I'm sitting here looking through my collection. It's not enormouslyy huge, maybe 300 - 400, but I started wondering what would happen if some natural disaster occurred and I lost them all. I mean there is insurance, but one, I wouldn't remember everything I had (I think I need something to catalog these things, another topic). Second, I don't think I would want to repurchase everything I have now...you know the Deee-Lite, the Pebbles, stuff like that....but I still want them.

Has anyone had to replace their collection? How did you go about doing it?

I have a database of every CD I own that I update regularly, and keep a copy of it in a couple places that aren't at home. This is automated by my Palm and Documents to Go, but that's neither here nor there except for the fact that I don't have to think about it beyond updating the db in one place.

Haven't had to replace the collection, but I know I'll be able to if I had to -- covered under my renter's insurance.

Back in college, a friend of mine's CDs (about 400) were stolen when we threw a dorm party. He didn't have a list of which ones he had but we ended up giving him $1500 to replace it all (profits from the party) and he basically cleaned out columbia house.

A coworker of mine who's a music nut had his house broken in to, and his entire CD collection of around 1,500 titles were stolen.

He kept record of all his CDs in some word processor document, and that was good enough for the insurance company.

He said that it was actually a blessing in disguise, as he would purchase back the titles he wanted - and avoided re-purchasing the ones he wanted to sell (but wouldn't have gotten much for) anyways. The left over money he used to purchase new titles.

He has over 2,500 titles now.

the thought of losing all of my cd collection is sickening.

I lost all 500+ of mine when my car got broken into when I was a senior in high school. I had documentation of them all, but I knew every cd I owned in my head anyway. It took me about 2.5 years to buy back every single one. I probably only skipped about 20 or so ones that I could care less about now.

Keeping a record of what you have is a great idea. My car got broken into twice in the same year. The first time it happened, I didn't have insurance, the second time I did.

I had 20 CDs stolen the first time and 24 the second time. I received $12.00 per CD for the 24, minus a $125 deductabile for $163 total. Using half.com I was able to buy back 30+ of the CDs that I had lost. Worked out pretty well for me... except for the fact I had a $500 deductabile for the car window as well.

Mordred

So with insurance and keeping a record, do you have to have receipts to prove what CD's you're replacing? I'd be totally screwed if that was the case.

I signed up with Guzzlefish this morning and started recording my collection. I'm not sure if this is the best method but I've got to start somewhere.

I had to replace 2/3rd's of mine that I sold because of unemployment.

Not fun!

why not take a digi pic of them? I did this with a high resolution of my entire collection in large CD bookcase rack thingy and if i need to see the titles i just zoom in using iPhoto. i then uploaded the pics to my yahoo briefcase on line - this is also good for the police and the insurance company. the thought of putting all 1000 CDs into a database is tiring me out just thinking about it.

hope it helps.

So if there is a need to give proof to the insurance company/police the picture would do? I still have a small enough amount to catalog but that sounds like a good idea also.

My buddy had a house fire last year and had to replace most of his DVD's and Cd's. The restoration company was able to save some of them but he must have had 1000's of Cd's.

Back in college, my rental was broken into and the f-ing thieves stole chunks of my CD collection, like A-H and O-R (all of a top row, and then a handful on the right side of the second row, obviously they were scared off and bolted before cleaning me out of all my CDs). I replaced about 25% of what was stolen (no renter's insurance at the time), and didn't miss the other 75% that was stolen, so maybe it was a blessing.

Anyone who's wondering what kind of proof their insurer would be required would be well served to ask your insurance agent. I did. Well, I didn't ask your agent, but you get the idea.

For what it's worth, he told me a list would be fine, but since I had a much bigger than average collection, pictures of it would also be useful.

I think I would have to kill myself if this should occur.

About 6 years ago, My apartment was broken into. The thieves stole one rack of CD's of about 100 CD's (A-C). It sucked that all my Beatle CD's were gone, but then again the jerks were stuck with that Michael Bolton CD (what the hell was I thinking).

I have recently ripped all my CD's into MP3's. I usually listen to them thru my Nomad Zen or thru my home network via my Tivo. I have put most of my CD's (800+) into storage.

That's a good start. All I had to do was send a letter to my insurance company listing the artist and title of each CD that was stolen. I have a great insurance company and they're willing to trust me, not sure if that's true with every company though.

The bad thing is, and I would assume this is true everywhere, the $12.00 I got per CD is all they would pay out for any CD. I had some expensive imports stolen that ran me $30+ and didn't get anything more from them. Luckily I didn't have any thing from any of my boxsets stolen or I would have been really unhappy.

You're probably right. Having 1000 CDs stolen they might want a little more than just a list.

I rip all my CD's to my hard drive as soon as I get them. I rarely use CD's anymore. If I'm in my car I usually play mixes now.

So if I lost my CD collection, it would suck ass but I would be able to deal with it. Its rather small anyway (just over 200)

Ripped my 400+ into MP3 320bit. I have 2 copies on separate hard drives.