I accumulated a lot of LPs from the early ’70s through the aughts-- buying heavily when records were devalued (except for audiophile stuff like the HP List, which I never bought into in a complete way b/c the sonics were his thing and much of the music was less appealing to me). I only started "curating" what I had in about 2006 or so, when I finally had some time to sort through what I had. At that point, I had accumulated a fair number of Island pink labels, because Chris Blackwell’s choices in who to sign and how to produce a record appealed to me. I also started acquiring Vertigo Swirls, Strata-East, Nimbus West and other records initially based on recommendations from other collectors. But I was never a completist.
When I relocated from NY to Texas at the very beginning of 2017, I had gotten rid of about 12,000 LPs- mostly "seconds" (I had a fair amount of duplicates), budget line copies of things I had replaced with better copies and material I just had no interest in. Most of this stuff was not of great value. I did sell a few high value records and used the money to fund other record purchases. I’d guesstimate there are around 6,000 LPs here, but they reflect less of a "collector’s" mentality and more about my particular tastes in music, which range from early very heavy rock (precursor stuff to what is now labelled heavy metal) to a considerable amount of post-bop jazz.
Given the astronomic rise in the prices of a lot of this stuff (along with a corresponding decline in standards for grading used records), I’ve slowed down considerably on the acquisition side. I will still buy the occasional Tone Poet or even a digitally sourced reissue of an old analog record. Look at the prices the self-titled Pharaoh (Sanders) now fetches-- it was not a big seller at the time and my suspicion is that only a limited number were pressed; the reissue is apparently cobbled together from needle drops and restored with digital processing.
My main objective in what has been a more than 50 year pursuit is buying and playing recordings of music that I enjoy. My tastes have evolved over the decades and I find myself going back to what I relegated to the "second" room--the stuff that was not in my listening room--to rediscover records I had neglected or did not fully appreciate at the time I reorganized things in 2017. For me, it is a continued process of discovery and though I know that some of these records are "high value" today-- at least based on retail pricing, that is far less important to me than having the time to enjoy them while I’m still able to do so. And that, along with the research, the history and the various overlaps among the personnel, makes this a sort of "living" pursuit rather than just an accumulation of artifacts.
