Got another shipment of laserdiscs from Japan. I have a huge collection already, and I have learned – the hard way – that I can’t remember everything I own. Its also hard to lay hands on any specific disk, because there are thousands of them to flip through, with spines written in Japanese (which I can’t ready as quickly as my native English). So I have a specific process I started following a few years ago.
First, any original plastic the disks are sealed in, or are loosely sitting in, is trashed. This means that disks that have never been opened are opened – No “mint-in-box” in my collection. The oldest disk I have ever unsealed is Mosaica, which had been sealed for over thirty years. This might upset some, but I have my reasons. For one, I have a number of disks with damaged corners, because the original shitty plastic shrinks, and it crumples them. And I think that laserdiscs are meant to be used, and even if I never play them, I want full access to the disk and any inlays that might be in there.
I replace all of the original plastic with poly sleeves I obtain from bagsunlimited.com. For most disks, I use 12.75×12.75 3mil sleeves with flaps, which are meant for audio records, but work perfectly for laserdiscs, as the dimensions are the same. I do not seal the flaps. I put the disk in with flap on top. The flaps all flop over, which keeps dust out, while at the same time keeping the contents accessible. By not lining up the disk jacket opening with the sleeve opening, it prevents the jacket’s contents from ever accidentaly coming out. Finally, the bags slide against each other very smoothly, allowing one to pull a disk off the shelf easily without scuffing any jackets.
I have additional, specialty, sleeves. I have thin 2mil flapless polybags, which I use for individual disks in boxsets. I have 14×14 3mil flapped sleeves, which I use for smaller boxsets, ones that are 3-4 disks. For larger boxsets, I have very large 2mil sleeves I got off of Ebay years ago, I don’t know the dimensions. I think they came in lots of like 1,000, which is effectively a lifetime supply unless I hit the lottery someday. I have two giant-sized boxsets – Maison Ikkoku, and The End of Evangelion. For those I had to take several extra-large sleeves, cut them up, and re-tape them into custom-sized sleeves.
Next, I catalog the disk in a spreadsheet (https://www.otakubell.com/LDs/listing/). This is a LibreOffice document. I make sure I track the catalog numbers of disks, because as I don’t read Japanese all that well it is often easier to find disks by their catalog numbers.
Finally, I put the disk up on my shelves. My collection currently occupies four entire sets of Ikea Gorm shelving, which I have polyeurathaned to help protect it. I have a number of large flat steel bookends to hold all of the disks upright – two side-by-side sets on either end of each shelving section, help in place with screws, and two side-by-side in the middle for additional support.
However, those shelves are currently full, and I don’t have enough disks, or any room, for a fifth shelving unit yet. So, the overflow is being put into plastic corrugated archival boxes, also from bagsunlimited. Ikea no longer has Gorm, so I’m gonna have to figure that out someday.