Capping your collection?

[Jo498]

This will sound like the height of pretentiousness but it's true: from time to time I have had the thought that if all the libraries burned down and only my house remained, you could recover all the best in Western culture from the books, recordings, and films I have on my shelves.

Of course that's ridiculous. I don't have that many shelves.

And the post-apocalyptic age will sadly miss the music of Havergal Brian and Braga Santos...

Who doesn't?

I think I was fine until about 2002 or so. Around that time I started buying/collecting faster than I could or would listen to the stuff. Then, once you get used to the idea of buying stuff without listening to (all of) it, you keep going and even if you slow down there are too many to properly catch up.

[(poco) Sforzando]

And the post-apocalyptic age will sadly miss the music of Havergal Brian and Braga Santos...

No, no. For encyclopedic completeness, I keep and occasionally listen to a handful of music from both composers. And since my composers are arranged alphabetically, you might say that one sits on Johannes Brahms's right hand (sedet ad dexteram patris), and the other on his left.

[Pat B]

I think I was fine until about 2002 or so. Around that time I started buying/collecting faster than I could or would listen to the stuff. Then, once you get used to the idea of buying stuff without listening to (all of) it, you keep going and even if you slow down there are too many to properly catch up.

Once I recognized that I was doing that, I slowed down (and have since slowed down some more). I still have about 90 CDs in my Pile, though the remainders of 3 big boxes plus 5 Wagner operas constitute the vast majority of those.

[Jo498]

I didn't really slow down or only for too brief period. There were some years (ca. 2006-09) when I had plenty of space after a move and considerably more spending money, so it seemed fun to (almost) keep up with those guys on the internet who had apparently listened to everything...

[Jo498]

I completely failed. I tried to sum up how much I spent for CDs 2016 and while I might have made mistakes in calculation and/or counted some non-CD items (like a few books and the odd DVD) these would not change much and the figure is well over EUR 600, so it seems that around 50 EUR/month is the "natural" or minimal spending rate for me... The plan had been to cut this roughly in half but I would have counted below 500 p.a. as a little success...

I sold or swapped around 25-30 discs but received money for only about 10, the others were semi-privately swapped for other discs or books. Almost all of them were discs that had been in the "get rid of" box for some time, so I did not really succeed in sorting out stuff from the actual collection either...

[Brahmsian]

I'd rather spend that time listening to CDs rather than buying new ones that I might never get around to hearing. If I never acquired another CD, I'm pretty confident I could be satisfied listening to my current collection for the rest of my years.

This is the closest to how I feel. I have less than 1,000 CDs and already feel I have about 800 too many.

I have bought very, very little over the past four or five years. Probably a net zero overall in that time.

There are many recordings I have not listened to at all in the past five years plus, while I might listen to something like Bruckner Jochum symphonies almost on a weekly basis.

[Jo498]

In 2017 after I wrote this above I got a new small shelf and kept buying.... but I bought considerably less in the last 2-3 years and in the last 2 years I kept the allotted space and have been in the process of very slow culling for more than a year now.
I'd probably get rid of more CDs to reduce the collection a bit and then have some "turnover", say buying 50 disc/year and selling the same amount. But selling/swapping CDs takes a lot patience, there is almost no market left because of streaming and too many offers in the used market.

But around 1000 discs would be the bare minimum for me (I actually tried to work this out in some detail years ago). I'd hardly get all the music I want to have, not beginning with additional favorite recordings. Sure, one could rely on streaming services or youtube but I'd consider this cheating and I would not want to be dependent this anyway.

[MusicTurner]

Second-hand CDs are so cheap here now, down to 0.3 - 0.7 Euros at times, and I also bought a large pile even cheaper. As a sort of compensation, I've been selling stuff away cheaply too. Right now I'm piling together a concept packet of a 'Classical Music Library' from the buyings and a bit of supplementary stuff, of almost 1000 x (have reached 850), that I'll be selling in a month or two. The other day, I bought Haydn 107 symphonies/brilliant, for 5.2 Euros, for example, which I had already. But allows me to compare with some of my own stuff, and replace. The content of that 'library' packet won't be of interest to collectors here though. But I'm thinking around 300 Euros. Maybe it will even have to be cheaper to sell within a reasonable time. But it's been fun 'working' with.

[Mirror Image]

I own thousands of classical recordings, but I have shipped some things off (i. e. culling), but I have been trying to reduce my spending. So far, I have failed miserably.

[André]

Indeed the market for used CDs has all but disappeared. So, culling actually means giving away to charity. It won't be long before they, too, refuse to take them. Heck, they don't even accept TV sets older than a few years !

This coming year though I have decided to spend on my grandchildren's needs (health and education). That will effectively dry up my CD budget  .

[Jo498]

I started selling some stuff on ebay after a pause of more than 10 years. It is very slow going and I don't quite get the money I'd have hoped but it is possible to sell some things, if one is patient. 3-6 EUR is a decent price. And sets that used sellers at amazon ask around 20 for maybe reach around 10 at ebay (if sold at all). Of course I have no real standing compared to (semi)professionals (despite 700 positive feedbacks, but 90% are as a buyer and from the early 2000s) which might be one reason I cannot get more even for apparently desirable items.

But of course I can hardly be happy about being able to buy stuff used for 1-5 EUR and complain about not getting 5-12 when selling. I am also member of a swapping portal where classical music is predictably very slow going but I have some chance to get rid of stuff that will find never takers at ebay (of course I get only other discs or books, so no shelf space gained).
Generally, though, the lack of any reasonable re-sale value keeps me from culling as long as I am able to stay somewhat within my restricted space.

Classical music is just so vast. Of the last batch of 4 discs I bought (used) each contained at least one piece I had not on my shelves: Raff, Symphony 11 + Sinfonietta (both new), Debussy's piano trio (had of course Ravel and Fauré, with Kantorow/Rouvier/Muller), some waltzes by Lanner (played by string quintet led by Sascha Schneider) and Stravinsky's early symphony op.1 (Dorati/Detroit)

[Madiel]

As mentioned elsewhere, it's been a slow buying year: 1 album (of 2 CDs).

Collection is still growing though. I'm just not in a rush.

I hardly ever think about culling. The extent of my current plans? One CD of Gieseking playing Debussy preludes free to a good home... I could never get over the sound quality.

[Madiel]

I end up with duplication of course, but that's just because discs/boxes have multiple pieces on them and I would generally avoid something with a lot of duplication. I really only go seeking a 2nd version if I'm not satisfied with the 1st version, and the dissatisfaction can take some time to gel. For instance, I still haven't acted on my desire for a different set of Beethoven piano sonatas even though I asked for alternatives to Kovacevich not long after joining the forum.

I finally pulled the trigger on that 2nd set of Beethoven piano sonatas. In September 2019.

[vandermolen]

I own thousands of classical recordings, but I have shipped some things off (i. e. culling), but I have been trying to reduce my spending. So far, I have failed miserably.

This is pretty much my experience as well. However, we rent a garage in the village which has several boxes of CDs and now the owner of the garage is selling it, so perhaps this is an opportunity for me to donate more to the local Mind and Oxfam shops which have a demand for classical music.

[vandermolen]

Indeed the market for used CDs has all but disappeared. So, culling actually means giving away to charity. It won't be long before they, too, refuse to take them. Heck, they don't even accept TV sets older than a few years !

This coming year though I have decided to spend on my grandchildren's needs (health and education). That will effectively dry up my CD budget  .

Good for you André

[Mirror Image]

This is pretty much my experience as well. However, we rent a garage in the village which has several boxes of CDs and now the owner of the garage is selling it, so perhaps this is an opportunity for me to donate more to the local Mind and Oxfam shops which have a demand for classical music.

Sounds like a good idea to me. My own experience with culling is not to actually look at what you're giving away, because, in my case, I'll want to keep it.

[springrite]

I only bought about a dozen new ones while getting rid of about 500.
I will try to keep it at this level for a while.

[vandermolen]

Sounds like a good idea to me. My own experience with culling is not to actually look at what you're giving away, because, in my case, I'll want to keep it.

Good point!

[Jo498]

You are a paragon of restraint. Madiel!
I think I bought as first (not quite complete) Beethoven cycle the DG Gilels blue box in ca. 1997. As a second followed Gulda/Amadeo only a year or two later. By now I only have three more cycles (Lucchesini, Arrau, Heidsieck (which I got in a big Beethoven box but it was a major factor to get that big box) but a lot of separate discs or doubles.
It's also a different time now. When I bought most of my collection, at first I had to go really slow because of the financial restraints of a student and the fairly high price of CDs in the early 1990s. So it felt a liberating luxury to be able to buy almost everything I wanted in the early 2000s. It was also time when streaming was far away, downloads something kids did for chart hits, sometimes one could not even get soundbites for a rough impression (or their sound was too bad to be helpful).

[Madiel]

Soundbites definitely helped me, even before full streaming services. I still greatly value the preview function on iTunes (considerably better for classical music now that it's 90 seconds instead of 30).

I was the guy who (for pop music at least) used to go and use the headphones in the music shop to hear something I was interested in... and then usually go away and think about it for a week. And when the old local classical music shop had its annual sale, I would be the guy who would collect a huge pile of CDs and then find a corner and spend the next 45 minutes gradually culling it down to the $200 worth I could justify to myself, using the Penguin Guide.

You call it restraint. Yes, it's partly that. It's also massive amounts of indecision.  But a big part of it is not wanting to end up with a whole pile of disappointments cluttering the house. The house is cluttered as it is...

To me "value for money" is not based on what something cost but on whether whatever I paid got me something I genuinely find worthwhile. To a certain degree, I'll pay more than is usual for something that I'm certain I want, because it's the sense of certainty that's more important to me than the money. To my way of thinking, something that is cheap that I end up not wanting isn't remotely a bargain - I could have spent nothing at all.

So I do very little impulse buying - of anything, not just music. But if I end up with an album that I actually don't like, it feels like a disappointment and a failure, not least because now I have to go through another decision process about what to do with the album.

As for this year in particular, well, life has tended to be more about just getting through the days successfully, even though the situation in Australia has been a lot less serious than elsewhere (not counting January when it was fires making life hell rather than a virus). Plus I had the unusually large purchases from September/October 2019 to keep working through. Haven't quite finished in fact so thinking about the next batch is a little naughty of me.