People who own a lot of vinyl albums (1 Viewer)

What’s your advice for collecting them? What rock records are must own?

If you're thrift store/garage saling, avoid any that smell of mold.

I had an AMAZING record collection which, inexplicably, my Mom sold at a garage sale shortly after I got married stating she thought I didn't want them any more   (Like every Zeppelin album first release collection as my Uncles all gave me their albums from the late 60s & 70s).  Anyway, my wife and I did a ton of Estate Sale shopping to get college apartment stuff for the kids and during an end of sale, everything must go at one, I took a risk and bought a 1960s vintage self-contained Motorola stereo system.  After rewiring it, the sound is incredible.  This set me on a mission to recollect my collection.  I have found estate sales are much less expensive than vintage stores.  EstateSales.Net is an amazing resource (and can provide quite an adrenaline rush).  If I saw LPs I wanted I would try and figure out where they are in the house, get there early to get a number to be in line and work the folks at the door to leak to me where they are (as I was typically not alone in my search).  Around here, the largest estate sale company charges $2 per album, another $3.  I now have over 200 albums going this route.  Regarding mold, I took another risk that scored me over 60 of the albums.  At one sale, again near the end of the last day, there was a box of just the albums (including every Beatles album) which has been water damaged about 3" up, but the cardboard centers were intact, but with mold on every album on the vinyl.  While basically holding the box hostage in the basement of this house (seriously, these estate salers as cut throat) I Googled up if these could be salvaged.  I found a few things that outlined it was rather easy if the cardboard is intact.  There are several recommend ways.  I found that a solution of 50/50 rubbing alcohol took out the mold.  Then, once dry, rubbing the album following the groves the way the album would play, with a micro-fiber cloth got them all to full playable condition.  They were asking $1 per/album in the box.  I walked up to checkout and offer $5 for the box.  They countered with $50.  I said no and asked if they wanted me to take them back down the basement or leave them upstairs so it'd be easier to toss them in the dumpster when they cleared out the house.  After a bit more back and forth, I got them for $10.  While I miss the cover art for sure, I bought 100 white sleeves on Amazon and have them in a brass album rack (I have estate saled 3 of these too).  

The whole family loves the collection and we hang out playing cards, drinking beer and spinning vinyl.  I thinks its so cool when I play one of my 22-year old son's playlists and there are song like Shout by Tears for Fears, Renegade by Styx or Kashmir by Led Zeppelin on there because he first heard these on vinyl.  

I have a bunch left behind by my parents. Not to hijack the thread, but how do I sell these in the best manner?

Walking Boot said:

I have over 800 vinyl albums. But, they're all Whipped Cream & Other Delights by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. So probably not too helpful for you. But if you're looking for a must-own record, I definitely would recommend that one be a part of your collection. For most people, though, normally try to keep it under 20% of your total vinyl. 

Click to expand...

When I was a little kid I loved the Whipped cream album cover before I discovered Playboy.

wazoo11 said:

What’s your advice for collecting them? What rock records are must own?

Click to expand...

Buy what you like, it's a better story when explaining why you bought that album. 

While I understand why most get into vinyl (better sound quality), I most miss the artwork of the album covers and inserts. One of my sister's Beatles albums included four 8×10 photos of the guys.  I owned most of the Yes albums with Roger Dean cover illustrations.  An Alice Cooper album with a wallet like cover, complete with  a billion dollar bill inside.

These are just some of the things the CD generation could not compete with at their 25% area capacity.  And CDs are soon to be much more dead than vinyl.

Got a couple of huge tupperware containers full of 60s and 70s stuff from my parent's house. Just couldn't throw them away. Need to find a decent player. The two that were sitting on the shelf at their place were toast. 

Entire collection of Rush, and a handful of Bay City Rollers (S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night)

Any recommendations on a good cheap to mid-range turntable? I don't need anything fancy, I just want to be able to listen to some of these albums. I have a receiver head unit, or could do bluetooth speaker connection, if either makes a difference. 

Bought a bunch of RUSH albums, Some Radiohead  and U2 as well.

But, I sent back my Project Debut Carbon turntable...didn't like it.

:(

So now I've got a bunch of vinyl, but nothing to play them on!

Klimtology said:

Bought a bunch of RUSH albums, Some Radiohead  and U2 as well.

But, I sent back my Project Debut Carbon turntable...didn't like it.

:(

So now I've got a bunch of vinyl, but nothing to play them on!

Click to expand...

Amazon has a good list for under $50

FWIW - for those that have "older albums" (redundant?), there is a process to clean the grooves by putting white wood glue over the record and then pulling it off after it dries.There are many links about this process so let google be your friend.

wazoo11 said:

Amazon has a good list for under $50

Click to expand...

List of what?

Klimtology said:

List of what?

Click to expand...

Spatulas

Nathan R. Jessep said:

Any recommendations on a good cheap to mid-range turntable? I don't need anything fancy, I just want to be able to listen to some of these albums. I have a receiver head unit, or could do bluetooth speaker connection, if either makes a difference. 

Click to expand...

Music Hall makes some great turntables in various price ranges.

I bought this one 10 years ago for about $500.  It's been awesome.

My wife is out of town, so when i ran across a first press of Big Black's "Songs About F###ing" at my local shop today, I didn't even think twice before grabbing it.  Mrs. Scorchy has great taste in music and loves listening to records, but BB is a bridge too far.

If you do a search for turntables, you'll find a bunch of recs.

Going to make a foray into the world of vinyl.

Just ordered this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N3S4X3P/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_gqamFb8W3KAWJ

And this:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073W1R4XQ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AramFbE0JM9R4