I was standing in front of my record collection the weekend before the movers were set to arrive. We had been through so much together, me and these vinyl discs. The angst filled high school years, the party hearty college years, and on into my early adulthood — my record collection had always been with me. And then, on a whim, I decided to say goodbye.
Sometimes in a fit of shedding off an old life we make rash decisions. (I say ‘we’ because I hope I’m not the only one who does this.) Collections that we promised we’d never part with suddenly get piled together with the bags of old clothes on their way to Salvation Army.
Such was the case with my beloved vinyl collection. When my husband and I decided to downsize our lives in order to go from renters to homeowners, I went on a purging spree like never before. Things I thought I would have with me when I was wheeled into a nursing home I suddenly saw as bulky inconveniences that would take up precious space in our new little home.
And my collection of albums took a lot of space. When we dropped the five crates of records off at Salvation Army, the attendant assumed I was a DJ. "Giving up the dream, eh?" he said. Fact is, I was never a DJ but I do love music and that record collection contained some pretty amazing tunes. Old rare jazz albums, a vast collection of early 60’s soul that had been passed on to me by my aunt — there were albums in there that will never be digitized and re-released on CD or as digital downloads.
Do I regret my decision to ditch the albums? A little, yes. About a year after this purging event, kits to transfer records to MP3’s became widely available. If I had just held onto them a little longer, I realized, I could have transferred my favorite albums!
Ultimately, however, I never regret the loss of physical items. In the end it’s just stuff and there will always be more stuff in my future. So I don’t have the pleasure of listening to that old Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye album that I loved playing on a Sunday afternoon. I’m still a little sad about that but, hey, the beat goes on.
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The good news is: I bet a lot more of those old albums are available digitally than you'd think.
For instance, Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye on CD is just a quick Amazon search away...
pretty silly to dump all of five crates of records. a collection that small hardly takes up any space at all. I have twice that and I live in a studio. get a shelf, accessorize your collection. it's a flair item.
I haunt Salvation Army/thrift stores high & low hoping someone does just what you did, right before I walk in the door, but I feel ya, moving albums is one big pain in the back, worse than books even.
uhh... WHICH Salvatino Army? And how long ago?? !!!!! (really)
(: ...I support your decision, but I like my vinyl.
I collect books. My boyfriend collects vinyl. Both are very heavy! But we have dreams of floor-to-ceiling shelving one day.
I've LOST that many records in a move. When I do purge records from the collection, I sell them... after listening again to make sure. If you're giving them up for the sake of home ownership (whatever that means) why not make some money??? But, I take my records seriously and wouldn't give them up OR sell them on a whim. Giving them away to friends after too many drinks - now THAT is totally possible.
Just sold 20+ years of record collecting. Feel great! MP3s are just fine. They weigh less and take up a lot less room (in my house).
P.D. James writing on Golden Age mysteries. "...their crumbling paperbacks can still be seen...in private libraries where their owners are reluctant finally to dispose of old friends who have given so much half-remembered pleasure."
Don't feel bad. While I used to DJ, I haven't done so in a long time. I just did the same thing with my collection of 1000-or-so records: donated them to Goodwill. Finding a buyer was a royal pain, Amoeba Records wanted to give me $30 for the entire set (WTF?), and Goodwill means I can have a nice tax deduction this year. Plus, someone gets some really good music.
As far as taking up space, it wasn't just the vinyl... It was the turntables, the mixer, the headphones, Serato, tons of cables, record bags, laptop stand, everything. It was too much to lug around one more time; I'd done it 10 times already.
Do I feel bad about giving up some of my music? Yes. Could I have converted to FLAC/MP3? Sure, if I had about 100 hours to spend and patience doing so. In my view, just like books, donating records opens up physical and mental space for new ideas and new music.
I'd dump any other collection besides my records. I support your desire to live with less stuff, really, but at the same time I kind of want to shake you. :S
@capegirardeau: wonderful quote. I just rediscovered some crumbling paperbacks (literally) that I'm reacquainting myself with. They may not be pretty, but that's why my shelves were built two books deep - the ugly ones go at the back.
http://wondermark.com/442/
The link isn't a link to my website, but to a book collector pertinent comic.
I've disposed of things on a whim and I nearly always regretted it. Never again. Future purges will always be done with thought and planning.
Umm...five crates? That's nothing! I have 3x that and have it nicely stored in the corner of our small house in an Ikea shelving unit!
And, you just dumped them off at the SA! If you had rare jazz LPs why didn't you make some money to help with your new mortgage?
You were in a fit of shedding!
I have a horrendous collection of action figures from my adolesence. They are all still in the packaging and probably not worth what I paid for them. Yet, I still can't let them go so they are stored in four large boxes in our tiny garage. I promised to get rid of them when we move next time, but I don't know if I can really do it. I put many, many hours putting this collection together but it's embarassing to let others know it exists now. I'm a grown woman; I don't need Star Trek action figures, right?
I've been getting rid of books, CDs, and vinyl over the past year in anticipation of a move at the end of the year. Friends rarely leave our place without a box filled with music and books.
I have discovered the joy of sharing, instead of hoarding, my library, and listen to the majority of my music collection digitally these days.
I had to laugh when I read this post. We're doing some major down-sizing soon and I just finally threw out five or six LP recordings of me in my grade school and high school band from the 60s and 70s. They moved to Europe and back plus I don't know how many other moves. Time to say goodbye!
10 years ago my guy and I decided to sell our mutual record collection due to space concerns in our studio apartment. Together we had hundreds of albums and many of them were rarities still not available on CD. I hung on to a few of my favorites handed down to me from my parents and some bootlegs, but that was it. We never regretted it and we never looked back until recently.
We just purchased our first home and we have more living space than we ever imagined we'd have (1200 square feet to be exact). While hunting for home furnishings at the local Goodwill and charity shops my guy started browsing the used record bins. And guess what? He got the vinyl buying urge again! In the last 5 months he's put together a small but impressive record collection and I love seeing him get a big grin on his face when he comes across a great record for 10¢. Sometimes you just can't shake the collecting bug! I think the key is to keep your collections manageable so you can enjoy & appreciate what you have. And never let your collections overtake your living space.
lugging albums around is a pain. very unwieldy and heavy. Not to mention, unless they're rare they are worthless in dollars. so I say to all of you with chunky record collections: put them at the street! Then call me so I can come over and take them off your hands, because I can NEVER get enough vinyl.
We have a turntable that digitizes LPs. It works fine, however, it is very time consuming, not like importing a CD. It's such a big job.
OH NO! Not the vinyl! D=
Throw out everything in the house but toilet paper and vinyl.
I have been a lurker on AT forever, and never signed up to comment before!
(this post was the reason to)
I would NEVER EVER get rid of my vinyl! CD's yes, comics/magazines definitely...
And if you did decide to sell some of the vinyl, then you could have used the $ to invest in good storage/shelving for the rest of the collection.
I know a lot of music is available digitally these days, but it's not the same!
I have gotten rid of a few things and then regretted it, but never anything that wasn't replaceable and I've never regretted it for more than a second.
One regret I do have, is that when they sold my husband's grandfather's house, he had some amazing old bar chairs down there (along with a bunch of other cool old basement bar type items). They all went to Goodwill because we thought we'd be stuck in our tiny house with the Michigan basement forever.
Well, we've moved, and our new house has a totally usable basement with a pool table! I do wish we'd saved some of those things (his aunt and uncle even offered to store them for us--we thought they were crazy, at the time), but oh well.
I felt a little pang reading this.
yes i'd like to shake you too.
Kudos to you for having the guts to do something I never really could! I mean, I got rid of a childhood keychain collection and some old magnets, but I could never let go of some other collections.
Our vinyl collection is in the thousands... although we have zillions of CDs, they don't even compare.
Nothing will ever sound as good as vinyl... sigh.
If it's any consolation you might have made a kid's day. My 6 year son always looks through old records to get at Goodwill, etc. So maybe you've helped a kid hear the true sound of vinyl and not just a digital recording. You wouldn't believe the eclectic collection he has and he actually can explain to his friends what a record player is.
Unless you are a DJ or have a knack for collecting useless stereo equipment, a turntable and vinyl records honestly don't take up that much space.
I will never get rid of my records, I just need a new turntable! :D Iwill never get rid of my CD's either unless I am removing all the crappy music from my collection.
Writing a whole essay about not regretting is an act of regretting... A true non-regret is when people ask you about it, you don't even remember what wrong you had done.
My rule of getting rid of stuff generally is: If I know that I am going to remember what I threw away for quite a while, it probably means I should try to keep it until I forgot about it to the point it has little emotional value first.
Sorry in advance, not trying to sound personal... Just a thought for sharing. :)
I too registered just to post a comment on this particular subject.
I just cannot understand why people think their vinyl is worth anything if it is rare and not in CDs. Usually the expensive vinyls are from major artist, maybe test pressings or so. Normal and little more priced vinyls are those WITH cd pressing also. Think about it, if the music is good, why there is not digital copy of it. And I for one could not never even sell my record collection, or at least for now. Of course things may change.
@BrianneA, Check what others' sell for on E-Bay against your perception before acting.
My husband and I have 80,000 records..
check his ebay store where 14,000 are in our ebay store. our ebay id is talyho-enterprise
pretty sure Swing and Sway is in there!!!
Just before my ex decided to move out, he suggested we sell our duplicate books and records. What an idiot I was! I still want my copies back!
l too have several times your total of records, plus CDs, hardbacks and paperbacks. I don't collect them because they are valuable, I use them to listen to and read! One long wall of my house is soundproofed with books. I had to put a bunch of CDs I inherited from a friend into storage, but someday they will come home with me, too. If there were no collectors, there would be no museums.....
@alahoop: We saw this last month at the Blue Star antique mall in Saugutuck, MI. It would be swell in your basement.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31009249&l=85d1ff69cf&id=1155077215
I have around $10K worth of beads, including lots of gemstones. I will most likely not use them in my lifetime because I discovered I kind of hate jewelry making. Too tedious! At least they don't take up too much room and I can sell them. Just the tip of my previous collecting iceberg.
what a TRAGEDY!
I am about to do this with my books. I love my books, but a lot of them are aspirational. I am determined to go home tonight and purge. If I haven't read it in a year, and don't think I'll get to it in a year, out it goes. Sets and old favourites I am keeping. Yes, there will be a few I will wish I had kept. But there are libraries and if I decide I REALLY miss it, I can buy it again. It's worth it to me, not just the space but the feeling of owning my stuff, and not being bossed by it.
I certainly feel a pang of regret, even at the loss of someone else's vinyl. Being a DJ, my records are some of my most cherishes collections and, for me, mp3 just doesn't cut it (though I get the ultra convenience). I truly hope to never have to make that decision, I just downsized and managed to keep space for an ever expanding collection.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news though... You can't archive your records digitally and then get rid of the original source. Plus archiving a, by definition, lossy medium in a lossy format, seems like a waste when you don't have the " original " part of your collection. Go straight to the course for the digital versions (I contact labels and artists).
About a year ago, I bought this kit to create MP3's and couldn't be happier: http://www.xitel.com/USA/prod_inportdl.htm . It's a great fix if you already have a turntable you like and don't want to have another one. The files sound as good as the vinyl they came from. Yes, it will literally take me years to transfer all of my records - after one year, I'm just up to "F" in the library. But I'm finding the process quite a great way to get back in touch with the music I've listened to all my life!
I'm also a DJ and concur with Friction's post about lossy formats/mediums. I will occasionally weed things out of my collection, but would never ever give up the entire collection.
I guess it all depends on where your priorities are.
We have one modest crate of vinyl that I've never actually heard because we've never had a working record player.
Hopefully one day, when I get a working stereo (not even the cd player functions anymore), maybe this hipster trend will scour up nice compact vinyl/cd/cassette stereos at a reasonable price!
I feel your pain. Sometimes these things are just a pain in the ass to continue moving, year after year (no matter how many crates).
A friend of me declared "I'm not moving again until I can afford movers" because of his 2-3 metro racks full of records.
I have thought about doing it almost every year but something stops me. I long for some collectible records I parted with when I was in need of cash, but all in all you have to remind yourself that it's that much less crap you have collecting dust. If you parted with them, chances are you weren't taking advantage of owning them. You're not going to all of a sudden drag your prized possessions to the local thrift store on a whim. If you're on the fence, chances are they aren't worth keeping.
I recently parted with several boxes of letters from pen pals (14 years in the making). I rarely looked through them, and realized I was holding onto my youth for no reason. Was I really going to scan them all and start a blog like I told myself? Let's get serious.
You don't want to end up like my mother who saves every shoe or jewelry box JUST IN CASE someone needs one someday. Records might get you more scene points, but it's the same thing, really.
Did it EVER occur to you to ask US if WE wanted to buy them or at least SOME of them???? I would have paid for the records plus the ship/handle fees.
I'm sooooo sad listening to this loss you had to go through. It's hard for me to part with cherrised memories. But at least no one was twisting your arm. You did it on your own. Kudos to you.
I moved to Edinburgh last year and got rid of a lot of my collections and boy do I regret giving my collection of fishing poles and art supplies.