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How to get rid of jewel boxes?


Vincent, Paris

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I am glad you posted this, I have the same question. Many times I've thought about going to simple plastic sleeves and then using some type of indexing tabs/cards between artists on the shelves, but I've worried about disc damage and also the general lack of ease in finding individual titles with that approach. Anyone have other ideas?

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I don't know how to store my CD collection which keeps growing all the time. I'm sure I'm not the only one on this board to face such a problem. I thought to get rid of all the jewel boxes as a way to save space. Does anyone use some kind of CD sleeve that reduce space but keeps the CD safe? Thanks.

Paging Dan Gould, please come to the white courtesy phone!

;)

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So, you die in a car crash, from cancer, whatever.........  Your heirs will be cursing your corpse for the trouble the have disposing of your collection.  :angry:

Hell, my wife curses my collection while I'm alive. (At least she doesn't curse me.)

Every so often, she threatens to get together with my best friend's wife and sell both of our record/cd collections at a yard sale for 10 cents a piece. I just hope that she waits til I'm gone. ;)

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So, you die in a car crash, from cancer, whatever......... Your heirs will be cursing your corpse for the trouble the have disposing of your collection. :angry:

Or we could work the deceased into the Gourse thread and kick a little dirt on your grave B-)

Anyway, I'm taking my CDs with me. You never know, there might be a chance to play them in the "Afterlife" ;)

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So, you die in a car crash, from cancer, whatever.........  Your heirs will be cursing your corpse for the trouble the have disposing of your collection.  :angry:

Hell, my wife curses my collection while I'm alive. (At least she doesn't curse me.)

Every so often, she threatens to get together with my best friend's wife and sell both of our record/cd collections at a yard sale for 10 cents a piece. I just hope that she waits til I'm gone. ;)

Worse yet, she could get together with her girlfriends when you have taken your mistress (or whatever) out of town, and switch all the CDs around into different jewelboxes !! "Hell hath no fury ...."

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So, you die in a car crash, from cancer, whatever.........  Your heirs will be cursing your corpse for the trouble the have disposing of your collection.  :angry:

Hell, my wife curses my collection while I'm alive. (At least she doesn't curse me.)

Every so often, she threatens to get together with my best friend's wife and sell both of our record/cd collections at a yard sale for 10 cents a piece. I just hope that she waits til I'm gone. ;)

Man, I just hope I see that yard sale notice before anyone else! I'm BUYING :g

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This is the top end storage on the market .... expensive, but reasonably attractive.

http://www.can-am.ca/

I would love to change to sleeves .. but like Chuck, I am concerned what those finding my body would do with 4,000 CDs in sleeves ... what is the point of taking the CDs out of their jewelboxes and then keeping them??

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After much study and $ expenditure I can assure everyone there is no more convenient or practical way to store CDs than the much maligned JEWEL Box. It is compact and easy to file, and has but one draw back - don't drop one on a hard surface. If they would make them out of a more resilient plastic there could be no complaints.

LONG LIVE THE JEWEL BOX

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I actually, unlike many here, also basically like jewel boxes...the greatest thing about them, in fact, is their very expendibility. Simply put, if you drop a mint LP (the jacket or the album or both) you're hating life, but if you drop your CD in its jewel box, big deal if the jewel breaks? Everything else is protected well.

My only practical problem is eventually going to be storage space...I have a lot of room to grow my collection right now, but it's getting to be less and less with each passing month. I never want to be so overloaded in terms of having adequate storage space that I start avoiding playing stuff or even trying to look for it because everything is so cluttered and cramped. Being able to use a thinner sleeve and reduce storage profile by 3/4 sounds might appealing...

Edited by DrJ
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I too like various aspects of standard jewel cases. I like being able to view the titles on the spines. The fact that they stand on edge can even come in handy.

[FWIW]...

I have been employing a storage technique using jewel cases that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere. I began using it with CDR's only, but I eventually had to start doing it with regular CD's as well. In my experience, CD's are extremely durable, and I'm careful when it comes to handling them, so this technique has worked very well for me.

The idea is based upon the fact that a standard jewel case (even with a tray intact) will hold at least four discs* (some of you may never have tried it, but it's true). Without a tray, five discs will fit inside. The front of a jewel case will hold several booklets, the number depending upon how thick they are.

When I first began to experiment with this, I was just "doubling up". I would take any two discs that formed a pair or set (e.g., The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia; Burrell's "Blue Lights"; The Eminent J.J. Johnson; etc etc etc) and store them together. I would put both booklets in the front of the case (plenty of room), and put the tray cards back-to-back (inverting the spines on the "Vol. 2" card so that both could be lowered into the case together), and used a clear tray so that I could still read the Vol. 2 tray card. When you put two CD's on a tray, the upper one won't be secured, but it also won't slide very easily when flat. A little care in opening the case, and it's not a problem for me.

From that, I went on to store some 3 and 4 CD sets in one case. The Stan Getz "Bossa Nova Years" 4-disc set on Verve, for example. I used the set's booklet as the "cover" for the regular jewel case, and just stored away the tray card-sized cover that came with the original double jewel case. All four discs fit together inside the case, even with a tray. This brings me to the "*" that I posted above. The one thing that can cause problems with this technique is the type of jewel case that has 6 tabs (for holding the booklet) instead of 4. For multiple-disc storage, you have to use the cases with 4 tabs, or the middle tabs on the 6-tab case will interfere with closing the case.

As I said, if you've got let's say 5 CDR's (or even CD's if you're like me) that form a set (especially if there's very little paperwork to go along with them), you can easily store them all in one jewel case without using a tray.

I also have my collection databased, and if I store a disc in a place where it might be difficult to remember where I put it, I make a note in the database (sometimes I'll store "non-companion" discs by the same artist together, for example). I keep extra cases and trays (black/clear) in an easily accesible storage area where I wouldn't want to store CD's.

So far, this system has worked extremely well for me. I know it's not for everybody, but everybody has different storage needs/concerns/problems/preferences. Like I said... FWIW...

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No problems, Tony. As I say, in my experience, CD's are extremely durable, and I handle with care as a natural habit. In all the years I've collected CD's, I've only had a few that skipped, and I think every one of those turned out to be discs that had a small speck of foreign matter stuck on the surface. I don't know if I've ever encountered a really "scratched" CD. I've bought a few used discs that appeared to have minor scratches, but they played fine (guaranteed by the store). Has anybody ever noticed how hard it is to intentionally scratch a CD? Just as a test, I've taken "coaster" CDR's that aborted during burn attempts, and tried to rough them up a bit (not with sharp metal objects or anything, just tossing them around and using fingernails on them and such), and it's ridiculously hard to scratch them. The only concern I would have in stacking them in storage the way I do is something abrasive like sand gettng in there. Frankly, I can't even envision that happening.

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I considered using the Cadence "jewel-box gone" CD sleeve that LeeWay and Paul Secor mentioned (Jazz Loft sells the same kind of sleeve also, they have a video demonstration online quite convincing) but then I also checked the website from a Swiss manufacturer which advertise in our magazine about their own products and I found something that kind of scared me. They use a "Soft-Screen protective material, a 100% non-woven polyester fiber" which supposedly prevents the CD from scratching:

Thanks to the particular structure of its non-woven polyester fibers, Soft-Screen® protects CDs by absorbing dust particles present on their surface. These particles often cause scratches which damage the CD's optical surface.

CD-surface1e.jpgCD-surface2e.jpg

How true is that? Of course, that’s to their advantage but their CD storage option is slightly more expensive…

Edited by Vincent, Paris
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