Physical Media Collecting as a Hobby

[The Curious Sofa]

I've taken my Edward Gorey books around the world with me, and I still have them all. He is one of the key artists of my life. My parents had a couple of the Amphigory compilations when I was a kid, and I could lose myself in them for hours. I never made it to his house in Cape Cod, but I visited the small Edward Gorey Museum above the Gotham Book Mart in NYC in the 90s, which I don't think exists anymore.

[domino harvey]

If I die before her, I absolutely would not expect my fiancée to keep any of my collection. I’ve actually thought about this and if I knew I was going to leave this world or have reason to actually put this down in a will, I would probably pay/bequeath someone on this forum to take my entire collection and be an executor of sorts divvying it up free of charge amongst the rest of you so that they go to good homes gratis instead of being meted out to randos on eBay. If I die suddenly or without firming up plans, I imagine she would just sell the lot to a reseller and I can’t do much about that and would be fine with it not being a burden to her, which would be my primary concern in that scenario

[therewillbeblus]

I was just thinking about the exact same thing yesterday.. and made a similar plan. Eerie

[Michael Kerpan]

I think I first encountered Gorey's work because he did cover illustrations for a number of of Joan Aiken's books: https://www.joanaiken.com/edward-gorey- ... es-covers/

When Gorey moved to Cape Cod, he had to leave most of his huge collection of fur coats in cold storage in NYC. After he died, these sort of got forgotten-- and mostly had to be sold to pay for the storage fees that had built up after he died.

My children will be interested in lots (or at least some) of my music and movie stuff -- so I will leave the problem to them....

[Drucker]

If I die before her, I absolutely would not expect my fiancée to keep any of my collection. I’ve actually thought about this and if I knew I was going to leave this world or have reason to actually put this down in a will, I would probably pay/bequeath someone on this forum to take my entire collection and be an executor of sorts divvying it up free of charge amongst the rest of you so that they go to good homes gratis instead of being meted out to randos on eBay. If I die suddenly or without firming up plans, I imagine she would just sell the lot to a reseller and I can’t do much about that and would be fine with it not being a burden to her, which would be my primary concern in that scenario

I feel very similarly! My bud has sold a ton of records on Ebay. So I've basically just told my wife to please know that a lot of the discs are valuable and ask him for help selling the discs so you can get a bunch of money. I don't care if all my stuff doesn't stay in the family, as long as they get a fair deal on it.

[Matt]

I don't think my DVD/BD/UHD collection would be of much interest to people. There are some rarities, and it would be a shame for them to wind up in a dumpster, but most of it is Criterion and other common releases. Ditto my CD collection. On the other hand, I've instructed my husband to call in a proper book dealer to handle my book collection in the event of my demise. I've got a lot of art books that might not immediately look very interesting, but they're quite rare now and could fetch hundreds apiece.

[denti alligator]

My son has become a cinephile, so he'll want the collection. Same with the LPs. But my 4,000+ books ...?? And some of those are actually worth something. [simul-post with Matt: same boat. I have some 19th-century first editions, signed books, and other rarities.]

[hearthesilence]

I've actually thought about this a lot because a big supplier in all my music purchases has been, well, death. I noticed this maybe ten years ago when I was picking up box sets at bargain prices because the eBay listings clearly said it was from an estate sale for a former record executive who remained unidentified. After that, it kind of dawned on me that huge dumps of inventory likely came from estates as well, something sellers often confirmed (though just as often it was people who decided to give up their libraries). That and other things I've been watching like Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery or Olivier Assayas's Summer Hours made me realize this shit's gotta go somewhere someday. I make full use of everything I have, especially now that I'm working a lot from home (playing records while you work improves everything 1000%), but I already know it's not going to be left to my family. Ideally it would be a library donation that would allow everyone free access to it in perpetuity, but libraries generally don't take donations like that and there's of course technology falling in and out of favor in unpredictable fashion (see vinyl or even VHS for crying out loud).

FWIW Robert Christgau has looked into this, a bigger matter for him given his advanced age and the massive size of his record collection (likely one of the absolute biggest held by a household).

For the big collectibles, I've actually thought of donating them to local institutions and maybe have them auction them for fundraising, if they do that sort of thing.

[DeprongMori]

I’ve already made arrangements for disposition of my collection when I eventually join that great archive in the sky.

[Gregory]

It's really funny to me that when these threads merged today, the site sent me a reply notification for the original post in this thread, in which someone in 2006 was incredulous and judgmental that I bought a bunch of DVDs in a Deep Discount sale for less than the cost of a theater ticket per film. Some of them were less than $5. Releases like those would drop out of print and then you'd missed your chance to own those films. My approach to the hobby in the past was a constant treadmill of buying new things and reselling older purchases online, and I eventually withdrew. Now I want to just use what I have rather than try to endlessly expand and improve the movie collection at the expense of other priorities. I try to acquire maybe one new Blu-ray/DVD a month, second-hand. Seeing those earlier posts 19 years on was an amusing reminder of when I was young and overzealous about supporting independent DVD labels.

[Murdoch]

For a somewhat significant period of time (around three years), I was dedicated to getting rid of as much of my collection as I could. Part of it was the difficulty of housing several hundred DVDs, but also the annoyance of feeling compelled to explain what all the odd, foreign movies I possessed were to visitors. So I started selling off a good bulk of my collection to satisfy this need to declutter. I wasn't really frequenting this forum much around that time, so I wasn't very compelled to keep up to date on releases.

Then this past year I started rewatching my collection and found I really wanted to rewatch the silent noir The Thief, but I'd sold it! Now all the copies are used and going for twice what I paid. The same thing happened with Ruiz's Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting.

I'm now in a position where I'm hunting down used copies of films unlikely to get any further release, so a big motivating factor is avoiding the regret I'll face should I start selling off en masse again. The way things are going, most of the films I enjoy and this forum enjoys are not going to be widely available outside of a physical media release. While the Godfathers and popular Kubricks of the film world will always have an audience (and therefore a way to watch them), I don't have faith in Au Bonheur des Dames getting the same treatment!

I really should get rid of two copies of the Radiance Shinobi set though...

[MichaelB]

My wife has made it absolutely clear that if I don’t get rid of everything before I die, it’s going in a skip when my body’s still warm.

[The Curious Sofa]

I threw out my VHS tapes when DVD came in and I sold most of my DVDs when Blu-ray was the new format because that coincided with me starting to use a projector and DVDs look terrible at that size. I've sold some Blu-rays I'll never watch again on eBay but can't see myself radically whittling down my collection any time soon. Now fewer titles get released at higher prices and living in Germany, postage and taxes to import titles from the UK and US has become expensive, so I don't buy much anymore and my collection isn't growing at the same pace as it used to. But I'm finally about to get into UHD/4K and I will upgrade a few essentials (...he says now.)

[JFlu25]

Speaking as a younger collector, who has only really gotten into film collecting in the last five years, and especially in the beginning bought a huge amount of different genres from a bunch of the typical boutique/niche labels, I don’t usually worry about what’ll happen to my collection. It’s already worth quite a bit at this point, but I’d never just want it sold. I also think this is a hobby I’m going to enjoy doing a bit here and there throughout my life. There’s still (hopefully) a lot more life to go, and so it’s hard to say what would ultimately happen to it at this point. Ideally, it would go to someone, or a group of individuals, that loved niche and genre films as much as I do.

[cdnchris]

I've been using apps for selling locally and I have to say the last year or so I've been selling to more college-aged kids, one just starting, so it seems it's still a thing to a degree.

Also, my son wants my collection as he's made clear, so I'm happy with that (if slightly bothered by the fact he's seemingly already thinking about or planning my demise).

[LastMinit]

I gave digital a fair shake, and I have returned to physical collecting with more appreciation for it.
Only the Criterion Channel, in my experience of online services, have any sense of curatorship, or care, or even awareness of its product.
I keep my collection neat and trim these days, selling on things that I've moved on from, but focused curating is part of the kick for me now.

[rrenault]

I threw out my VHS tapes when DVD came in and I sold most of my DVDs when Blu-ray was the new format because that coincided with me starting to use a projector and DVDs look terrible at that size. I've sold some Blu-rays I'll never watch again on eBay but can't see myself radically whittling down my collection any time soon. Now fewer titles get released at higher prices and living in Germany, postage and taxes to import titles from the UK and US has become expensive, so I don't buy much anymore and my collection isn't growing at the same pace as it used to. But I'm finally about to get into UHD/4K and I will upgrade a few essentials (...he says now.)

Just so you know, if you make sure to order from IOSS-registered retailers in the UK that should minimize the import markups when shipping to the continent.

[nicolas]

Just so you know, if you make sure to order from IOSS-registered retailers in the UK that should minimize the import markups when shipping to the continent.

We still have to pay taxes though. IOSS simply prevents us from having to pay them to customs directly ourselves and paying a processing fee to the carrier. It does make a difference, no question, but, as always, there’s no ideal solution. This hobby means paying now more than ever.

[rrenault]

Just so you know, if you make sure to order from IOSS-registered retailers in the UK that should minimize the import markups when shipping to the continent.

We still have to pay taxes though. IOSS simply prevents us from having to pay them to customs directly ourselves and paying a processing fee to the carrier. It does make a difference, no question, but, as always, there’s no ideal solution. This hobby means paying now more than ever.

I'm guessing what you mean is an IOSS-registered retailer such as Rarewaves lists their prices with VAT included, and that gets deducted at checkout when you have the item shipped to a UK address....

I've never had an item on there shipped to a UK address, so I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing that's what you mean by paying tax. All the same, I'd say it still makes a huge difference. In certain EU countries carrier processing fees can be brutal. It's still shits and giggles compared to the cost of importing items from the US, especially if you consider certain retailers within the EU will charge 8+ euros for shipments within the common market.

[hearthesilence]

I just sold a few UK Blu-rays to French buyers this month. I was wondering why as I assumed it would be better to buy from a UK vendor than an American eBay user (all are still in-print) but maybe this is why?

[FrauBlucher]

Oof, this thread should be called The after life for physical media. I always think about stop collecting as someone in my 60s. But I can't. I am more selective and I do sell films that I don't feel the need to view multiple times anymore. When the time comes not sure what's going to happen my collection. Maybe I'll donate it at some point.

For those in NY, I sell my discs to Academy Records on 18th Street, between 6th and 5th

[Murdoch]

It's fun rereading the beginning of this thread to see how little has changed in collector mentality. However, we're definitely in a different world when it comes to film availability. Whereas then you could satisfy watching the latest DVD through a mail order Netflix subscription, now streaming services' content is extremely restricted by region and often focused on original content (not to mention the dips in quality that come in streaming based on internet speed).

My dream is to wittle my collection down to the bare, rewatchable essentials. The problem is figuring out what those essentials are when I'm at the moment in my 30s and will ideally be revisiting these discs in later decades with the inevitable differences in taste that comes with age.

[Beloved Aunt]

it’s going in a skip

What's a "skip"?

[domino harvey]

A dumpster

[Beloved Aunt]

I had assumed it was, like, a canal or something