For returning collectors
Your old records,
on your iPhone.
If you started buying records when they were $4.98 new, you probably have a few hundred of them. Maybe still in the closet, maybe back on a shelf since the kids left home. Either way, you've never properly written down what you have. This is the app that fixes that. Point your iPhone or iPad camera at a record. The pressing, year, label, condition prompt, and a current value land in a cloud-synced catalog. About thirty seconds per record.
01
The records that came back out
Vinyl sales hit their cultural floor in 1993 and stayed there for a decade. Then they started climbing. The RIAA reported $1.4 billion in US vinyl revenue in 2023 — more than CDs for the second year in a row, and the highest annual number since 1988. A lot of that comes from new collectors. A meaningful share comes from people who never really stopped, just stored.
For the second group, the records came back out somewhere around 2018 to 2022. The kids left for college. The turntable came back from the attic. Or someone got a new turntable for a birthday and the old LPs followed. The collection is the same one from 1978; only the relationship has changed.
The catalog question — what's actually in there — has been pending since 1985.
02
What the app does
Crown Vinyl is built for one job: turn the stack of records into a catalog without typing catalog numbers.
Camera-first scanning. Point at the front sleeve. Or the back. Or the inner label. Or the barcode if the record has one. The app reads whichever side is facing you and identifies the exact pressing. You don't pick from a list of variants. You don't type a matrix runout.
Pressing-accurate. The model is tuned on the records collectors care about — first-press jazz, private-press soul, regional rock, audiophile reissues, color variants, promos. The releases that form-driven catalog apps consistently misfile.
Current value, automatically. Each record gets a per-record value estimate from recent real sales. The collection page shows a running total that moves as the market moves. Useful for insurance, estate planning, downsizing, or the simple pleasure of watching the number.
Cloud-synced. Sign in once with Apple or email. Your collection lives on every device you own. A lost or replaced phone doesn't mean a lost catalog.
03
What the first scan feels like
Pull one record off the shelf. Any one. Open the app. Point the camera at the sleeve. Within a few seconds the record snaps into your collection with the artist, title, year, label, pressing details, and a current value at the top of the card. Add a condition note if you want. The photo you just took stays attached to the entry, so the catalog reflects your specific copy — ringwear, signatures, inserts and all — not a stock image from a database.
The first record is the only one you have to think about. After that the rhythm sets in: pick up, photograph, set down, next. The pile that took twenty minutes a record by hand goes at thirty seconds.
04
What you end up with
A real catalog of the records you own. Searchable by artist, year, label, country, color, condition. A running value total. A document you can hand to an insurance agent, an estate executor, or your kid when they ask what's on the shelf.
More importantly: an answer to the question that has been pending since the records went into the closet. What did you actually buy. What did it turn into.
A few questions
The ones that come up.
Free to download and free to use within a monthly scan allowance that covers most collectors. An optional Pro upgrade unlocks unlimited scans and richer value tracking. No ads. No marketplace fees.
Yes — that's most of why it exists. Records pressed before the late 1970s usually lack barcodes. Crown Vinyl reads sleeves, inner labels, back covers, and matrix runouts. Barcode is just one option among four.
Then this is exactly the use case. Manual cataloging on Discogs runs about fifteen minutes per record once you factor in typing the catalog number, picking the right pressing variant, and cross-referencing matrix runouts. A 200-record collection is a full weekend by hand. Crown Vinyl takes about ninety minutes total at thirty seconds per record.
Yes. Private by default. The catalog is yours unless you decide to share it on a public profile or community feed — which you opt into, never the other way around.
Free to startNo adsPrivate by defaultCloud syncBuilt for iOS