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Accumulated Hi-Fi Stuff

hermit said:
I like to kid myself that my carefully curated collections of vintage hifi, jazz records and mid century furniture will hold their value or appreciate but in reality, once my generation has got too old to care, I don't think much of it would appeal to the younger generations.
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Hard to know innit. I'm a bit of a Bargain Hunt addict and the experts on that seem to be always pointing at Georgian cabinets and saying they were a few grand 20 years ago and now struggle to make three figures at auction. Stuff definitely goes in and out of fashion.

The photos of your room you've posted look great - I'm quite jealous!

It's not a big name but I'm very fond of the teak midcentury sideboard our hi-fi sits on - a fiver from a charity shop a good while back. Those days are long gone : )
 
paulfromcamden said:
Hard to know innit. I'm a bit of a Bargain Hunt addict and the experts on that seem to be always pointing at Georgian cabinets and saying they were a few grand 20 years ago and now struggle to make three figures at auction. Stuff definitely goes in and out of fashion.
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The fall from grace of "brown furniture" has been quite spectacular. If you have the kind of house that suits it, there are some real bargains to be had.

As you say, stuff does go in and out of fashion. I think the mid century aesthetic is popular just now because it complements modern minimalist architecture and design. Also, it doesn't hurt that contemporary furniture can be so bland and ubiquitous. The best of mid century design is to my mind, classic and timeless and will, I hope, escape the vagaries of fashion at least to some degree.

paulfromcamden said:
The photos of your room you've posted look great - I'm quite jealous!
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Very kind of you to say so. It's great to get positive feedback. Thank you.

paulfromcamden said:
It's not a big name but I'm very fond of the teak midcentury sideboard our hi-fi sits on - a fiver from a charity shop a good while back. Those days are long gone : )
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Mid century sideboards are great for hifi. Sounds like you got a real bargain. These days even modest sideboards seem to go for hundreds and some designs can cost thousands at mid century furniture retailers.
 
I like mid-century but it certainly has been 'on-trend' for about 20 years. Way back, these things were not worth a lot of money and you could buy truckloads of such vintage furniture at auctions. I was able to pick up a number of these pieces at very reasonable prices 15-20 years ago but probably will not be willing to pay the asking prices today. I don't think mid-century furniture is inherently 'superior' aesthetically to other sorts of designs. It's just that these things cycle in and out of fashion.

Brown furniture has been so unfashionable that it is possible to pick great stuff at low prices. It's a great time to be looking for some fantastic pieces. Just like in the case of CDs. In any case, it livens up a space to juxtapose mixed pieces.
 
I accumulated lots of small speakers as I hunted down the right ones. Still have them for no reason other than they're a hassle to sell when you live in a small town. Fortunately few are worth any money.

Mr Pig said:
I very rarely lend anything out these days. I got so fed up with not getting stuff back or it coming back broken. Lent my Rega book to someone, I'd hardly looked at it myself. Never got it back. Lent records to my brother in law, came back unplayable. It's annoying.
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I almost never lend anything out either. I learned my lessons years ago. A record I lent to a friend I was sure I could trust came back with jam on it! I prefer to give things away. I like a note I saw on someones bookcase: "I do not like to lend my books. I do not like to lose my books, nor my friends."

Nor do I like to borrow things. Why be a hypocrite? Friends have told me I'm welcome to borrow their records but I always refuse because I know their value &, although unlikely to happen, I'd hate to lose or damage them: as above, both the records & my friendships.
 
Tigerjones said:
When I had money I used to be very good at buying hifi, especially speakers. Problem was I was never any good at selling them.
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This is going to sound crazy but it's true, you can come and see it for yourself.

At the other end of my street there is a family who run a small haulage business, they've got a few trucks running out of the local quarry. Their site used to be petrol station, long closed, and they've got a big workshop and the house to the left behind the disused petrol station. Decent sized bit of land.

Obviously, they buy cars and trucks but this is the good bit. They never sell any of them! Cars and trucks get parked and just....stay there. Forever. All covered in green algae. Cars include a Porsche 944 and a 1970s long wheelbase Land Rover. I've known these guys for forty years and the cars they had back then are still there.

And they won't sell them. I've asked. I'm sure someone would love to get their hands on the old Land Rover but they won't sell it. I don't know what is going on in their heads. They effectively live in a scrap yard and don't care.
 
I always commit to selling before buying, I try not to have doubles. To be honest it's not out of respect for space, money or sensibility, but just because I hate options and always want to have just one thing. Problem is, that one thing is rarely the same for more than a few months..
 
Durmbo said:
I almost never lend anything out either. I learned my lessons years ago. A record I lent to a friend I was sure I could trust came back with jam on it! I prefer to give things away.
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Same. I've given away hundreds of albums, I've got half a dozen sitting here waiting for a friend to collect just now. I don't know why but I never sell them. I've given away albums that were worth a few quid, I really should sell them instead but it's just never felt right. I don't know, I see the music as the valuable thing, not the rare pressing or whatever, and I'd rather just share it.
 
paulfromcamden said:
Hard to know innit. I'm a bit of a Bargain Hunt addict and the experts on that seem to be always pointing at Georgian cabinets and saying they were a few grand 20 years ago and now struggle to make three figures at auction. Stuff definitely goes in and out of fashion.

The photos of your room you've posted look great - I'm quite jealous!

It's not a big name but I'm very fond of the teak midcentury sideboard our hi-fi sits on - a fiver from a charity shop a good while back. Those days are long gone : )
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I used to restore tea caddies and boxes for a dealer who used to make a third of a million at Olympia fairs. Now they’re worth buttons. He sells mobile homes and I restore other stuff. (This typed sitting on the Nepalese wool rug bought for £20 at auction 40 years ago).
 
paulfromcamden said:
Way I see it, even with a big collection records have more chance of being played than 90% of the books people find shelf space for... how many times are you really going to re-read Ulysses? : )

I sometimes listen to a rare books podcast and it seems pretty common for dealers to buy a private library where great swathes of the books have barely been opened. At least every record that comes in the house get played a bunch of times before it disappears onto the shelves.

Though of course space is finite so I have to keep pruning. The wardrobe collapsed a few years back because I'd filled it with records... :-/
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Got rid of all my books. No room for them anymore and don't want to live choked with stuff like a horder. If I'm honest, it hurt and I still miss some of them... But I just don't have the recreational time to settle with a book as I once did.
I'm unable to sell any hifi. Perhaps because my collection of bargains will stand revealed for what it is: a load of old tat that no one else will want.
 
Darren said:
Got rid of all my books. No room for them anymore and don't want to live choked with stuff like a horder. If I'm honest, it hurt and I still miss some of them... But I just don't have the recreational time to settle with a book as I once did.
I'm unable to sell any hifi. Perhaps because my collection of bargains will stand revealed for what it is: a load of old tat that no one else will want.
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I'm reasonably good at pruning back the books but I'm afraid those are still coming in too - at the weekend I found a WWII edition of A Study In Scarlet and a 1950s book club edition of Live And Let Die for £2 each and Spraycan Art for a quid. One man's tat, another man's treasure and all that : )
 
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Maxbertola said:
I always commit to selling before buying, I try not to have doubles. To be honest it's not out of respect for space, money or sensibility, but just because I hate options and always want to have just one thing. Problem is, that one thing is rarely the same for more than a few months..
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impressive!

Alex S said:
I used to restore tea caddies and boxes for a dealer who used to make a third of a million at Olympia fairs. Now they’re worth buttons. He sells mobile homes and I restore other stuff. (This typed sitting on the Nepalese wool rug bought for £20 at auction 40 years ago).
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Mark Goodger?
 
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