Let's Talk About Size

Don't be shy: ego and greed have been part of human nature since time immemorial. Let's face the naked truth once and for all...

Come on, be honest.

How big is your…

Photo by Tasha

… wantlist?

Excuse me? You thought I meant something else?

The other day I discovered I currently have an astonishing 6,000 items in my Discogs wantlist.

For those who don’t know, Discogs is a records database, marketplace and community platform where you can, among other features, keep track of records you own and wish to own.

For context, my collection is just short of 600 records, and I already struggle to listen to them all on a more or less regular basis.

I will definitely continue buying records for as long as I have the space, money and energy. Six flipping thousand records, though, is unrealistic.

Plus, it’s a number I know will inevitably keep on growing, as I discover new music worthy of spinning on wax.

Source: NW Magazine. Interested in the gent? He’s LA-born, Australia-based model and DJ Didier Cohen. You’re welcome.

Now, as I said earlier, I should be honest with you too. When I add a new album to my wantlist, I include several versions, typically filtered by year of release and country of issue. As many of you know, I favour older pressings from the main vinyl manufacturing hubs at the time of release.

Once I finally manage to buy one of these versions, I add it to my collection, and I remove all the other versions of that record from my wantlist. I make an exception when there’s a particular edition I’m still curious about, in which case I keep that specific version in my wantlist.

All this to say, the figure of 6,000 is most probably inflated, as there are lots of “duplicates”, so to speak. In any case, I know for a fact I have way too much stuff in there, and I definitely don’t want my collection to become a liability or burden in the years to come.

Well, it’d be rude not to! Here at the Vinyl Room, we don’t discriminate. Photo by Syda_Productions

I should probably trim my wantlist at some point, but right now I don’t have the time or, frankly, the inclination to go through every single item. As much as I love thinking about my collection and devising buying strategies, I have a life to live, as I’m sure you do too.

You may be facing a similar situation: so many records, so little time. If these words resonate with you, I’ve got you covered.

Here’s what I’ve been doing, which seems to be working pretty well: when it comes to buying online, I prioritise the records which have been in my wantlist the longest.

On your Discogs wantlist page, in the “Added” field (second column from the right), you’ll see your latest additions at the top when the arrow is facing down, as shown below:

Click on the arrow to reverse the order, and voilà! Your oldest additions are now shown first:

This brings much-needed focus to your browsing process.

Chances are, if a record has been in your wantlist for years, you probably want it more than the ones you’ve recently discovered or added.

In many cases, your oldest additions will be obscure records, or versions which are pretty rare, so here’s some extra focus:

• Am I ready to pay hundreds for this specific record?

• Am I willing to spend hours finding a decent copy for sale?

If you’re not willing to make the sacrifice in terms of money or time (or both), then I would suggest you remove it from your wantlist and focus on other records instead.

Photo by Adrian Maximiliano Arellano on Unsplash

The bigger your collection gets, the more attention you need to pay to your wantlist, so things don’t get out of control.

As the old adage goes, bigger is not always better. It’s all a question of balance, after all.

Thanks for reading/listening. Happy spinning!