My husband is a collector (okay, borderline hoarder) but I have learned over the years how to put a kink in many of those perversions. Let’s just say that things that have sat ignored in a closet for over a decade have a habit of disappearing and rarely does he even notice. Last week we had a heat wave and since I don’t get along with hot and dry weather, I decided to tackle the closet wherein seven boxes full of vinyl records have been stored since 1993.
The truly scary part of this endeavor was, those records had not even been sorted by genre before being dumped into cardboard boxes for the move!
Now, if I’d been smart I would have taken the boxes to Rasputin’s (our nearby “we will buy records and vintage clothing and jewelry” hippie dippie thrifty place) and donated them all. But I hated to do that without giving our children a chance to claim some part of their wacky childhoods. And so I spent two days categorizing and then alphabetizing the records. The closet is now empty and the totals are below – in case you’re interested.
We had over 300 albums or album sets in these approximate genres:
- Rock & Roll, Rhythm & Blues, Jazz
- Funk, Folk, Punk, Soul, Raggae
- Grunge, Live on stage albums and What-the-Hell is this?
Most of them are in very good condition but worthless. Too common; too many sold.
There were around thirty albums I classified as Classical (Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, etc.) Another twenty that there were Classicalish:
- Leonard Bernstein conducting symphonies for “everyday consumption”
- Lawrence Welk’s favorite waltzes
- Soundtracks from various movies
- And … does anyone know Greek?
From my Mother-in-Law (who was a kindergarten teacher and loved to travel) we had one full box of:
- Children’s records
- How to Learn either Russian, German or Spanish
- Music from Hawaii, Mexico, India, Java, etc.
- Easy listening and popular hits by Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews, Burl Ives, etc.
I did run into a couple of albums I thought might be valuable. One because it was beautifully packaged and the other because it was so tragic. After some research it turned out I was right about both . . . although by valuable, they’re probably worth what someone paid for them!
I’ll get to my treasures tomorrow, if you’re interested! Let me know!
Saying nothing in particular 
My painter took my late husband’s vinyl collection; I liked the guy and was happy to get rid of it as my husband’s taste and mine rarely meshed. Plus, he had 10 copies of every John Denver album. I like JD but I’m not as obsessed with him as my husband was! John (boyfriend) is also a “collector”/marginal hoarder and has gotten himself into a situation with too many garage and estate sale “finds.” But we don’t live together, so I gently prod him to have his own garage sales and even mention the cost to his kids to have professionals clear his house the way it currently is. (when he dies) I talk about my late mom’s house (she wasn’t a collector at all) and how, even as much as we emptied out of her house, it still cost me about $500 to have the guy come in to finish the job. Right now, John’s house would cost multiple thousands of dollars, probably close to $10,000 to clear. The guy on the right of that album looks like Tiny Tim–but isn’t. What language is that?
My husband was happy to collect and bring home all the books and records his mother collected and so I’m sure he really believes that his children will feel the same. But kids these days are different. To be honest – I have hoarded a lot of books and artwork by friends over the years and so our children may just have to suffer! I guess … to be fair … I will have to brutally face my hoarding next
I copied the album cover into Google images and it sad:Artist: Mikis Theodorakis and Vasilis PapakonstantinouTitle: Tis Exorias… (Of Exile…)Genre: Greek Folk/Protest Music
Wow! Thank you Jim! I am in your debt!