and some old audio reflex speakers. Set it all up and gave them about 2 dozen of my doubles :music: . They are lovin it, and listening to vinyl just about every night now.

There is a down side though, they are infringing on my thrift route now though....so it aint all peaches an cream :nono: .

Love the vinyl...I will never stop collecting

Excel is really not the way to go if you want to keep track of your LP's. As a computer professional I have seen many people using Excel spreadsheets for what is data base work. Spreadsheets are designed to manipulate numbers.
The kinds of things that a database allows are simply impossible with Excel or any spreadsheet. A properly set up database can keep track of your music collection and allow you to sort catagorize and select anything from your collection. I have been keeping my LP, CD and tape collection in order using a Database I wrote using MS Access more than 7 years ago.
Open Office which is a good alternative to MS Office has a Database as part of the package. It is free from www.openoffice.org . I have been using it in place of MS office which I own. It reads and writes all MS Office file types. I would be glad to help anyone set up a database using MSAccess or Open Office. You would be able to list or look up anything in your collection any way you want. For example; all Yes songs that are longer than 3:00, or every song title that has the word "help" in it. These are things which can't be done with a spreadsheet but a database is designed to do this sort of thing. :cool:

Thanks for the heads up Joe. I'l check it out and give you a shout if I need any advice. Thanks :thmbsp:

Victor I once bought along with a partner almost 5000 model airplane magazines 43 apple boxes. Glad we had a Ford F-250 to haul them in. Damn they were heavy humping in and out of that pickup. We even had to box them up they were still on shelves when we bought them. Sore back day.

I used to sort my albums. Artist, Genre, etc. But then I eventually had over 3000 or so and it took too much time. My wife didn't really like them scattered over the livingroom floor for days at a time. I eventually just decided to have a spot where my favorites are and a spot where the new ones I haven't yet played are. That stack keeps growing. I can tell which stack it is because everything is still in plastic bags.

off topic but i love your new avatar.very fitting :thmbsp:

Hiya Buds,

I sympathize greatly with the lot of you and my heart feels your pain. Being the good guy that I am; I have a solution. It's very easy really. It's a 2 part solution and if followed carefully will give you complete bliss.

1) Pack em up. Pack em in boxes.
2) Ship em all to me.

Since you won't be needing your record cleaning stuff and TTs; I graciously and most humbly will also accept those.

Thank you and pleased to be of service.
cosmicdust.

What's worrying me is that this will some how never stop! :scratch2:
Who said it was supposed to stop? Isn't that what collecting is all about?
If you have money to put food on the table and a roof over your head, and pay your bills to the satisfaction of those whom you owe, what else could possibly be wrong?
Tom

Victor I once bought along with a partner almost 5000 model airplane magazines 43 apple boxes. Glad we had a Ford F-250 to haul them in. Damn they were heavy humping in and out of that pickup. We even had to box them up they were still on shelves when we bought them. Sore back day.
WOW 5000 mags, now 1200 LPs doesn't seem so bad. I was still pretty tired at the end of that day, I can't imagine how you felt.

Victor

Hi Mark;

I can relate to a lot of what you have been going through with the LP collecting. I spent a solid six years of thrift store hunting for vintage equipment. Found many great buys but as you know most of the time there is nothing there in the way of equipment except BPC stuff. However the LPs are always worth going through and picking up something you don't have.

I also had the problem of forgetting what I might already have and also of not knowing if a unknown to me artist would be worth exploring. I looked at a few shareware record collection programs but nothing seemed worth the large amount of setup time needed to enter a growing collection.

What I came up with that really worked well for me was to buy a copy of the Rolling Stones Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll. It lists just about every artist that has ever published and every LP that they had issued, the year, songs on the LP etc. I just went through and highlighted anything I already owned and color coded it for having the Lp or Cassette or CD. That helped a bunch from buying unneeded dups and also finding new artist to try. I would keep the book in the car and use it when I was at a thrift with good LP selections and prices.

I kind of stopped at around 800 LPS several years ago when I stopped the heavy duty thrifting. I too have storage challenges and I may at sometime cut down as many I have only played once after buying cleaning. My upcoming retirement should give me the time I need to better go through them and organize.



Here is a link to the cover page.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/ref=sib_dp_top_fc/104-0586393-1303930?%5Fencoding=UTF8&pageID=S001&asin=0743201205

Lefty

Victor the 5000 mags is only that one collection I bought out of which I got 3800 issues the rest went to the guy I partnered with. My Model airplane mag collection is approx 4800 issues then there are the 7-800 full scale mags and every National Geo from Oct 1914 to sometime in 96 when I quit. OH and the 3-400 Hotrod mags.

Mark,
Judging by your mag collection you are going to have one great record collection. My guess is 5000 LPs by 2010 and you will be in audio heaven on a daily basis! :)

Victor

Actually Victor I'm planning a slightly different slant with the LP's instead of a huge number (in the magazines it was the complete run of a title) I am going to hold my collection to around 500 albums and then keep refining the collection until I have very nice copies of those albums I most like. Being an FM junkie (for like 35 years now hell I been listening to the same radio station most of the time since 1977) I have somewhat narrow tastes. Many times I buy an album that is from a favorite artist but because of little or no air play I don't click with the songs on that album even though I like the artist.

I do have a Plan to increase the allowable storage area for albums but they will have to be in my office which while not far from the Shrine (two rooms away) I will still have to be looking for a specific album to not just pick something from one of the shelves right next to the TT.

That is where the LIST comes in if a friend is over they can thumb through the list and if something they want to hear is not handy I can always go get it. While not having to trip over it for the other 364 days of the year.

I have been thinking about boxing my Sport avaitioon magazine which are on 6 feet of shelves right by my office door. Then by widening the shelves 3" I could fit about 400 more albums into the collection. NOw all I need to do is find aplace for 4 large apple boxes of airplane magazines LOL.

(got damm near 12 rod stewart LP's now :scratch2:


AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! :screwy:

Open Office which is a good alternative to MS Office has a Database as part of the package. It is free from www.openoffice.org . I have been using it in place of MS office which I own. It reads and writes all MS Office file types. I would be glad to help anyone set up a database using MSAccess or Open Office. You would be able to list or look up anything in your collection any way you want. For example; all Yes songs that are longer than 3:00, or every song title that has the word "help" in it. These are things which can't be done with a spreadsheet but a database is designed to do this sort of thing.

Half on-topic, half off here: Wondering if I could use the exact same database software to categorize my music collection and my vintage photo collection. I'd be sorting each collection by different categories, of course, but would the program need to be different? Is it simply a matter of adding/deleting parameters to sort by?

Thanks

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! :screwy:

I don't mind Rod....I even picked up a few Maddona LP's on route home today. If there is one thing I can say about my music preference, it's that it's kinda well spread out :music:
I like the music...what can I say :thmbsp:
Classic rock
Heavy metal
Motown
Jazz
Easy

I'm easy like Sunday morning :banana: