Record and Cylinder Organization Methods?

[OrthoSean]

Nah, I only have a few hundred cylinders here, the rest are at my parents' house. I just have my cylinders by 2M and 4M in two cabinets and one box.

The artist thing works great, though.

Sean

[Brad]

Brad----Your cabinets are magnificent, exactly what I hope to build for my own collection one of these days. I like seeing old pics of store interiors from years ago, and your cabinets look much like some of those used in the dealer's stores. I like how the 12" albums are nearer the bottom, and how you have sculpted the supports to graduate the sizes (larger diameter near the bottom, so on). On the left side, there are a series of albums? boxes? with what appears to be a nice quartered oak spines---are they old or did you make them? Very interesting to see what looks like a nice set.

Even though I have a couple of old cylinder cabinets, the type with cardboard pegs in the drawers, I prefer your solution for the cylinder storage. My collection over the years has refined to include mostly cylinders with the proper boxes. I have misgivings about removing the cardboard pegs from an old cabinet to store the boxes (which don't always have enough room to stand upright in the drawer anyway). My cabinets have had most---but not all---of the pegs removed years ago. Always thought that the cylinder boxes were a dandy visual element in their own right, and your display behind the glass doors fills the bill nicely. Congrats on your excellent woodworking skills~!

Thanks Kirkwood,

I was going for the Olde Tyme look with the shelves. Below is a picture before I painted them.

I made the wooden storage boxes as well. Early in my collecting I made these to store records in a music cabinet with all but one of the shelves removed. It looked real nice, however, I quickly outgrew it. They do a nice job of storage, but I would not recommend them for large collections. I made them from QS oak for the front, Poplar for the bottom and back, and ⅛" hardboard for the sides. They fit flush to each other and with stick on felt on the bottom, slide in and out easily. If I were to do it again, I would most likely fume the oak.

I also made the cylinder cabinet to show off the cylinder boxes. I really am proud of this piece. Each tray has dividers that hold the boxes in place and each little compartment has a shallow hole bored that accepts a cardboard tube which is held in place via friction. I can set up each spot for either box or cylinder and can easily switch.

[antique1973]

That is professional work all the way Brad, very nice! I may have to fly you
to California so you can organize my mess.

[antique1973]

Cylinders I keep in either chests of drawers or boxes. One chest of drawers holds BA up to around 3500, and another holds wax cylinders. The excess are kept in lidded cardboard boxes I picked up from the news agents for $3 each. I like having these with lids, as it keeps the dust out, and you can stack them 3 or 4 feet high & they remain stable
I used to have my cylinders separated by artist/genre for years, and I always knew which drawer to open to find what I wanted, but about a year ago, I resorted them by catalogue number. Ever since I've found it a real PITA to find things, but I guess I'll get used to it eventually, once my brain starts to relate song titles to catalogue numbers. At the moment I find myself having to rely on either looking everything up in the BA book, or opening 2 or 3 drawers and scanning over the lids of 100 cylinders to find anything.
It was much easier when I knew if I opened the second drawer, I'd find 3 rows of Billy Williams, then 3 rows of Billy Murray, then 2 rows of Ada Jones etc.
Another problem I've found with keeping my BA's in drawers by catalogue number, is when I get new cylinders, I then have to insert them into there appropriate position, and that can sometimes mean moving 3 ½ drawers full over cylinders to accomedate it/them. And because the drawers are full, this means the ones at the end of the sequence get kicked out of the drawer & into the boxes, which also then have to be reorganised

I also keep my wax cylinders in order of record numbers, but I dont buy these often, so I dont have to move them along very often.
Because most 2M cylinders only have a number on the lid, I do keep a sheet of paper in each drawer with a kind of location graph drawn on it, with the rec no., title & artist written in each square.

That's a great idea to use chests of drawers for cylinder storage. For someone on a
budget like myself it is always easy to find those on CL for cheap or even free
at times. Thanks for the excellent input Shane.

[antique1973]

I'm with you, Shane! I actually did get started doing so, but I've got tens of thousands of records...many of which will eventually be sold / traded / given away, so it's a waste of time for me to do it and I gave up. Everything I have is sorted and shelved (mostly) alphabetically by artist(s) (classical has it's own shelving), then by label and catalog #. I can locate almost any 78 in a minute this way and I've got the ability to expand shelving as needed. They're almost all in one place (dry basement) and , hey, it works well for me.

Sean

I am in the same position, I have limited space to work with so I generally keep
the best ones and try to sell the rest. I figure once my "keepers" get numerous
enough I will start cataloging them. Its annoying to lose track of a
particular recording I like.

[Kirkwood]

Brad---Thanks so much for posting the additional photos. I am duly impressed with your attention to detail and the careful planning involved in constructing both types of your cabinets. The excellent quality of your workmanship is evident in those drawers; getting a perfectly round hole that accepts the cardboard tube *without* glue is a great idea.

Years ago I got frustrated with having my nicer multi-envelope albums fall apart (due to the deterioration of the paper). There had to be a way to store the records in new paper sleeves. I had toyed with the idea of making similar record boxes like the oak faced versions of yours. I started out thinking I'd make the ends look like fine book bindings, but then the idea fell by the wayside. I like your version much more; they look better and would be far more straight forward to construct. These wouldn't be for the entire collection, but there are smaller groups of records I'd like to keep secure in such a holder. Thanks very much for the inspiration.