Is your record collection starting to grow and storage is starting to become a major concern?
This blog post will rundown the best ways to store your records so that they are safe, organised and the centrepiece of your HiFi setup rather than an ugly pile on the floor.
First let's talk about sleeves, not the one on your hoodie or the sick tattoo sleeve your mate got the other day, record sleeves!
Record sleeves come in two types, inner sleeves and outer sleeves:
Inner sleeves are designed for the vinyl records themselves to go in, we recommend plastic inner sleeves or rice paper inner sleeves with polypropylene rather than regular paper inner sleeves that typically come standard with most records today. The plastic in these inner sleeves is designed to reduce static on your records as well as being soft enough to not scratch your records (paper sleeves can also “flake” leaving very fine paper fibres on your records which will damage them over time and result in poorer playback)>
Outer sleeves are designed to go outside your record jacket, these protect your record jacket from accidental scuffs and scratches ensuring that they stay looking their best (perfect for if you have a “Now Playing” stand. Plastic outer sleeves can also reduce friction between your records which is especially helpful if records are stacked side by side next to each other.
Purchase Inner and Outer Sleeves Here
Now let's talk storage!
Records should be stored standing upright not laying flat on top of each other. Laying records flat in a stack can result in ring wear on the outer sleeve of the record as well as warped records. Make sure that records aren’t packed too tightly together or with uneven or high amounts of pressure being applied as this can also lead to warping of your records.
The cheapest solution to storing your records could be free! An old beer crate or milk crate (assuming these are clean and also splinter free in the case of beer crates) makes a great way to store your records.
One step up we sell reinforced cardboard storage boxes that can hold around 100 records.
Purchase a Real Groovy Cardboard Storage Box Here ONLY $9.95
We also sell a number of wooden storage crates that are designed to perfectly fit your records and allow them to stand straight up removing the ability for them to warp over time like they would just stacked in a pile.
Purchase Wooden Storage Crates Here and Here
If you have a smaller collection and want something a bit more funky looking we also sell record display stands, these have end plates that again as you’d guess help keep your records upright and vertical.
Purchase A Record Storage Stand Here
Finally if you have an even larger collection than this potentially look at the various wood-workers around NZ that can make you specialised record storage units, or the old favourite of record collectors the IKEA “Kallax” (For the kallax make sure that it is oriented so that the shelves are supported by the vertical shelf walls and not just by the pegs as record collections get heavy very quickly and Kallax units can sometimes break or buckle under this weight.
Now let's talk organisation, we stock tens of thousands of records so we organise our “collection” by genre and then alphabetised within each genre. You can do a similar thing at home and having labelled dividers makes it easy to remember which section of your collection is which. We sell both plain and pre-labelled record dividers depending on your needs.
