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Estimate how much money you have wrapped up in your music collection

How much money do you have wrapped up in you music collection?

  • 10 - 1000 bucks

    Votes: 20 11.3%

  • 1001 - 3000 bucks

    Votes: 16 9.0%

  • 3001 - 5000 bucks

    Votes: 19 10.7%

  • 5001 - 10000 bucks

    Votes: 40 22.6%

  • 10001 - 20000 bucks

    Votes: 42 23.7%

  • 20001 - 50000 bucks

    Votes: 28 15.8%

  • 50001 - 1000000000 bucks

    Votes: 12 6.8%
  • Total voters
    177
BOUXY said:
Earlier I posted "TOO MUCH" From what I've seen so far I'm not he only one!It's your money to do what you want with it but c,mon this doesn't make any sense in my opinion at some of the numbers being posted here.Get real!When is enough enough?Most everyone here with these huge collections won't live long enough to hear everything they have let alone buying more?:)
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Fixed it for you.

Passing judgement on others? C'mon.
 
BOUXY said:
Give me a break! It is you passing judgement on me and for what,speaking the truth/reality of it all:)
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Then ask it as a question as to why someone has a collection so large instead of a condemnation.
 
Erik Tracy said:
Then ask it as a question as to why someone has a collection so large instead of a condemnation.
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Okay,no better yet why don't you go fly a kite!Condemnation my A! It takes all kinds I guess and besides I don't have to answer to you for my opinion and if you don't like it then BUTT out:)
 
Erik Tracy said:
You can also just type in the barcode number in their search engine and it *should* get a match for you.

I don't know about classical metadata, but it should. The rock listings have everything from writing credits, musicians, recording plant, etc.
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There is no standard for metadata for classical recordings, and usually it's a mess. Most cataloging software was designed for pop music. For classical music, is the "artist" the composer, conductor, orchestra, or soloist? I have a recording of one of the most common works (Beethoven 9) that is impossible to find via the audio player that came with my Windows 10 PC, because the "artist" is populated with the soprano soloist. The metadata doesn't show "Beethoven" or "Symphony 9" anywhere.

If I could use a wireless barcode scanner to scan my CDs (and SACDs) into discogs, and discogs would correctly populate all relevant fields I'd want to search on, and then I could export that to Excel - that would be fabulous.

Has anyone tried this? If not, I'll experiment in a few weeks when I have more time.

Thanks
 
twiiii said:
Today I buy LP's and a few CD's a record stores that specialize in LP's from the past. Which I can buy any where from 3 to 6 dollars a piece. New LP's over $20,00 each don't interest me. If I'm going to pay that much they better be direct to disc recordings or I'll buy CD. I bought all my Telarc CD's for cost directly from the rep. I can remember buying top of the line LP's back in the 70's at anywhere from 2.99 to 4.34 whole sale. So I have spent a lot less than MSRP. But off the top of my head I know the number of CD's, SACD's, DVD-a and LP's I have and multiplied by the average selling price when in stores. But what about the 1600 DVD's I didn't value. Some of those are strictly music performances, Basie and the like. There is the Jazz collection from PBS, too. Should they be counted? There are the 100 or so live boot legs. Then there is the 500 or so dubbed copies of LP's from the long gone first collection that are now dubbed to CD. I don't personnaly place any value on them. Compared a few CD reissues, some are better, some are worse. . How do I place value on them?
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I forgot about my DVDs too... I have less than 50 of those that are music performances (I have the PBS jazz collection also) .

I guess just ball park your cost. The main objective was to see if we most of us have more wrapped up in the music than the gear. There have been some that do not.
 
BOUXY said:
Earlier I posted "TOO MUCH" From what I've seen so far I'm not he only one!It's your money to do what you want with it but c,mon this doesn't make any sense at some of the numbers being posted here.Get real!When is enough enough?Most everyone here with these huge collections won't live long enough to hear everything they have let alone buying more?:)
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I think my family and I easily listen to 2-3 albums a night. This is mostly done on a 60s tube stereo in our dining room. I have a 3 and 5 year old, and I try to offer them an alternative to T.V. When I was younger, I could listen to 5-6 albums after dinner before going to bed.
So doing the math. If I have 10000 albums, and I only listen to two albums a day, it would only take me about 13 years. However, I honestly do have those albums that I drop a needle in the middle because it is only that one song that I listen to. I also honestly have probably 5% of my collection that I don't listen to. This 5% is mostly doubles, and back up copies. "TOO MUCH" ... sure you're right. But I am well adjusted, and my kids aren't starving because of my music addiction.
... I just thought of the listening time in the car... yep 10-15 thousand albums is totally doable in just 20 years.
 
robert_kc said:
Thanks Erik. This is very interesting. I just did a quick check on amazon, and barcode scanners (USB or wireless) are relatively inexpensive. Have you tried this method to quickly scan CDs, and have discogs "do the heavy lifting" on cataloging a collection?

P.S. Does discogs correctly list metadata for classical recordings (e.g., composer, conductor, orchestra, soloists, etc)?
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I have always found that using the catalog number can help me find 90% of the album I want information about on discogs. However, I don't know about quickly transferring that information onto an Excel sheet or any other kind of database for that matter.
 
I have been collecting on and off for 30 years. These days I am mostly in the "self-sustaining" camp of expenditures on music. For every 1 LP I have in my collection now at least 3 others were purchased and auditioned and moved on, or just moved on by way of sales or trade-ins to purchase other more desirable LPs. My current collection is around 2500 LPs, 500 45s and another 750 CDs. The LPs mostly came from thrift stores or the purchase of large collections where maybe 10-15% stayed with me. These bulk purchases (100-1800 LPs), were always for literally pennies an LP. The thrift LP's cost between $0.25-1.00 each. I likely have less than 500 LPs I have purchased brand new and without the benefit of money from trade-ins or outright sales. With that said I would have to estimate my total out of pocket expenditure on music in 30+ years as less than $10,000. I voted <$10k, if it is market value of the collection that is being asked, then I would likely have to bump it up a category or 2.

If I understood the OP correctly he was also asking for a comparison between the expenditures on media and equipment. I have easily spent many times more money on music than equipment, even when considering the 4 operational systems I have currently in use. I am listening to my office system now as I type this (Pioneer, ADC, Mission =$34 total), my main system which is by far the most expensive (Luxman, Micro Seiki, Klipsch), cost a total of less than $500. In Master Pig's poll I voted >$2k (barely). To me its about the music, the gear is just a means to that end.

Then again, I am admittedly a cheap bastard...a cheap bastard that likes music! :music:
 
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This is just my vinyl collection - I think I have about 100 CDs still in storage somewhere. Three years of record collecting jazz in Japan helped boost this estimate a bit. I once found about 10 minty King/Toshiba Blue Notes at a recycle shop for 100 yen each. Then again, some of the Discogs cost estimates seem a little fanciful, in my opinion. It lists one title in my collection as selling for $80 in its current condition, which would surprise me. Though I might try test that out before long....

About 320 titles at...My Collection Discogs.png
 
All I can say is I have 4500 CDs ripped to my hard drive and at least 1500 LPs in my listening / living room
Having my music at my finger tips PRICELESS !
 
I was never good at math.

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I am actually quite embarrassed at the amount of money that I've spent on music so far in the 21st century. If I still had ALL of that money, and was able to spend it on something else instead, I would be able to buy myself a seriously fancy cup of coffee ;)
 
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