Records coming home

In June 2023 we moved to a new house, and part of the plan with the new place was to convert the loft space into a bedroom for our youngest son, with a separate, smaller home office / studio for me that would double as a record storage room.

During the spring of 2023 as we prepared to move a sizable portion of the packing job involved me putting my record collection into storage. Although I went through a quick prune and took around 300 records into a local shop, I still ended up filling 47 boxes of vinyl. Having a record collection is fun, until you have to move it!

When we arrived in the new house I kept a random selection of four boxes in the new house, but I’ve spent the last year or so without the rest. The work on the loft was completed recently, and so the records are now slowly coming back. Moving those boxes again - and carrying them up to the loft - has been another reminder of what it means to have lots of records.

My main takeaway from the whole process is that - for perhaps the first time in my life - I’ve started to consider the possibility of one day getting rid of those records. My sons have (so far) shown little interest in them, but they will one day inherit this….stuff. They’ve grown up without physical media of any form - ‘content’ is available on tap from devices and platforms. I’m not sure they will appreciate 47 heavy boxes of records taking up space.

It’s a conversation for another time, but one that needs to take place sooner rather than later. I don’t have a clear idea yet of what ‘reducing’ my collection might look like, but the seed is now planted in my mind and will remain an itch until I do something about it.

And I’ve actually made a start. A rough calculation of the storage space in the new loft suggested that it would hold roughly 40 of the 47 boxes. As I’ve been unpacking the records over the last week or two, I’ve been engaged in a further prune, and have so far filled 6 boxes of records that will be sold off or traded in.

When I took the first batch of 300 culled records to trade, I discussed record collections with the guy in the shop. He said something that sounds like something to aim for. A few years ago he reduced his collection to 1000 records, and then instigated a strict one in, one out policy. So, if he wants to add a new (or old) record to his collection, something else has to go. I rather like the discipline of this, and the idea of a more manageable 1000 records (roughly 8-10 boxes) that I can eventually pass along.

Something to aim for, one box at a time!