I have a bunch of vinyl left over from my DJing days that I likely won't get rid of, but I have already digitized it all so I likely won't keep the decks forever.
I have also considered collecting skateboards because I think the art is awesome, but canonically I was a rollerblader when I was younger. I think that's probably the same thing for vinyl collections.
I just ordered a turntable and some records recently, I caved. Not gonna lie, I love the ritual and physicality of it. I'm just going to go bankrupt because I can't help myself :)
I couldn’t afford to get into vinyl now. I have bought quite a lot of records over the last five years, mainly to support the brand new record shop that appeared in my town - the first place selling vinyl in twenty years - but gone are the days when I could come back with a literal bag full of records from a holiday in Toronto taking advantage of the exchange rate, and my turntable has more than doubled in price over the years.
They are still wonderful artefacts, the artwork in its full glory, and so much of my record collection isn’t getting anywhere near Spotify or Apple Music - or my CDs for that matter.
And on that front, I’ve been frequenting my local charity shops where CDs are only £1/€1 and walking out with stacks of great music. I gather CDs are becoming cool again
Believe it or not but you don't HAVE to buy anything, you can sit there for hours and if nothing catches your attention leave empty handed. The handytrax are cool but more for big garage sales where they don't provide decks and I'd be wary of a record store that doesn't have record players.
I thought I'd posted this, but now I don't see it, so:
I bought 100 boxes for shipping records, and listed my collection on Discogs. Now I've used up all the boxes.
For me, I digitized the ones I wanted, and now they're on a microSD card in my phone. That works for me, since I can play it in the car, but I'm happy that someone who really wanted the vinyl now has it. I know I never played them.
A brand new vinyl record? I doubt it's worth it, but hey, if that's what you like, go for it.
I had a similar path as yours, but maybe 2 years earlier I started stocking up on vinyl, as you could get entire lots of donated records from goodwill.com for pennies on the dollar. Classic Jazz, Soul, Funk and Fusion re-ignited my passion for records and now I have a few IKEA BESTAs full of 'wax'.
Couple notes -
- re-release vinyl is not as good these days, especially when clear or multi colored.
- 180 gram vinyl is maybe a little better than yer average release from today, but the cheap pressings of the 60s and 70s (when well preserved) are much better than newer pressings.
- That said, Im glad they are re-pressing stuff today as some original prints or early prints are hard to come by/expensive...
I'm not sure about trance but "cool" techno/house is all being pressed on limited run distributions ( > 5000) before hitting digital downloads.
I might be in a bubble living in Brooklyn, but I'm seeing more record bags than thumb drives these days.
Sites like themixtapeshop.com and turntablelab.com are putting out great stuff every week so it's easy to build a set. You don't need to go digging through dusty bins to get records these days.
It's not CC. The scale of value is off by several orders of magnitude. Drop me in any large city in the world and I can hunt those things down in a day for less than a $1000. Heck, I could probably do a limited run of mix tapes for that too.
The story in my head is the sampler was a thrift store find or a high school graduation gift and all the vinyl is from their dad or uncle (rare 70s grooves). Poor people can have nice things too.
When I was young, I amassed an extensive and impressive collection of vinyl both common and rare, bankrolled mostly by my saintly grandmother. I would stroll around the mall with her on a Sunday and pop into the Wherehouse or the indie record store, and enjoy chatting up a much older blonde clerk before filling my arms with more music than I could ever listen to during the ensuing week.
When I was older and shopped for myself, I'd drive my friends to Tower or the far-flung indie stores, and it was at the latter where I really developed a taste for the rare and near-unobtainables. Then I began to purchase Goldmine magazines, which was the sine qua non for collectors, and I got hooked up with "Record Finding Services" in the UK, which was some dude who'd walk into a store on your behalf and pick up something that wasn't even available on import in the US.
I don't know how many records in total I had, but I proudly boasted of over 100 items by The Cure alone. And you know that old question "Did you read all these books on your shelves?" well I did certainly get around to listening to almost all of the music... at least once.
When CDs came out I embraced the tech and branched out. That didn't entirely put an end to my vinyl purchases, as that was still where the rare and desirable stuff was at, for a long time.
Fast forward to my move to the desert, and in the throes of impending homelessness, I began to sell off my vinyl for pocket money. I wasn't able to keep this up and make rent on the storage locker. My records were eventually sold to the highest bidder. It was a tragedy to be sure.
Then I entered a period where I realized that I didn't need to consume massive amounts of music, and I didn't purchase anything. In fact, my choral activities gave me many opportunities to make my own music, such that it was much more interesting than passive grooving.
Fast forward to 2023: I don't own any device that plays music other than my computers. I have no turntable, no CD drive at all. My music purchases remain firmly at $0. The best music is all over YouTube as much as I want, and on-the-go I am very satisfied with public domain cuts of prayers, classical pieces, and ambient instrumentals while I work.
I am rather glad to be relieved of an insatiable thirst to consume new music; it was an expensive vice, and I was often exploited by my favorite artists as they released endless "collectibles" that I had to catch like Pokémon.
Did you ever have an interest in djing?
Unfortunately my addiction to vinyl rules me out of what would likely be an expensive purchase. Best of kick with your sale.
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