will you really hang those album covers?

I know I wouldn't, no matter how great the artwork is. Other people might.

I want my DH to get rid of the LPs, and I can't get him to--I keep telling him, we don't need to be a museum. I can see keeping a *few,* but not that many. We honestly won't listen to them again, and they take up a huge amount of space.

If I could get hin to let go of them, I think I'd send them out into the world intact, w/ their covers. Somehow I feel that they'd have a better chance for a new life if I did so. There are a few "used book" stores that also sell albums; I'd send them there, so they could be resold.

But I could be quite wrong. It could be that the covers would find one reuse, and the albums themselves another. There's a restaurant on 8th Avenue that puts its menus inside album covers, and they've glued the disks themselves to the walls, etc., as decor.

Just as the misshappen T-shirts folks donate to the thrift store become "work clothes" for people whose professions trash their clothing, perhaps those albums, denuded of their covers, would find their way into coaster, earrings, etc.

I keep telling DH, I'm willing to keep a few albums. Just the ones that would be hard to get again ever (like Shona Laing's "South" for me, and others for him).

Actually, I'd like to get rid of a lot of our CDs as well.

Sure, why not if you enjoy looking at them. I wouldn't spend the money to get them professionally framed since they are out of cheap paper and won't last forever. It's not like they are lithographs. Check out the link below.

You could also peel the picture part from the cardboard and use it in scrapbooking with photos of you from the time or place the music elicits memories. With the thin layer, you could decoupage it to fun stuff like trash cans. Maybe even your kitchen?

{{!gwi}}

No, seriously, I think it would be interesting having them go down a long hallway, bathroom or even a bathroom.

Gloria

Here is a link that might be useful: acrylic album frames

Same problem here. The frames I looked into allowed you to slip out the album easily to play it, but they were pricey compared to Gloria's find. But those makes the album relatively inaccessible. And I just *know* that if DH or others see the album, THEN they will want to play it. Sigh. I have a basement cinderblock walls that could use some decor though.

I was thinking of a narrow strip, a ledge essentially, and dislaying some. Or pairs of upper and lower strips with channels and pop an album in or out by compressing a curved strip of metal in the lower channel. The way my window screens pop out. I could see a checkerboard layout.

On my (very) long list of potential projects. I 'll probably never get to it...

My DH and I went through our crates of LPs a few years ago, separated them out into ones we wanted to keep and ones we wanted to sell or otherwise get rid of.

I couldn't find a place that would even look at them, for buying. And this was in SoCal, with 3+ million people just in my county. I could have lugged them up to Los Angeles, an hour away, to a store that *might* have bought some of them, for less than a dollar each. Too much hassle for too little reward.

I thought about selling them on Ebay, but checked the recent sales and decided against it. Not worth the time and effort. Maybe a few would have sold for $8 or $9 dollars each, but most of the titles I checked weren't selling for much at all, if anything. I didn't have the patience/time/energy to deal with that. So we put them back into the closet.

Fast forward a couple of years, we're selling our house and moving out of state. We go through the record crates again, and take out even fewer that we really want to keep. I make a written list of albums we might want to get on CD someday, and then put the unwanted ones in cardboard boxes and list them on freecycle.org. Free to whoever wants to haul them away.

I had several respondents, and the freecycle moderator emailed me with a recommendation and I went with that guy. He's just a collector, has thousands of them on shelves at his big house, he just likes to have them and look at them. Well, better him than me.

So they are gone, we don't miss them, although it was fun looking at each one and remembering where/when we got them and admiring the cover art. CDs just don't have the same emotional tug as LPs.

So now we're down to about 1/2 a plastic crate of LPs, and we still have my old turntable, so we might listen to them someday. :-)

Doing it in 2 steps was a good thing, I think, even though that wasn't our original intention. The first time it was harder to let go, the second time it was easier and quicker.

DH said the reason he doesn't listen to the LPS is that the turntable was broken.

I bought him a new one for Christmas, or his birthday, one.

Guess how often he listens to music?

I will say that we listen to FAR less music now that we have kids. We used to put on an album during dinner, but now there's just too much babble at the dinner table; I can't cope w/ all the stimulation. I wouldn't be able t hear the music anyway.

and since the kids' bedroom is right off the DR, we can't listen to music right after they've gone to bed; it keeps them from going to sleep (esp. DS, who has trouble going to sleep now, and his new health regime may not help).

So we almost never listen to music anymore, and *never* the LPs.

You can copy any music you want to keep on to a hard drive. I saw this done once for a couple in a miniscule NY apartment who were expecting a child. I haven't the faintest idea how to go about it myself.

I haven't the faintest idea how to go about it myself.

It's not hard -- just requires the right equipment (turntable, amplifier, sound circuitry on the PC, and a recording program), but it is time-consuming. You still end up sitting through the album. That's fun. But not when you have dozens and dozens of albums.... :-p

I know this is late, but there are now turntables that connect to the computer with a USB cable and come with the software to copy your LPs to CDs easily. If you just want to save old music that is not available on commercially produced CDs, this is the easy & cheap way to go! But I would check to see if the album has been re-released on CD - the quality will be MUCH better than home transferred CDs with all the clicks and pops and scratches of the old LP s.

I've copied lots of our old LPs over to CDs but I still had my turntable and amplifier and had loads of time to do it. We do listen to those old albums on CD, so it is worth it to me that I did it for those that I cannot get commercially.

Here is a link that might be useful: USB Turntables

I used to have a huge collection of LP's - hundreds of them. After lugging them around for a couple of years (and not listening to them once during the whole time!) I finally just let them go.
Do you know how often I miss those old records?
I don't.....don't even think about them!
Some of my favorite artists/songs are on CD, but I don't have a big collection anymore. Instead, I found a really good radio station that plays all my fav "oldies" music and I listen to that. Sometimes I'll hear a song that will really take me back and that's good enough for me!!

If you have a couple of nice record covers that you really like, sure go ahead and keep them but ditch the rest. You won't miss them.....
And the ones you DO keep make sure you actually display them! If they end up in a corner waiting then ditch them too...

My dh kept all his albums too. Maybe it's a man thing? I think about half of them are warped. He did take the turn table, amp & speakers to his office along with some albums, but I doubt he listens to them.

Don't let this happen to you. I stored all my 60's and 70's Lps in metal record cases, vertically, in my basdement. I tried to get one out to play it and found the dampness down there had stuck the paper together. If I had to, I'd have to destroy the album covers to get the records out.

My DH collects albums, CDs, and now MP3s. He has thousands of LPs and has them lovingly organized alphabetically. He built two large shelves for them, and they live in our spare bedroom. He does listen to them. I feel he gets so much enjoyment out of having them (and has no other vices!) that he has a right to keep them. And although I'm not a collecting kind of person, I also kind of like having so much music available -- and a lot of his LPs aren't available on CD. We've toyed with the idea of putting in some built-in type shelves for them, but the way they are situated at the moment is fairly neat and not in our way at all.

There are lots of collectors out there, as minet discovered. You'd be surprised what kinds of things people will pay good money for. Some audiophiles feel vinyl sounds better than digital. Separating the record from the cover or cutting the cover up would be sacrilege to them! Even if they never actually listen to the record, they just want to HAVE it.

Just thought I'd throw this out there, FYI.

Well, I lied. I walked in here yesterday & dh was listening to an album.

I got an "interesting" birthday gift from a friend, she took an old LP, put it over a bunt pan, put it in the oven, as it got soft it formed to the pan. She then took that, lined it with fabric, (glued to the lp) which extends up the sides and has a drawstring at the top. she designed it as a purse, not sure what to do with mine, as I don't carry interchangable purses. Some of the others in our group just love the idea...

Ellie

I feel he gets so much enjoyment out of having them (and has no other vices!) that he has a right to keep them.

This is how I feel about many of my husband's things. But not his albums. He doesn't listen to them; they don't bring him any enjoyment.

His books, yes. His war games, yes.

These, no.

I'd be OK w/ his keeping some, but honestly, I don't think he needs to keep but half or a quarter of them.

I can't get him to agree to ANY level of culling, however. I sure wish I could!