moving vinyl

i'm moving house next week and just wondering what everyone's experience has been of the rather daunting task of moving records. ideally i'd like to be able to find some free grocery boxes or something, does anyone know of a suitably sized kind? or should i splash out on some purpose made containers? any pro-tips would be greatly appreciated

(i'm sure this has been asked before but i couldn't find anything. plz lock/delete if it's been done)

wine/liquor boxes work great, they're sturdy and hold the right amount of records to carry. some can be slightly less than 12" so bring a ruler.

I was able to order 12", 7" and CD size cardboard boxes from the internet very easily. Nice thing about them was that they were sized so they were appropriately heavy for a normal human to carry when full. Pretty cheap too.

what herb said. i still have wine boxes from three moves ago. plus, if they have tops that you can close you can stack them on top of each other.

Yes to the wine/liquor boxes for lps, and yes to making sure they aren't the 11 1/2 inch ones (hard to eyeball).

I'd found some tupperwear-like containers a few years ago (clear w/ blue snap lids) that hold 7"s (and the ones that are slightly larger than normal-sized 7"s) perfectly. Stackable too.

if there's a local record store they may have boxes for you to have. we're always giving away used 12x12x12 or 13x13x13 shipping boxes.

thanks guys. i just picked up a load of wine boxes, haven't measured them yet but fingers crossed. otherwise i think i'll ask in a couple of record shops, purpose made boxes are quite expensive to buy it would seem

anyone got any horror stories they want to share?

as long as youre not moving far, cobbling random boxes is fine, i think. moving DC-->SF, i ordered/salvaged proper inner boxes, and put them inside 14" boxes from staples (along with an extra LP mailer to tighten it up where necessary), and shipped em all via USPS media mail. since you say "moving house," maybe USPS media mail isnt an option?

UPS & Uhaul have record sized boxes. maybe $1 each?

friend moved from colorado to SF w/a trailer filled w/records. they were so heavy that they pushed the trailer down onto the tires and rubbed so much they popped

T4rget has locking/stacking plastic LP cubes, about 10$ but useful if you need moving and also for it to be the shelves

How much was that DC-->SF move? I've got about 2000 records back in the Bay Area that I need to get out to New York, and am contemplating my options.

if you have a car you can rent a uhaul trailer. probably around 500 bucks coast to coast. maybe. check out uhaul.com

the good thing about that option is that you can go cross-country record shopping too.

i insured my records (1000 LPs and 400 7"s?) pretty highly -- it wouldve cost about 350 without insurance, and it cost $500 with. i highly recommend media mail -- literally not a single record got fucked up. not even a bent corner, i think...

but like for that $150, i got like $10K in insurance? and if i hadnt done that, i wouldnt have had as relaxing a train ride across.

xp i wanna go cross-country rec-shopping so bad. maybe in a couple years.

i did it once with maria. cross country. our "honeymoon". got amazing stuff everywhere. from oregon - love you house of records! - to philly. best stuff i got was at a huge pawn shop in montana? might have been. and rockin' rudys in montana too was awesome.

what percentage of your records-fever does maria have, scott? annie's into record-shopping and general thrift/flea/swap-stuff, but i think a cross-country records trip might drive her crazy by the end. might have to be a dude-cation some time.

That doesn't sound like a bad rate at all... thanks for the info!
Alas, no car anymore so I'll be doing the shipping option. Cross-country record shopping will wait.

i did a trip like that with my GF last year. went from San Francisco to Detroit and found a lot of great records! hitting the thrift stores/indoor flea markets is the way to go. your lady can browse vintage dinnerware or owl statues or whatever, and you scoop up rare soul 45s.

xp lemme know if you need any help packin em up! i kind of had a blast cataloging and packing mine...

what percentage of your records-fever does maria have, scott? annie's into record-shopping and general thrift/flea/swap-stuff, but i think a cross-country records trip might drive her crazy by the end. might have to be a dude-cation some time.

― 69, Monday, May 24, 2010 6:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I did this a few times with my ex and we always had a major blast. We both liked to dig for records and would stop in cool towns that we wanted to visit anyway. The best records were found in the Southern East coast towns where old people go to die and their records get cast off to thrift stores. Our only trouble with the trips would be with grabbing the records the other one wanted. We came home with great finds every time. I would love to be in a situation where I could do this type of trip with someone again. sigh.

In fact, those record-buying trips are the only thing I miss about that relationship.

"what percentage of your records-fever does maria have, scott?"

not a huge percentage. she thinks its cool if i tell her that i've found really good stuff or gotten a good deal. but, you know, sadly its easy to conjure up some everybody loves raymond domestic cliche action at times. me taking too long to look at records. her stuck watching the kids and getting antsy/aggravated. there really is no end to how long i can look at records if there are enough of them around. sooooooo, i just stay mindful of that.

that trip across was hard too. summer and very hot and maria very pregnant. but we didn't kill each other so that was a good sign.

a lot of hardcore collectors - of lots of stuff not just records - get divorced or just stay single. its easy to see why.

when i dated graham it was cool because we both could look for ages.

there is a store in chattanooga we would go visit and stay from open to close going through boxes of 45's. I have gone back with other people and they get bored after a few hours. I don't know that I will ever meet someone else who wants to do that for as long, to be honest. :(

From bagsunlimited.com, 25 of those stackable cardboard record boxes with lids are about $125 - totally worth it, and they last a long time, and can be reinforced with tape. You can feasibly stack about 5 atop each other, but stacking only 3 deep will make the boxes on bottom last longer. Mine are about three years old and no need for tape quite yet. The "Move Tough" boxes from Packrite are really common at storage places, and they're cheap (less than $2 each). They're stackable if you don't give a shit about putting a little pressure on your records - I justify stacking by saying that it's only about one record's weight atop another record, if distributed evenly. The handles wear out fast, but you can tape those up, too.

I shipped about 300 records from London to Florida once and they all arrived safely.

If you own a buttload, though, you have to expect occasional bruised corners and full-on casualties. I lost two or three by stuffing them in all the available cracks of my car - a few on the rear windshield got warped.

do supermarkets around you have these 'feel good about the environment even though they're made by chinese sweatshop labour and will take millions of years to break down and so are far worse than bio-degradeable plastic bags but hey we gave all plastic a bad name and people are dumb bastards who will feel good about buying something that has 'green' in the name' bags?

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i311/tomhousehunter/Tom%20Stuff/go_green_bag.jpg

perfect for carrying records

are you sure that using the same cloth bag for groceries for 50 years is worse for the planet than 50 years worth of plastic or paper bags. seems hard to believe.

i just carry everything inside my shirt

you can burn a cloth bag, can't you?

I can't imagine not insuring a record collection for moving after reading this horror story http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dispossessed/Content?oid=879967

Not for the faint of heart!

oh god that's awful. dave is a cool cat.

eh, could have been worse. 2500 records ain't impossible to replace. he'll never find an m.frog or friendsound album again? dude doesn't look around that hard. NOT SAYING HE'S NOT A NICE GUY OR WHATEVER AND IT SUCKS TO LOSE STUFF, but...hey, sometimes it can be fun to start fresh!

oh okay he had 8000 cds. that's a lot. but they are CDs. fuck 'em.

jesuz lol "ain't impossible to replace". should i "start fresh" and leave this collecting biz to the big dogs?

it can be very healthy to start fresh. and refreshing.

its like having a new lease on life.

i mean we're all dying anyway.

and by replace i didn't mean replace everything in the collection. meant replace it with other stuff.

but yeah if i were gonna be snobby i would say that i don't entirely trust people with more CDs than records.

my records have been in boxes for months now. i'm getting less attached to them. i kind of feel like i could do many awesome things if i didn't have all this vinyl weighing me down. seriously.

that's why i started that if you had to start all over what would you buy thread. the idea does appeal to me. but, you know, i do love my records. when i started my store i put lots of my own stuff in it at first naturally. but i still kept around...mmmm...4000 records? something like that. i'm sure in a years time it will be even easier to get rid of more. of course having a store and buying stuff every week for it is kinda like collecting without the hassle of making space at home. a win/win situation if you ask me.

There's a huge difference between losing and selling, mind you.

yeah tru

^^ good thing i posted that

I'm going to be in the US (Chicago, Rockford IL, Madison WI mainly) and I need to send a couple of copies of this record we've released to friends elsewhere in the US. It's 10" vinyl. Am I likely to be able to find a store which will sell me two or three appropriate mailers or should I be asking my mother-in-law for some old boxes to hack to bits?

The record is this one: http://hangoverlounge.blogspot.com/2010/08/hangover-lounge-10-ep-now-available.html Probably a bit quiet for you hard-rockin' types, but I'm proud of it.

a lot of places will sell 12" mailers and 7" mailers but 10" mailers are less common.

May be overkill (or more than you want to spend) but Bags Unlimited is great for this kind of stuff.

http://www.bagsunlimited.com/cart/browse.asp?subcat=45

I don't "move" my records, I have kept them stored at Dad's house for more than twenty years. Now that I have moved into his old house, I can enjoy them any time! But they are really old records that I bought more than twenty years ago, when I was in college and Dad gave me money to buy vinyl albums.

People come to my house and think owning vinyl is "weird" but why would I throw out hundreds of albums with great artwork that my dead father asked me to buy.

finally doing this, two years later. everyone still agree that boxing + USPS media mail is the way for a cross-country move of about 2000 lps? I'm not going out to pack and drive myself, so it is definitely going to be shipping of some kind.

yeah probably with price of gas and everything the price is about the same! just pack big boxes REALLY REALLY good because big boxes of records get banged up a lot even short distances. usps HATES heavy boxes and they will take their anger out on them for real.

maybe I'll tape a smiling picture of myself to each box

double-boxing woudln't hurt.

PROTIP: pray to god your records don't go through the Bell, CA. post office because those guys are animals. Double box and tape the corners and edges.

that bermuda triangle usps sorting center in queens, ny is what i fear the most.

i've had packages go from jersey city to brooklyn to jersey city to brooklyn before they finally made it to me.

I am dreading this possibility, I think I'm going to load up records in the car and drive them myself along w my audiophile gear an put everything else in one of those shipping pods. Fortunately I've it time to ponder this and cut any dead weight.

where are you moving, omar_lttle?!

probs chitown! who the hell knows when though, it's been a plan for awhile but keeps getting pushed.

man you guys are scaring me. double boxing and taping I can do, but I don't like these black holes and bermuda triangles.

nah nah u be fine -- just insure them! it's not super expensive and then you just get to be like whatever USPS fukupayme

it always feels weird imagining the double-edged potential of losing loads of insured shit. like all your precious shit would be gone but you could theoretically go crazy replacing it with literally-everything-you-want-now.

sayin