I am talking about REAL collectors. The dyed in the wool, old school, pre-crossover (back when there were actually charts called "black"), pre-MTV, pre-Purple Rain, pre-internet fans. The fans who saw the Dirty Mind gig the local seedy nightclub with fake IDs. The fans who saw Zapp and a new group called The Time open the Controversy Tour. The collectors who have ticket stubs from 1982 or the color poster of the band photo on the cover of the U.S. release of the Lets Work 12"single.

I am talking about original vinyl that you actually bought when music only came in 2 formats: record or cassette. Back when you got liner notes ans maybe a poster (like the infamous shower poster) for less than 8 bucks. When you had to buy all of the 45 rpm Prince singles to get the non-LP B-sides like "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" and had to find all of the imported 12" singles to get the extended dance mixes like the still sick one for "Little Red Corvette". Purple vinyl for the Purple Rain releases. The sweat shirt that was sold on the tour that all the lettering came off after you washed it 3 times or the tour program (which I found in a local flea market for $5 in near mint condition).

Junk that is probably worthless to most normal people but that you have held onto for decades - along with every second of officially released audio and video plus about 10 times that amount in unofficially released material of all sorts.

It grew to the point that it demands a room in my house now. With special places for my white cloud guitar, the drumstick that Sheila E threw to me during Xenophobia, and the Watchtower magazine that Prince handed to my in the front row during a Musicology gig in Philly.

When you get to my age, you start to value your memories much more - I suppose aging means that they are the only things you keep getting more of as everything else fades away. Prince has given me quite a few and I will always treasure them. Perhaps the tangible manifestations of them is my Prince collection.

Yes. it was during the 3121 era...where I realised I had more than I could poosibly listen to. Prince was becoming an addiction. So I stopped.

I still collect everything released and file it accordingly however I dont go barging looking for every single soundboard recording ever or bootleg unless it is one I really been wanting for a long time. i still have my stack of Musicology CDs from the concerts, newspaper clippings, tickets but it's a little much now.

my wife seems to think so... its to the point she will disconnect my phone from the car bluetooth setup, right while im listening to my 242 song Prince playlist, while we're riding around...ill be singing along with the guitar solo from My Love Is Forever for the 1000000000th time, and suddenly, we're listening to Trey Songz or some other bullshit, while the dashboard reads" Samsung 900v has been disconnected"...

she starting to get sick of my lifelong preoccupation with Skipper's music...she was with it at firsts...but after enduring the epic 27 minute version of "I Will Die 4 U" on an almost daily basis this spring, shes had enough

My collection is way out of control and I expect it to get even worse!

I got rid of most of my bootlegs, Sab, Thunderball, and others (pressed).

Reason: I was never listening to those, anyway.

I used to hunt everything new (official) from Prince, but these days I am more selective.. since he released crap songs like RnRLA, I still bought both AOA and Plectrum on CD and also on vinyls, (even though Plectrum is completely awful).

But up to Cinnamon Girl (I think this was the last cd single?) - I think I have most official cd singles, most vinyl singles, most Maxi singles.*


*) I know, I am far (very far) from being complete.... one never reach the "limit" right? Its a lifetime project, to collect the old stuff, right?

[Edited 6/6/15 22:38pm]

Until about 10 years ago it was out of control. I had boxes and boxes of magazines. Boxes and boxes of rolled up posters. All the tour (official and unofficial) t-shirts/programmes/ticket stubs/custom made clothes/bags of confetti from concerts/promotional material from record stores etc... and thats without the music on all formats - often the same thing vinyl, cassette & cd etc...

Then one day I just looked at it all and thought 'this is madness'. Especially as my husband hates Prince and my stuff took up most of the bedroom. So the magazines, posters, confetti & cassettes all went in the bin and the clothes went to the charity shop. I still have all the vinyl, ticket stubs, CDs (& a massive digital collection now as well) and a couple of things that cost me an absolute fortune when I was fifteen and may or may not be valuable now (I've never checked but they're sentimental).

Why didn't I sell my collection on the org or ebay and make myself some money? Well, honestly, if I hadn't got rid on that day then I might just have changed my mind and, though some days I regret getting rid of everything (someone asked for a scandalous t-shirt in the marketplace not long back and I did feel guilty that mine had gone to charity rather than to a fan), I have to say there's a lot more room in the house now and generally it feels good to still have the music without all the crap

EDIT: Daft thing is with the vinyl is that they were mostly played to death at the time and I never play them now yet they're probably not worth a dime because the condition isn't great yet I still can't bear to part with them. I have three large boxes of Prince vinyl & probably only 1/3 of it is honestly worth keeping (rarities etc...). I really need to cut it down

[Edited 6/6/15 23:49pm]

maplenpg said:

Thanks Sausage & North....I won't be getting rid of my vinyl anytime soon (even if most of it is worthless). I'll leave that job for the kids when I'm dead - It'll be either worth loads or nothing but it's the only thing I have

maplenpg said:

KingSausage said:

maplenpg said:

Thanks Sausage & North....I won't be getting rid of my vinyl anytime soon (even if most of it is worthless). I'll leave that job for the kids when I'm dead - It'll be either worth loads or nothing but it's the only thing I have

No, no. Don't leave that burden on your kids. Let the King here help you out.

Maybe one day I'll sort through them all and sell some/bin some. Not right now though. Sorry King

I only collected the music. All my vinyls and CDs are in the attic at my folks house. I havent bought a physical CD/record since Indigo Nights. Im happy being all-digital now. Im no audiophile so the argument between analog and digital goes over my head. But my hard drive is in quite a state. I think Im currently upto something like 100GB. But so much of it needs organising. I probably have multiple copies of the same song on different boots and compilations. But the task is so daunting that I keep putting it off.

EDIT: Just checked - 101GB, 3990 files in 355 folders. Probably small compared to many around here though.

[Edited 6/8/15 1:14am]

Rebeljuice said:

I've given away all of my non-music Prince collection. The Sacrifice Of Victor, the Neo Manifesto, 21 Nights, the t-shirts, etc. I am also planning on selling my unopened ONA: Piano and a few other additional CDs that I have.

.

I just grew out of that collecting phase that borders on "hoarding". Concert tickets, magazines, newspaper clippings, etc. It takes up too much space, and honestly the personal reward was not worth it.

KingSausage said:

Rebeljuice said:

I only collected the music. All my vinyls and CDs are in the attic at my folks house. I havent bought a physical CD/record since Indigo Nights. Im happy being all-digital now. Im no audiophile so the argument between analog and digital goes over my head. But my hard drive is in quite a state. I think Im currently upto something like 100GB. But so much of it needs organising. I probably have multiple copies of the same song on different boots and compilations. But the task is so daunting that I keep putting it off.

EDIT: Just checked - 101GB, 3990 files in 355 folders. Probably small compared to many around here though.

[Edited 6/8/15 1:14am]

The other day I noticed that I had about 62 days' worth of Prince-related music. What the fuck.

How do you measure it in days? I wanna do it....

Rebeljuice said:

KingSausage said:

Rebeljuice said:

How do you measure it in days? I wanna do it....

It was either Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player. I made a playlist and it totaled the running times.

Thats a long fuckin' playlist! I reckon you have over a year of listening if you started that playlist now and only stopped for sleep, work and pubbing.

Rebeljuice said:

Actually, the opposite...my Prince collection has fallen into disarray. I have a lot of old CDs and vinyl bootlegs, but pretty much all of them have been "re-released" online as FLAC or whatever files with much better sound quality, etc. Seeing as I have the computer skills of an infant, I havent updated my collection. Maybe one day...

Yes. I gave a ton of it away to co-workers and friends, and I still have a ton in my closet. The only CD I still play is Prince's unreleased "Neon Rendezvous" 1984 birthday rehearsal concert.

At one point a few years ago my collection got up to about 1500 CDs, most of which were boots but I would buy everything he officially put out as well. I noticed that I really only listend to about 25-30 boots most of the time and the others were only spun when I first received them.

Also, most all trading when to downloads and I could not effectively keep up with it all. I guess I'm happy with where I am understanding that it's impossible to have it all and I would not want to devote the resources to that anyways.

The most satisfaction I received was helping new folks get their hands on their first boots (given for free). Once that happened, they were hooked on the man.- Princefan319.

Rebeljuice said:

No, but it got really interesting in the last years time
Go Adonis & Bathsheba, the Flesh, some Parade tour Open rehearsal songs

the Maquerade Ball 1985 show etc

I keep my interests STRONGLY between 197-1989

I stopped collecting 20 years ago, when the collection was WAY out of control.

.

Now I just buy the albums on locally released CD's.

NorthC said:

Rebeljuice said:

I only collected the music. All my vinyls and CDs are in the attic at my folks house. I havent bought a physical CD/record since Indigo Nights. Im happy being all-digital now. Im no audiophile so the argument between analog and digital goes over my head. But my hard drive is in quite a state. I think Im currently upto something like 100GB. But so much of it needs organising. I probably have multiple copies of the same song on different boots and compilations. But the task is so daunting that I keep putting it off.

EDIT: Just checked - 101GB, 3990 files in 355 folders. Probably small compared to many around here though.

[Edited 6/8/15 1:14am]

I suppose there's not a lot of record shops in Lusaka anyway.

Records? No, none. CD outlets? Theres a few. But only useful if you like god awful Americanised African rnb. We also get plenty of street vendors selling bootlegged CDs at the traffic lights. Again, nothing worth looking at. I have never seen any trace of Prince music. I did hear U Know on the radio once, but that is because I gave a copy of AOA to a radio dj friend of mine. He played it three times and then stopped. He got a phone-in on his show by someone asking him to never play that crap again.

Rebeljuice said:

Just checked - 101GB, 3990 files in 355 folders. Probably small compared to many around here though.

I filled a 1 terabyte hard drive and am now about 120 gig into the second one