Vinyl Records - Part 2

It's high time for the next part of my presentation series. Today I’ll concentrate on the aspects of buying a vinyl record…

1. Why buy a vinyl record?

I guess I should answer this question in the first part of my presentation.

The obvious purpose for wanting to own a record is listening to it. In my opinion it's quite a different experience then listening to music from your iPod (or other portable music player) or even a CD. There's also the case of music material that never got (and possibly never will be) released on another medium than a vinyl record.

Vinyl records are lately gaining on popularity again. Sales of new vinyl records are steadily going up, while sales of CDs are still declining, although it is, of course, the major music medium today. Turntables and records also get more coverage in the mass-media. I'm talking about movies, music videos, serials, you name it ;). One could call this resurgence of vinyl a new trend for music lovers and also, for some people, a way of underlining a rather posh lifestyle.

One could consider them as an investment of sorts. Vinyl records aren't very expensive today (the average price for an old popular record in very good condition is around 20 złotys), but one thing that you can bet on is that they won't get cheaper ;). So you can consider it like buying art or jewelery.

They can also be used for decorative purposes. Either hang it up on the wall,

...make a clock out of one,
(the author of this photo took a Daliesque approach to it)

...use it as a painting canvas...

...or perhaps make a stylish fruit bowl ;).

2. Where to buy a vinyl record?

Check around your local record shops, pawn shops, thrift shops, flea markets, etc.

You can also search around the Internet. There’s tons of vinyl sellers on eBay or our Polish allegro, for example. Some of them are mass-sellers who simply scout out for records locally and put them out on a net auction. The other type of eBay vinyl seller you may encounter is a collector who got lazy or bored with the stuff or those who “inherited” a record collection somehow and try to make a profit out of it (collectors are the best sellers if you want to have some guarantee that the album you buy is in a good shape).

3. Record grading systems

Records and their covers are often graded by sellers in order to describe their general shape.

There doesn’t exist any standardized grading system, but record sellers tend to use the same or often similar scheme than others, so record grading systems in general are very similar.

As a general rule, the grade of the record is listed first, followed by the grade of the cover or record sleeve (if no cover is available).

Here’s an example record grading system from the “Record Collector Rare Price Guide 2006″ magazine:

MINT(M): The record itself is in brand new condition with no surface marks or deterioration in sound quality. The cover and any extra items such as the lyric sheet, booklet or poster are in perfect condition. Records advertised as Sealed or Unplayed should be Mint.

EXCELLENT(EX): The record shows some signs of having been played, but there is very little lessening in sound quality. The cover and packaging might have slight wear and/or creasing.

VERY GOOD(VG): The record has obviously been played many times, but displays no major deterioration in sound quality, despite noticeable surface marks and the occasional light scratch. Normal wear and tear on the cover or extra items, without any major defects, is acceptable.

GOOD(G): The record has been played so much that the sound quality has noticeably deteriorated, perhaps with some distortion and mild scratches. The cover and contents suffer from folding, scuffing of edges, spine splits, discoloration, etc.

FAIR(F): The record is still just playable but has not been cared for properly and displays considerable surface noise; it may even jump.
The cover and contents will be torn, stained and/or defaced.

POOR(P): The record will not play properly due to scratches, bad surface noise, etc. The cover and contents will be badly damaged or partly missing.

BAD(B): The record is unplayable or might even be broken, and is only of use as a collection-filler.

There are also some other grade considerations (although they aren’t as popular as the ones listed above):

NEAR MINT(NM): A nearly perfect record. Many dealers won’t give a grade higher than this implying (perhaps correctly) that no record is ever truly perfect. It’s considered as an “in between” grade for M and EX.

STILL SEALED(SS): A never-opened record. Still in it’s original manufacture seal. Take caution with this rating, because some record dealers reseal records and then claim that they’re of SS status.

Some collectors/sellers also use a + or – notation next to the grades in order to widen the grading scale even more. For example: a VG+ grade means that the record is somewhere between the VG and EX ratings.

Online buyer's tip: If you find a seller that has a lot of albums that you’re interested in and it’s the first time you’re buying something from him, DON’T buy more than one or 2 albums. Nevermind if the seller has thousands of positive feedback from previous buyers, you need to check him out yourself. I’m saying this because some people grade their records in a more consequent way (that’s good) and some in a easy-going type way (i.e. the seller grades a “poor” or “fair” disc as a “very good” disc). So to sum things up, my advice is that you need to check the seller out if he’s a good and reliable one before buying a load of albums of off him.

Online buyer's tip 2: If possible, try not to take the risk of buying records from people who, for example don’t own a turntable (they can’t possibly grade them properly), although many established and esteemed record sellers tend to grade their records visually, so be prepared for that.

4. Drillholes and cut-corners

A single's label with a drillhole in it

You can sometimes find records which have a drillhole made right thru the record’s label (which is the small paper part of a record's side, located in the center) or one of the record cover’s corners. You can also find records in such a state that one of the cover’s corners has a single scissor-cut on it or it’s been simply cut off. Record store owners often did that to records that they sold on a discount offer.

People who sell vinyl records online in most cases inform the potential buyer about this while describing the state of the record and cover. Sometimes they describe it with some code-like shortcuts (like CC for Cut Corner).

A record cover and sleeve with a cut corner

Such records are in most cases of lesser value than records without “discount modifications”.

5. The record’s edition

It’s up to you if you want to buy new vinyl pressings or used ones.

If you don’t like the whole idea of “vinyl hunting” then it may be a better resolve to just look for new releases.

Modern pressings or re-releases of vinyl tend to be worse than the originals, because often the record companies cut the vinyl master disc using not the original master tapes, but a digitally remastered tape which the company used to issue a new remastered CD release, which often can be inferior (or just "different") than the original album.

Another option is to search for a company who specializes in releasing new vinyl record pressings using the original master tapes of an album (for example: Simply Vinyl).

If we’re talking about buying used vinyl, then it may be helpful to determine if our record is a 1st edition or a re-release or if it came from the original label.

For most cases, you simply need to check the label of the record and it’s catalog number. The catalog number can usually be found somewhere on the cover of the record or on the record label. Then you can compare it to the listings at allmusic.com (preferred way) or Discogs.com. Both websites can be used as a supplement to each other. Googling for information is also (as always) a good idea ;)

Sometimes you can easily determine if the record is not a 1st edition. Some record labels (Atlantic Records for instance) often added something like “-2″ or “B” next to the original 1st edition catalog number to specify that it’s a 2nd edition or later re-release.

Some later editions are recognized by changes to the label on the record or the record cover in comparison to the original release.

6. Mono/Stereo/Quadro

Some records (particularly those released in the 50’s and early 60’s) have been released first as a mono recording and shortly after that re-released as a stereo record. Some also record labels had simultaneously released a mono and stereo version record. Today, the mono editions are rarer, because after that most records were only stereo.

Quadrophonic records are a completely different matter and I won't go much into detail over them here. I'd need another article for this particular topic. Let's just say that surround sound wasn't invented at the same time as DVD movies came about ;).

7. Origin of manufacture

This isn’t a well discussed topic in the record collector’s world. In my humble opinion, the sound quality of a record (this includes also CDs, which is kind of a mind-boggler, because that's a digital medium) depends on the factor of where was the record manufactured.

So now you ask: so where are the music medium’s made better than elsewhere ? From my experience, things look kinda like this today (order from best to worst sound quality):

1. Japan
2. USA, Canada
3. UK, France
4. Germany, Italy, Holland ,Spain, Sweden, India

I only listed western countries (except Japan and India), because I simply haven’t ever heard, for example: a CD from China, a LP from Cuba (although I’ve heard opinions that they were cut quite well) or a cassette from Egypt. I could guess and estimate, but then it wouldn’t justify the “from my experience” sentence.

If I wouldn’t have to compose the above list from today’s perspective, I’d also add Russia, Hungary, Poland and almost all other old “east block” countries and I’d file them under the number 5. Back in the socialistic days, the manufacturers made very cheapo-cheapo quality LP’s in comparison to other countries. Lay low the fact that it was supposedly hard even to get a hold of a Polish LP in Poland! My parents often told me that group excursions to Hungary for the sake of obtaining LPs (Hungarians didn’t have such problems as in Poland in this matter) weren’t uncommon.

That’s all for now. The next and last part will be about very rare and often odd vinyl releases.