TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Back in the old days - old being relative, but say late 80s till mid 90s - I was an avid tape trader, tapes as in the old C90s. I used to collect the wider Byrds family, also Neil Young - and a third (pretty much main) portion was Fairport & family. The tapes were the source of many a Listmember CD way back, the first 10ish of volumes I compiled, which were a result of the old Fairport mailing list.
Anyway, you move on. Tape interest stopped. I think the most recent tape will be 1995-ish. Long ago I sold the Byrds and Young collection. Now the Fairport collection is gathering dust in the attic of my Mum and every now and again she says "what do you want to do with them?". Well - nothing, I can't play tapes anymore and actually have no huge interest in the umpteenth version of Sloth and Matty Groves. But throw away? Naah!
I have no way of telling in what state they are. Maybe they are unplayable. They haven't been played in 15-20 years, some longer than that. I don't know what happenes with old tapes - Maxell's, TDK - do they degenerate? Some old tapes have since been released as proper CDs like BBC sessions. I don't even know how many there are. Possibly 100s. Would there be any interest out there? Tapes are labelled and tracklisted. Not just Fairport. Lots of RT. Lots of Albion. Sandy. Dave Pegg's Cocktail Cowboys on tour! Swarb. Whippersnapper. And: Whetstone Nicol & Mattacks.
I can put them all in a box and give them a good home. I don't need money for it, but a postage reimbursement would be nice. It needs a patient listener, a Fairport nerd. Happy to drop by at my Mum's and make some sample pics and post them here.
Please note I am also posting this on my Facebook page. Also please note I don't drop by here at Talkawhile every day so if there is interest I may not respond straight away ('tis holiday time too!).

How exciting.  Would love to say 'yes', but I'd be homeless with a large box of Fairport tapes.  Hope they go to someone who knows what to do with them  :)

I dont know if you are on Dime but if you are, a PM to Leadville200, Heymjm or Uncle Boko might be in order. Who knows, they may well be members here.

Soon after I quit, it became normal to trade on CDR and a load of those have since degenerated. I wonder how cassette tapes fared, any ideas? Maybe in the long run they were better than CDR in hindsight? Alas I know absolutely no one who can play cassettes - not near me anyway!

I have no idea what Dime is. I merely know of the coin ;-) ... really since then I have gone so out of touch with trading live shows, those cassette tapes are truly archeology.

Most tapes are ok...depending on what heat/cold and humidity they have been stored in.  A tape player costs pennies (well, almost)...and it is very easy to digitise the recordings.  All you need is time.  And lots of it.  And who the hell has time these days?

its a download site that does live shows,its called Dimeadozen, the persons i named are the usual suspects when it come to uploading FC related shows, ensuring that they survive.  
I have messaged the 3 persons i mentioned and sent them a copy of your post Koen.

Talking of Flt, I have many too.
Before throwing them away I wonder if I can get a recommedation of a machine to convert tapes to CD.
Thanks

Well, I sure don't have time. These days I usually skip the bonus tracks of proper CDs ... let alone that I have time for going through these piles of tapes. I just can't. There are however some fantastic recordings - among piles of audience recorded 10th generation hiss tapes, there are proper gems.

Cheap as chips.  Don't convert to anything less than 320 kbps though...and ideally to FLAC.  

https://www.reichelt.com/gb/en/?LANGUAGE=EN&CTYPE=0&MWSTFREE=0&CCOUNTRY=447&ARTICLE=124828&PROVID=2788&wt_guka=22596785057_79177364657&PROVID=2788&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhPKGjfzZ1QIVChbTCh1eYAB7EAQYBSABEgKrJ_D_BwE

 if you have a tape player you can play them into your pc via the input socket that is usually near the headphone socket and the right software can record the tape to mp3 or Flac. Someone else will be better placed to tell you what software you might need

Leadville200 is a mate.  Sadly, they're time deprived like the rest of us, but they want to thank you for thinking of them, and hopes they go to a good home.

I agree. I still have a decent collection of cassettes. Once a year or so I run through them to get rid of any I may have updated on to CD or downloaded. Most that are left are the Fairport family (which I'll keep just as memorabilia at this point, not to play). The ones I do play, which isn't often admittedly are still in decent shape. The ones that were clear (or see through) if you will seem to have been better constructed with less tape hissing.

And believe it or not, I have seen an article or two proclaiming cassettes to be the next classic thing to come back like has happened to vinyl.

There are lots of tapes being released at the moment.  Mostly (but not entirely) micro limited editions almost more as art objects rather than as real listening tools.  They generally (but not always) come with a download code as well.  Bit like vinyl now I come to think of it... ;-)

I've bought probably cassette releases in the last 3 or 4 years...having bought precisely none in the quarter century prior to that.

The whole 'vinyl is better than digital' argument is a bit of con I believe. There is a good article here http://www.laweekly.com/content/printView/5352162
that covers it. Ultimately, some people prefer the sound of vinyl, and it is more asthetically pleasing, but there is no question that digital recordings are more accurate, and I would imagine that cassette is  the same.

I'd love to say I'd have the RT and Fairport tapes, but I'm not sure that I could give them the attention they deserve. I am an occasional contributor to Dime myself, although not of the standard of the ones mentioned by Jim. Hopefully someone will take them and distribute them appropriately

That somewhat enigmatic statement was supposed to read 'probably 10 cassette releases'  :)