Records you either lost, sold or gave away and regret

Nearly 10 years ago now, I converted the loft in our house to make another bedroom after the arrival of our two children. I decided to go through the crates of records and weed out all the ones in the ‘I’ll never get a chance to play that again’ category.
Needless to say, hardly a day goes by when i don’t regret saying goodbye to some tune or other.
I’ve just been reminded of Swimming not Skimming by Two Lone Swordsmen as an example.
Others like Maurizio Domina, Sterac Asphyx, LFO vs Fuse, lots of great techno that i just thought I wouldn’t get to play.
I know lots have been reissued and there is always Discogs but it’s hard going back and paying top dollar for stuff you once had.
Anyone else?

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Similar family/home renovation story. Only room for about half of my collection. Going through and choosing what to keep was TOUGH. Took a long while. Luckily a mate ended up taking the records so I know where they are if I need one. Mind you it’s not the ones I remember giving away that haunt me it’s the ones I don’t remember and are probably unknown classics!

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I left a copy of KLF - Space around some birds house in 90/91, which I’ll almost certainly never see again at a decent price.

Also Im currently selling a sizable chuck of my collection (due to financial and future country move reasons) I’m trying to sell wisely and only get rid of stuff that I think I can live without, but I know there will be some regrets along the way.

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I had a box stolen once. That was very distressing. I was playing at a Skateboard/snowboard event in Battersea Park. I’d taken a real mix of stuff as it was a day and night event.
OG Electric Ladyland, a copy of Fresh Fruit by the DKs that I’d bought when i was 16, Tony Allen Black Voices, Bass Bin Twins, Jake Slazenger oh it’s painful remembering😂.
I left my record box in the van whilst i went to play golf (i know, my own fault, Golf FFS!), and someone broke in and took it.
This was around 1999/2000 so no discogs no real online shops. Very hard going round trying to replace stuff. It took me a long time to get over that one.

Had to sell a large section of my record collection about 10 years ago during a prolonged period of unemployment, at the time it was the only thing I owned that had any value.
Lots of stuff was in there including the 2 Lone Swordsmen double pack that had Swimming Not Skimming & Rico’s Helly on it, lots of Hip Hop 12"s, TROY, The UMCs, Main Source… some Factory Records stuff, my gold coloured 12" of Fools Gold, Planet Rock…
Painful at the time but had to be done

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I also sold my collection 10 years ago, thinking it’s all online now no need to keep the vinyl. Kept one box of my most prized things for old times sake. After a couple of years completely missed the physicality of the medium, the touch and smell of it, never mind the design and the artwork!

When we moved to a larger house 5 years ago I made sure that we had space for a record room, I’ve been buying everything back ever since and now have far more than I did before, the only difference now is that I keep self sufficient by buying and selling online, which also exposes me to new stuff I wouldn’t have come across.

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That’s a good point, I’ve bought far more (and better, imo) records than I let go. :+1:

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Lost my entire childhood/teenage LP collection when I left the UK, mainly Berlin kosmisch stuff. Complete TD and KS discographies, tons of IC, all Inteam releases including the first pressing of E2E4. Basically, lots of records that not many people had heard of before the surge of interest created by Harvey, Baldelli etc. Still gutted about it.

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It haunts me everyday but I had to sell entire collection plus my turntables and a rather large collection of cameras about 10 years ago. Sometimes utterly shite things happen again and again and you have to either perish or eat your records. So much regret but it was unavoidable at the time. Thankfully i’ve tracked down a large percentage of it all digitally but we survived off badly dubbed radio show cassette in the 80’'s so i’m used to worse!

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KAOS 10" on Svek. So good with an incredible steel drum sound. Someone offered me $50 for it about 10 years ago (seems all our sad tales are from 10 years ago) and I thought that was a lot of money and I had seen another copy floating around so figured i’d be able to find another copy. Never found another copy and i think about that record many times a year.

Good Looking Label Compilations 1-6 - foolishly thought I was ‘over’ drum and bass and sold the whole series.

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I hawked all my vinyl at Brick Lane in 1997. Virtually giving away loads of 12s that I now see go for serious money. But a ticket to Australia was more important at the time! Cest la vie

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Didn’t mention “damaged” records.

I accidentally left the first pressing of my Drexciya “Neptune’s Lair” leaning on my radiator while I was prepping for a gig. #oops #electrocry

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Lost countless records over the years, had a few nicked too. One record shopping trip I went to meet a mate in a pub and they got nicked from the pub before I’d even taken them home to play so I didn’t really count that I’d owned them although they never got replaced, MK apella, a chez Damier bit and a few others

Warrior Charge… love it still, old gf borrowed it never to be seen again, bet she binned it.

Pales into insignificance to my old flat mate walking off with my Sharp GF525… bought it with my first grant cheque, used to make crazy mixtapes, double phased copies, endless fun, nice line in bootleg copies of Piccadilly Radio Christmas mixes to my art school buddies… sorry bit off topic.

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I gave aload of Madchester Indie dance and early hip hop stuff to a guy who played in the chill out room at out local club/theatre every Saturday up stairs was the chill out room with cinema seating the ones that sprung up as soon as your arse lifted… Lol… You can Imagine the scenes on a night there… :rofl::rofl: Lots of 7" stone roses stuff but it’s my 2 Flowered up 12’ I miss the most… :pensive:

Cabaret Voltaire - Drinking Gasoline

i now have the various tracks via their cd reissues, but still.

Promo copy of 4Hero remix of Black Gold of the Sun. Don’t even remember how/why. sob

Sold all my King Gizzard LP’s a few months back as I decided I was over them. Saw them live last week with my 14 year old son and now wish I had given them all to him! Mind you, they did fetch a pretty penny, so it allowed me to buy some other interesting records.

I’m at a point now in my life as a music lover/collector where I’m totally ok with letting go of stuff I loved at 15-25, with obvious exceptions, mainly because you can’t take it with you and holding on to things just for the sake of nostalgia seems a backwards step.

It’s sometimes lovely to reach into the shelf for a time capsule to transport you back to bask in the glow of youth, but in order for me to buy new records, I have to sell some (a mortgage, 2 kids, covid, a dog and more have ensured I don’t have disposable income for vinyl). Plus, it’s nice to release them into the world to be given a new lease of life with another music lover.

There’s always amazing music to buy - it seems silly to really regret parting with records. Mind you, reading some of your tales of vinyl theft and falling on tough times, I understand why you might get pangs of bitterness and loss.

Oh, I just remembered - one record I do sometimes miss is my copy of Firefox & 4-Tree “The Warning”. I had a mate who was rather envious that I had this 12" and so one year on his birthday, I surprised him by gifting it to him. I don’t regret it - I just miss it occasionally.

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Threw this away because I did’nt like it. Needless to say I wasn’t a regular Discogger these days,

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In '91 me and my housemates went out for the night, in the morning when we got home, the door was ajar. Someone had cleared out all my friends and my records. They took up a whole room, both walls and a centre isle, so must have used a van/truck to move them all. It was the kind of house that had lots of after parties and lots of people passing through so probably someone we knew, who knew we were all out for the night.

It took the wind out of my sails records wise ,for quite a few years, and stopped my DJing for a while. Of course I replaced many of them, but even now I feel it if I re-buy a record from that collection. There’s something so particularly hurtful about stealing an entire collection that can’t really be expressed adequately.

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