The not lost but hard to find art of vinyl records


Hello fellow goners, 

I'm looking for some advice and guidance today. For the last six years or so I've rediscovered the joy of vinyl. Over that time i've added and upgraded an analog branch to my streaming only system. Currently it's based on an origin live deck and arm with a few different cartridges, my favorites are hanna sl and an AT-VM760xSL. 

Over this time, I've also managed to acquire a modest collection of records which now fill a few of those ikea shelving units. Now some of you might be thinking aww I remember when I got started. :-) I did say modest. However with just this collection, it's become difficult to account which records or even which pressing or  pressings are a part of the collection. Specially and fortunately, when you have friends and family who know about your passion and want to contribute with purchases for special occasions. Or come over and want to hear album X to which I usually respond with browse the shelves and pick out something you wan to hear. 

To help with this, I started using a spreadsheet of artist, titles and a few other pieces of information but quickly ran into issues with the native spellchecker and my own horrible spelling mistakes. Leading to some funny and not so funny things in the list. 

So I'm wondering for those of you out there with collections of your own, how do you manage it? Does it just reside on a shelf? In your memory (if this is true do you have room for mine too? :-)

Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice.

david  

dsv1

Another vote for Discogs.  I started entering my 55+ year collection 2 years ago.  I don’t view my collection as an investment or part of my portfolio like many Discogs users, so I don’t care if I enter an album with the wrong pressing location or enter it as VG+ when it’s VG.  Once you learn how to enter the catalog number off the spine and select the album, entering becomes a breeze.  I started to create a spreadsheet so my heirs would know what was in my collection when my time comes.  But when I found Discogs I said, "Why reinvent the wheel??"

 

I do take the time to enter the condition of each album, mainly because Discogs keeps a running total of what your collection is worth based on their sales data.  If I’m unsure of the pressing location, I typically pick the most common entry.  That helped me tremendously when increasing the coverage on my Personal Articles insurance policy.

in my head. I don't have that many. 

My challenge is where to store them. If they aren't front row, easily neglected. And there are only so few front rows.

Outlier here. Memory  About three thousand or more, who knows. Once in awhile I buy a duplicate by mistake. Oh, I had that? Still, way more economical in time (money) than sitting down with discogs and cataloguing. If you've had records since a kid, you know what you have. Rock/soul/folk/BG/country in a closet w good light, by alphabet altogether. Jazz in a downstairs system, by alphabet--although once had it by instrument of the leader first then alphabet, much better. Classical in an upstairs listening room by composer--except multi composers, then by soloist, if there is one. Oddball, world music, ambient, electronic its own shelf same room as classical. Stuff migrates. SoI have one cubby each room for "re-filing." All 180g separate shelves in basement office system. Yes, I find separate 180g setup better. Don't want to mess with VTA, I swap out record mat instead. Better option is separate 180g TT in two of the rooms next to the regular. All modest TTs bought used. My SO cares nada about gear in rooms or decor. My issue w Discogs which I did put about four hundred in before stopping, is that I realized I didn't care what I had. It wasn't about the list. It is about the discovery (rediscovery) of browsing for stuff, and choosing something. The actual object is more appealing to do this with than list or streaming scrolling, although I do that to.

I would 2nd/3rd/4th using Discogs to catalog your collection. I started using it a few years ago to catalog my vinyl and CD collection. Primarily to keep track of what I own and see if I have any hidden (valuableish) gems. I find it very useful when I’m doing a cleaning session of vinyl I haven’t cataloged yet, as I’m halfway through my collection. The great thing is that I’ve discovered that some of the jazz and blues vinyl pressings that I inherited from my dad are valuable. And while I don’t plan on selling anything, knowing that information adds to my personal knowledge of the value of my collection, and if I am trying to decide if a reissue or remastered pressing is worth getting.  Another nice thing about Discogs is that I can pull up my collection on my phone while I’m out at the record store. As I’m flipping through crates, I can check to make sure I’m not accidentally buying duplicates of something I already have. I would also add another value of cataloguing in Discogs, based on condition and pressing, is that you have a running "value" that could be used for insurance purposes should you ever need it.  My collection isn't vast - about 2000 in vinyl and CDs. Modest by many of the folks on here, but it's invaluable to me. 

Good luck and have fun!