How Many Records Do You Have?

[bhundu]

What I am getting more and more from these threads is that it's about quality and not quantity. Even folk like www.records who has had 27K records at his disposal recognises that a solid, quality collection of around 800 albums is a good collection to have. I'm in this camp and have been culling and aquiring to get there.

It's a different story if you are a collector and collect albums from that point of view. However if you buy albums for fantastic audio experiences then 800 or so should do the job. I'd put Tim Buckley's "Greetings From L.A." in that 800 if I had a really good pressing of it for example. The Madonna has to go.

 

[JoeESP9]

I have a database of my music collection. It counts them for me. LP's=3423 CD's=1396

 

[Rotoplooker]

Little over 3000 at this point. But I easily have 500 I need to get rid of because I don't like/don't listen to or have too many copies of. I mean who really needs 7 copies of Aja??

 

[superdog]

Mostly 12" singles and EP's. The majority are promos. Genres consist of mostly 80's-early 90's Rap, Hip Hop, tons of dance music and lots of disco. Not stuff that I enjoy. I have found some nice Soul/R&B stuff on LP from the late 60's and 70's that I have added to my collection and have been surprised at the # of sealed copies in the collection. I have sold off roughly 10,000 since I bought the collection. I will say that those who have an interest in this type of music have gone on a buying frenzy when they go through them. There is a guy from Las Vegas who has driven (1300 miles one way) to my house TWICE in the last 2 months and will be here again later this week to buy more. He is flying this time and getting a UHaul for the return trip. Another guy 70 miles away has made 5 day trips to buy and has added about 1500 to his collection.

All in all it has been a very time consuming purchase on my part, but has also been a learning experience and extremely profitable. I also have pulled and set back about 3000 of the more valuable to sell online to suppliment my income when I retire. That is the plan anyway. The best part of this HUGE collection is the condition they are in. I don't recall seeing any scratches on the vinyl on any of them.

Interesting.May I ask what was the story behind the purchase.For all the hassle the guy from Vegas is going through he probably could have bought a lot more by saving the expense of all the trips.Sounds like you have his treasure chest.Like I said in my earlier post I would love a couple thousand lps but being 48 years old with a family I just don't have time for them right now.As you said it can be very time consuming.It would be nice to have them in a controlled temp storage facility.

 

[DougMac]

Count by Condition

I would be very interested to see the previous posters "repost" their totals using this criteria.

Big Bill makes a good point. Below is mostly a WAG, but probably pretty close. It also is for the record only, the figures would be pushed down since I have a lot of pristine records in jackets with ring wear, etc.

2,800 LP's
NM -10% I take good care of my records, but I do enjoy them. Only records that have rarely been played would be included here.

VG+ - 65-70% Almost all records I bought new would fall here. I do buy from thrifts and garage sales, but I rarely buy anything under VG+. Even at that, I find plenty

VG - 15 -20% These are mostly placeholders.

Good - Good + No more than 5%. These would be really rare records. I have a "Bo Diddley Is a Lover" that falls in this category. I can't find a replacement at my price point.

1,100 45's - 45's are a different story
NM - 5% This includes the first release of "Gloria" by the Cadillacs, probably the most valuable 45 I own.

VG+ 60%

VG 25%

Good - Good + - 10% Some of these include the first 45's I bought back when I was 4!

3,000 78's I think 78's shouldn't be rated as strictly as LP's

NM - 3% I just transcribed Ruth Etting's "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes". It looked like it just came from the store and played with no noise or distortion. I also have some Helen Kane and even a Bessie Smith (!) in NM condition.

VG+ - 50% - At best

VG - 25%

Good - Good + - 20%

Fair - 2% I have a few really rare records that are pretty noisy, mostly prewar blues, including "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning by Blind Willie Johnson. I also have some early string band, eg Riley Puckett that's no better than fair.

 

[cactuscowboy]

Of my 20,000+ records, most of the 10,000+ LPs have been cleaned on a RCM, put in fresh inner/outer sleeves, filed in Excel, and listened to. I make notes regarding playgrade of vinyl and cover with a Sharpie on the plastic outersleeve and on the Excel spreadsheet. Approx. 90% playgrade out at VG+ to NM. I've got very few duplicates or crap records on the shelves. I still need to file & organize 2,500+ Classical LPs.

My 45s and 78s are a different story. I've done a rough sort, grouping alphabetically. Most need to be cleaned and listened to. So I've got considerable culling to do.

I don't have a good number on the 45s and 78s but I've got a hunch there'll be about 10,000 "keepers" after I'm done culling.

My collection spans the past 110 years, with nearly every genre of music represented. I like having a large collection and a great selection to listen to.

Here's a photo of most of my LPs on 140 running feet of shelving. The rolling ladder provides access to the two upper rows.

 

[JonL]

SWAG at my collection by condition...
NM - 10%, just as DougMac described
VG++ (almost NM) - 30%. About half of my collection I bought new back "in the day." At least half of those are in outstanding condition still. About 25% of the more recent purchases are also that good.
VG+ 35%. This would be the bulk of my recent purchases and about half of my original purchases. This category includes records with some groove noise, pops and clicks, or very minor inner groove distortion/mistracking wear.
VG- 15%. More groove noise, more mistracking wear.
G 10%. Stuff that's not great to listen to because of condition, but keeping 'till better copies show up.

 

[henkuk]

Of my 20,000+ records, most of the 10,000+ LPs have been cleaned on a RCM, put in fresh inner/outer sleeves, filed in Excel, and listened to. I make notes regarding playgrade of vinyl and cover with a Sharpie on the plastic outersleeve and on the Excel spreadsheet. Approx. 90% playgrade out at VG+ to NM. I've got very few duplicates or crap records on the shelves. I still need to file & organize 2,500+ Classical LPs.

My 45s and 78s are a different story. I've done a rough sort, grouping alphabetically. Most need to be cleaned and listened to. So I've got considerable culling to do.

I don't have a good number on the 45s and 78s but I've got a hunch there'll be about 10,000 "keepers" after I'm done culling.

My collection spans the past 110 years, with nearly every genre of music represented. I like having a large collection and a great selection to listen to.

Here's a photo of most of my LPs on 140 running feet of shelving. The rolling ladder provides access to the two upper rows.

Wow, simply wow.

 

[www.records]

Interesting.May I ask what was the story behind the purchase.For all the hassle the guy from Vegas is going through he probably could have bought a lot more by saving the expense of all the trips.Sounds like you have his treasure chest.Like I said in my earlier post I would love a couple thousand lps but being 48 years old with a family I just don't have time for them right now.As you said it can be very time consuming.It would be nice to have them in a controlled temp storage facility.

I answered an ad on CL for a collection of 25,000 records that had belonged to a radio DJ. The DJ had passed away about 5 years prior and his brother had put them into a storage unit. After 5 years of paying the storage fee, he was a little tired of it and donated it to a small youth organization, which I am sure the storage bill went along with it. The collection was so large the guy who headed up the youth organization decided it was much too large of an undertaking and listed it all on CL. I was the first to answer the ad. The guy who listed them made a rough guess as to how many there actually were. So we counted how many was in a box and there was 115 in that box. There were 232 boxes total. So we figured it was closer to 27,000 total.

As far as the guy from Vegas, I spoke with him again today and his plans have changed and he will be driving again, will be here Sunday and will pull a Uhaul trailer back with his black booty (records). Whoaaaaa, that didn't come out right. He will rent a trailer here to haul this trips purchase in. He is interested in purchasing 6-7000 this trip, plus at least 1 high $$$ one I found in the collection. I couldn't imagine driving that far ONCE to buy records, let alone making 3 trips. Addiction runs deep.

As far as age, I am 56, married with 3 grown kids and 3 grandkids. I spent countless hours going through this collection on my 2 days off each week. The bad thing was, I don't know anything about these genre's of music, so I had to do a lot of research on what was rare and desireable, so I could keep those aside. They have been stored in my 2 car garage, which does have a couple of vents from the central units to help with the extremes in temp, but I can tell ya it got damn cold this winter when I was in the garage going through those boxes.

 

[gillsev]

Of my 20,000+ records, most of the 10,000+ LPs have been cleaned on a RCM, put in fresh inner/outer sleeves, filed in Excel, and listened to. I make notes regarding playgrade of vinyl and cover with a Sharpie on the plastic outersleeve and on the Excel spreadsheet. Approx. 90% playgrade out at VG+ to NM. I've got very few duplicates or crap records on the shelves. I still need to file & organize 2,500+ Classical LPs.

My 45s and 78s are a different story. I've done a rough sort, grouping alphabetically. Most need to be cleaned and listened to. So I've got considerable culling to do.

I don't have a good number on the 45s and 78s but I've got a hunch there'll be about 10,000 "keepers" after I'm done culling.

My collection spans the past 110 years, with nearly every genre of music represented. I like having a large collection and a great selection to listen to.

Here's a photo of most of my LPs on 140 running feet of shelving. The rolling ladder provides access to the two upper rows.

Very Impressive Cactuscowboy! That's the kind of wall I need for my collections! :thmbsp:

 

[kaplang]

More then I need but less then I want. :yes:

 

[vinylover]

I've got about 1500 LP's but I need many more. Lots of these were purchased by me and my brother when we were young (35+ years ago).

 

[truetone36]

A little over 3,000 here.

 

[kurtgo]

Around 1,800. Some I have (10%) I don't care what condition they are in. As long as I'm alive I 'm a' gonna keep'em. Or replace them when I can find them. Rest are all in very good condition. Mostly rock, 10% jazz of different types and some classical. Other is crap like disco, pop and somehow 1 $@$^%# country and western album.

 

[valve_amp]

i had about 2000 now im down to around 500 .not sure what happened to the rest of them...i have alot of duplicates though.
i have like 4 copies of chicago v1

 

[superdog]

I answered an ad on CL for a collection of 25,000 records that had belonged to a radio DJ. The DJ had passed away about 5 years prior and his brother had put them into a storage unit. After 5 years of paying the storage fee, he was a little tired of it and donated it to a small youth organization, which I am sure the storage bill went along with it. The collection was so large the guy who headed up the youth organization decided it was much too large of an undertaking and listed it all on CL. I was the first to answer the ad. The guy who listed them made a rough guess as to how many there actually were. So we counted how many was in a box and there was 115 in that box. There were 232 boxes total. So we figured it was closer to 27,000 total.

As far as the guy from Vegas, I spoke with him again today and his plans have changed and he will be driving again, will be here Sunday and will pull a Uhaul trailer back with his black booty (records). Whoaaaaa, that didn't come out right. He will rent a trailer here to haul this trips purchase in. He is interested in purchasing 6-7000 this trip, plus at least 1 high $$$ one I found in the collection. I couldn't imagine driving that far ONCE to buy records, let alone making 3 trips. Addiction runs deep.

As far as age, I am 56, married with 3 grown kids and 3 grandkids. I spent countless hours going through this collection on my 2 days off each week. The bad thing was, I don't know anything about these genre's of music, so I had to do a lot of research on what was rare and desireable, so I could keep those aside. They have been stored in my 2 car garage, which does have a couple of vents from the central units to help with the extremes in temp, but I can tell ya it got damn cold this winter when I was in the garage going through those boxes.

Thanks for the response.I am always curious on the story behind huge purchases of lps like that.Now I see the your username fits.

 

[DougMac]

Wow!

Here's a photo of most of my LPs on 140 running feet of shelving. The rolling ladder provides access to the two upper rows.

That's impressive!

Recently when I brought home another haul from the thrifts, my wife came up to me. She said: "My statistics courses I'm taking for my doctorate has got me interested in math again. I've been doing some calculations. Given the number of records you now own and your current age, there's a good chance you won't live long enough to listen to them all!" I got the sense that if I didn't curtail my purchases, she might help her prediction come true!


PS She really is quite tolerant of my hobbies. Her only request is that I don't subject her to the majority of the things I listen to.

 

[tomwil]

Some record collections can't be given away! Even a collection of 56,000 records!!

University rejects massive donation of recordings

 

[Brett a]

I'm quite sure I'm up over 3000 lps at this point. And probably near 300 78's.

Is there a generally agreed upon number of LPs that fit in 12 linear inches? That would seem the best way to count. To just measure their span.

 

[thebeez85]

I'm quite sure I'm up over 3000 lps at this point. And probably near 300 78's.

Is there a generally agreed upon number of LPs that fit in 12 linear inches? That would seem the best way to count. To just measure their span.

at best, wouldn't it be an approximation?..some jackets on my LPs are quite thin compared to others...


..then again, it probably all averages out to be the same..

OH and I have 145(?) need to double check that number...