I saved a couple. I come across them every now and then and quickly forget about them. The last one I saw was one for Bowie.

Damn, this is making me all nostalgic.

I remember buying Use Your Illusion I and II the week it was released. A record store was having a special where they gave you a good discount if you bought both of them together, and I took advantage of it.

God, I miss record stores. I can remember taking these pilgrimages to Hastings back when there were in a shopping mall and before they started renting video tapes. Just a huge store filled with nothing but records, cassettes, and compact discs. Basically anything you could image, they had in stock.

And then there was this one little record store, an indie in a free-standing building, that was sort of a hippie head shop, and they had a huge selection of vinyl at great prices. I remember buying the Iron Maiden records I couldn't get from Columbia House there, Celtic Frost LPs (To Mega Therion, which I bought just because of the H.R. Giger cover), and tons of other vinyl.

I started buying CD's in 1988 and I still have all my original long boxes from that time period, about 300 in total. I cut the bottom flap so I could fold them flat. They are currently safely tucked away in a storage unit (I'm in the middle of selling a house right now). I am a completist when it comes to the music that I purchase. I even save(d) the stickers from the shrink wrap that they would put on a CD announcing: "Contains such and such song."

Yeah, even tho I'm a crazy hoarder when it comes to stuff like this... I don't own a single god damn cat... and I'm super organized. No piles of shit in my house!

I'd forgotten all about those.

My roommate would buy 30 or so CDs at a time in the 1980s. He would go to the cash register when that red shopping basket was full. Then we would go home and fill up the trash can with long boxes.

He's only interested in the music. When he bought a 500 CD player, he threw away his jewel boxes.

I remember long boxes, but I never saved one. I do however still own a first pressing of Sting's The Soul Cages which was the first CD to have the fold down gimick. I even kept the plastic clips for years because I knew it was a unique item. I eventually lost the clips however.

Actually the FIRST printing of The Soul Cages DID have a longbox, but the disc inside was still in a cardboard cover instead of a jewel case. I bought that one right away because I had heard only the very first shipments would have longboxes and the rest would have the cover folded out. There's a note on the back of the longbox saying something to the effect that longboxes were destroying the planet- I'll have to dig it out and scan it.
And there are still SOME record stores left- support them!

I know I saved a bunch of them thinking I might make some kind of art project out them (never happened). Now I think they are in the garage and I know some of them had expanded or unique artwork on them.

I saved some and I have the longbox for U2 Rattle and Hum and Ice Cube Death Certificate and don't laugh the first one I got was Genesis Invisible Touch.

I liked them and miss those days though back then CDs were a big investment and I would just buy the cassette tape since it was cheaper.

Got a player for Christmas 85 so I started buying then (and still do today). I purchased many with longboxes but even though I loved the cover art of albums I just didn't save any of them and threw them away right after purchase. I regret that I didn't keep any of them.

I have Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em in the original longbox.

I also have a Joshua Tree cassette longbox.

I saved a few, the ones that had any words or pictures different from what was on the jewel case.

The only CD I have in one those in U2's "Achtung Baby."

I can see why they weren't more popular. They're bulky, awakward, cheap-looking and probably use five times as much paper as a regular longbox.

I still have the longbox for every CD I purchased that came in one. Roughly 200. The last CD I purchased in a longbox was Green Jello's Cereal Killer Soundtrack. I stumbled across it in WM right after they were forced to change their name to Green Jelly and picked it up because it had the original name. It's the only CD I own that's still unopened.

The longboxes often had the same design as the album cover, and pretty much the same size. I would use them to decorate my dorm room in college.

I have a few in storage somewhere but that's all, most I threw away when I moved out of the dorm.

Never had them as a kid, I was only a year old when they discontinued them. But I coincidentally bought a new and sealed one on eBay a few days ago, I won it in an auction. It’s a copy of the soundtrack to the Don Bluth film, All Dogs Go To Heaven. It was actually sold to me by who had been the agent of Dom DeLuise when he was alive, Dom being the voice of Itchy the dachshund in the film (my favorite character I might add). My copy of the soundtrack was actually Dom’s own personal copy at one point in time! It’ll stay sealed when it arrives. I wouldn’t dream of opening the long box, much less throw it away. If I want the soundtrack to listen to, I’ll buy it on iTunes.

Any connection to Dom DeLuise is cool in my book! Welcome to the forum and nice thread to bump!

They were my dorm room decorations too!

The size was deliberate. If you put two side by side, they were about the size of an album and stores wouldn't have to replace their album fixtures. Put a divider down the center of the album rack and now you have 2 cd racks.

I had the one from the Beatles Sgt Pepper. It had some cutout figures on it, that wasn't in the cd booklet.

Pretty sure they weren’t a thing anymore when I started buying CD’s. I do remember the plastic shelf hangers/theft protectors though. Closest I have to a long box is a collector’s edition of Born To Run which I think is roughly the size of a long box but nicer.

I still have all of mine stashed somewhere. I think they're all flattened or cut up.

I seem to remember the last ones I got were the Twin Peaks:FWWM soundtrack and Joe Walsh's "Songs for a Dying Planet" in 1992.

Wasn't there a movement to get rid of them from musicians like Don Henley who said they were just a waste of natural resources and bad for the environment? I always wondered why someone doesn't complain about all the DVD/BD slip covers that waste a ton of cardboard unnecessarily.

I never kept these. Started buying CD's in '88 or '89 & always just ripped the box open & threw it away.

The only one I still have is Ice T's Body Count CD, that is still sealed. (With Cop Killer intact)

I have Springsteen's Tracks, Joe Cocker's The Long Voyage Home, and Martin Briley's The Mercury Years, all of which are well worth owning, though their size is problematic.

I think the only one I still have is AC/DC Live. Longboxes were being phased out as I was getting into CDs, but I do remember buying a few of them. REM's Automatic for the People was another.

I found the sale you're referring to. I don't know if the inclusion of a separate card autographed by Dom DeLuise means the disc is "from his personal collection". Two things give me pause about the item and the seller:

1. The packaging is pretty beat up and has one of those drill holes in the corner, meaning it was an old cut-out release that probably sat on the shelf of a record store forever and never got sold.

2. I doubt the guy that sold it to you is Dom DeLuise's agent. He has an extremely generic seller account with next to no activity except for a statement in his profile that says he's trying to unload his mom's Beanie Babies and Barbies for closure.

Bottom line: You basically paid $19.95 for Dom DeLuise's autograph.