...back in the mid 80s who had bought every single FAC thing that Factory had ever produced - everything in that numbered sequence. I wonder whether he did this to the last? Probably sitting on a few rarities.

Not quite the same, but I collected all the Q mags and felt a huge relief when I stopped (at 200). Like giving up smoking or something.

I remember in the eighties reading about (kid you not) the world's ultimate James Last completist. He collected every country's printing of each album, on the basis that the manufacturing details text and the label in the middle of the disc would be slightly different...

Anyone top that? And all for the love of James Last...

Initially I would only let my son watch the Thomas episodes on which Mr Starkey narrated. It was only when I purchased a compilation dvd which contained a mixture of episodes that I realised that Mr Angelis was infinitely better; in particular his expression of feeling and hidden regret in Gordon and in the wanton anti-establishment behaviour of James.

I feel better having shared. Thank you.

It's all about the music surely. Personally I'm not that bothered about collecting formats, but there are a couple of people where I've collected every released song.

You're left a hostage to madness when you start to track down bootlegs of songs that they've only performed live.

Back in the past when I still used to purchase Record Collector magazine, they'd often have articles on the European singles releases of major acts. Of course completistswould want to have every single one of them.

At one point each local record company would be responsible for designing their own single cover. It was quite evident that these covers were put together in a hurry with very little effort using whatever photographs the record company at to hand. Sometimes images would get reversed, and other times a photograph of the wrong band line-up (or even the wrong band!) would be used. If a record company had only one photograph to go on, but several sleeves to design, they'd often sever the heads from the photograph and re-arrange them on a plain background. Occasionally someone within the art department would attempt to draw the act - badly - with unintended hilarity. Others would just use drawings or stock photos which had nothing to do with the single in question.

Even so completists were eager to pay £50 or so for such an effort, due to the rarity of the sleeve design, even though the contents of the single were more-or-less identical to domestic releases.

I'm not bothered about foreign issues/rare pressings/alternate sleeves and all that malarkey but, as mentioned here before, I've almost got every Led Zeppelin show that has been bootlegged. It's been a long haul, since I got a tape of LA Forum, 4-Sep-1970 ('Blueberry Hill') in about 1972

I suppose, between 1972 and 2000 I acquired maybe 100 or so shows on vinyl/CD but since the rise of the Interwebs, it's got easier and easier to the extent that there's now a dedicated archive site from which you can download 'em all.

I don't care about the physical artifact, so I'm happy with the best quality FLAC I can get but there are still some crazies out there who want a physical copy of the commercially released bootleg. To me, that just seems like pointless completism. As long as I can hear the music, I'm not bothered about the package.

The challenge of collecting has gone, but the music lives on :-)

is to spend my time (and money) tracking down the titles that never sold in large numbers but get name checked in mags like Word (and er, some others) as ones that got away.

I started doing this when articles were published extolling the virtues of titles like the David Crosby album 'If I Could Only Remember My Name', Dennis Wilson's 'Pacific Ocean Blue' and Eg & Alice's '24 Years Of Hunger'. The thing was, I already had all three, and knew they were worth having, so logic suggested that other such lost treasures might also be worth finding. It's not always true...

GEMM is a good fall back option online, but it's often possible to pick these up relatively cheaply from foreign Amazon sites, as long as you can work out which buttons to click by their position on the page corresponding to their equivalents on the UK/USA version pages.

Anyone got Hardin & York's 'For The World' on CD that I can have a backup of?

I really don't think it's healthy to have an opinion on this at all but as I have, here goes.
You need categories. So there would be
"Complete Completist" Something that is hard to achieve with most artists by the time the first single hits the virtual shelves as it would comprise a complete recorded work and is probably one for artists mothers only.
"Song completist" At least one copy of every song and should probably include alternative versions (either with tunes or lyrics). For most artists, this is very difficult to claim as you would need, not only every set list of every gig (from the 1st one in the Grapes Arms) but access to the tracks themsleves.
"Release Completist" This is the most sensible category (if that isn't an oxymoron) which means that you only need to claim recordings of all the official releases (I think this should also include promotional stuff).
"format completist" You would need every release in every format. Simple to categorise, hard to achieve.
These days "new" stuff is always creeping out of the woodwork that you didn't know about so one minute you thought you were a completist and the next you aren't. (I discovered a Sparks (or more correctly Halfnelson) demo album to other day that I'd never heard of let alone heard before).

You won't get any real completists here, they're probably all stuck in a Japanese auction house, trying to get a 3rd edition vinyl pressing of David Bowie's Let's Dance with a slight scratch on it from when it was sat on by Mooooog from Buffalo Daughter.

a couple of months ago who bought two versions of Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur because on one the gaps between tracks were slightly longer. I'll have that, it's got more silence!

This might be the point at which completism drifts into obsession.

but the man is so prolific it's quite expensive and a full time job listening to it all. I reckon I've got about about 50+ of his cd's now. I've compromised (Zorn would despise me for that) and I go for all the Filmworks series (currently at Volume 23), ignore many of the live improvs and cherry pick the solo and Masada work. Beginners could go for a couple of the Filmworks: Volume 22 would be an excellent starting point.

Not sure what category I would come into, but in the last month have just picked up Elvis Aron Presley, Close Up and Today, Tomorrow and Forever 4 cd sets to go with my 30 other Elvis CDs. And to think - I thought I didn't like Elvis. Doh!