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I Think I'm Gonna Quit The Hobby


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I'm gonna post this here cause I don't wanna clutter up the boards,  but I'm getting extremely furious with vinyl collecting. At this point I buy probably 90% of my records online. Almost all of them NEVER come in good shape. Between people not writing fragile and just the negligence of USPS, I really can't handle spending hard earned money on records that shows up damaged. Today was really the last straw, when I ordered the Noname record for a second time since my first had a seam split/ripped jacket. My second one shows up in worse condition than the last with seam splits on all the jackets and corner bends. I know a lot of people are gonna be like "Vinyl should be about the music, who cares about seam splits." Let me be real here, at the end of the day, this is an investment. Granted I never wanted to sell my collection but if an emergency happened, I'm sitting on thousands of dollars. Buying rare records is an investment and has always been a reason I gravitated towards this hobby, at the same time I get to enjoy a hobby based around music. But the enjoyment has really gone away, like I haven't even had a record player in months since my old one broke, but I keep buying since I had the intention of buying a new record player soon.  Maybe this is all my fault for going media mail on my shipments, but at the same time, I've never had a problem till recently. And maybe I feel this way since I'm just stacking records and have no way to listen to them.

 

Regardless, what I'm getting at with this is, I need opinions. Should I just call it quits? Is there anyone else feeling this way. And having issues with receiving records in the mail? And I hope I don't come off as whiney, to be honest I've had a tough month. I got really sick and then my car shitted on me and it's gonna cost a grand to fix, which I won't have all the funds for that till Friday. It's like vinyl collecting made me happy and helped with depression, but lately it's been more of a gamble. Everytime I open a package, I expect the worse and still get disappointed when it's the worse. Anyways, thanks to whoever reads this and helps me out, I really just need peace of mind, but at the same time, I'm paper thin close to calling it quits on vinyl collecting.

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26 minutes ago, Reshiram454 said:

I'm gonna post this here cause I don't wanna clutter up the boards,  but I'm getting extremely furious with vinyl collecting. At this point I buy probably 90% of my records online. Almost all of them NEVER come in good shape. Between people not writing fragile and just the negligence of USPS, I really can't handle spending hard earned money on records that shows up damaged. Today was really the last straw, when I ordered the Noname record for a second time since my first had a seam split/ripped jacket. My second one shows up in worse condition than the last with seam splits on all the jackets and corner bends. I know a lot of people are gonna be like "Vinyl should be about the music, who cares about seam splits." Let me be real here, at the end of the day, this is an investment. Granted I never wanted to sell my collection but if an emergency happened, I'm sitting on thousands of dollars. Buying rare records is an investment and has always been a reason I gravitated towards this hobby, at the same time I get to enjoy a hobby based around music. But the enjoyment has really gone away, like I haven't even had a record player in months since my old one broke, but I keep buying since I had the intention of buying a new record player soon.  Maybe this is all my fault for going media mail on my shipments, but at the same time, I've never had a problem till recently. And maybe I feel this way since I'm just stacking records and have no way to listen to them.

 

Regardless, what I'm getting at with this is, I need opinions. Should I just call it quits? Is there anyone else feeling this way. And having issues with receiving records in the mail? And I hope I don't come off as whiney, to be honest I've had a tough month. I got really sick and then my car shitted on me and it's gonna cost a grand to fix, which I won't have all the funds for that till Friday. It's like vinyl collecting made me happy and helped with depression, but lately it's been more of a gamble. Everytime I open a package, I expect the worse and still get disappointed when it's the worse. Anyways, thanks to whoever reads this and helps me out, I really just need peace of mind, but at the same time, I'm paper thin close to calling it quits on vinyl collecting.

Lemme know what you're selling. I'll probably buy some of it.

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I just find it hard to believe when members say everything they buy shows up damaged. My collection is larger than most and it's also around a 90/10 online/retail split. I've had 3 records get destroyed in 12 years of collecting I just don't get what the fuck is happening for the world to pick on you people.

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17 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

I just find it hard to believe when members say everything they buy shows up damaged. My collection is larger than most and it's also around a 90/10 online/retail split. I've had 3 records get destroyed in 12 years of collecting I just don't get what the fuck is happening for the world to pick on you people.

Maybe has something to do with being in Los Angeles area, I honestly don't know.

 

And yeah if I do start selling imma give one of my best friends first dibs then VC can get whatever's left, and I doubt he's gonna buy much so.

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Any hobby you get involved in is supposed to give you joy. If you're not getting anything out of it then why bother. I buy a lot of records online and I very rarely have an issue. Most come in very good shape and the ones that don't I either don't sweat or I ask for a replacement. More importantly, if you're buying records just to buy them though and not even listen then why bother? Before buying anything else I would determine whether or not you want to actually invest in a new record player. If you haven't done it yet but keep instinctually buying records then maybe you're in it for the wrong reasons.

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14 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

I just find it hard to believe when members say everything they buy shows up damaged. My collection is larger than most and it's also around a 90/10 online/retail split. I've had 3 records get destroyed in 12 years of collecting I just don't get what the fuck is happening for the world to pick on you people.

I think it just depends on what people consider "damaged".  There's a huge difference between a warped record and a seam split.  I have received records that have minor bumps in the corners of the jacket, or seam splits, it never really bothers me because the record itself is in great condition and I realize that the jackets being made out of paper, no matter how thick, will be prone to some sort of damage in a process that involves packaging, shipping, human delivery system, etc.

 

I understand why people get upset, I've had a couple of records with major bends to the jackets, and it's especially frustrating when you spend a decent amount of money only to have the record show up with some sort of cosmetic issues, but man... to get upset enough to want to stop collecting altogether?  That would be a bummer.

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7 minutes ago, Reshiram454 said:

Maybe has something to do with being in Los Angeles area, I honestly don't know.

 

And yeah if I do start selling imma give one of my best friends first dibs then VC can get whatever's left, and I doubt he's gonna buy much so.

I'm in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area of Florida there's probably not a more similar place in the US of A.

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3 minutes ago, pepperonigin said:

Any hobby you get involved in is supposed to give you joy. If you're not getting anything out of it then why bother. I buy a lot of records online and I very rarely have an issue. Most come in very good shape and the ones that don't I either don't sweat or I ask for a replacement. More importantly, if you're buying records just to buy them though and not even listen then why bother? Before buying anything else I would determine whether or not you want to actually invest in a new record player. If you haven't done it yet but keep instinctually buying records then maybe you're in it for the wrong reasons.

Yeah I've been wanting to buy a good set up but being a 21 year old college student, it ain't easy. I'm almost done and I'm gonna have to pay my dues in the industry I'm headed in, so I don't expect to be making a big salary till a couple of years, so just the thought of that is another reason I'm considering calling it quits.

 

And honestly I haven't really minded the cosemtic issues until it continuously happened. I had even bought store records with cosmetic issues and it wasn't a big deal. I think just the consistency of it and the matter that it happened to records I really wanted. One of the first times it happened before it became consistent was with Frank Ocean's Blonde which is one of my favorite albums, and I had no problem with it, I just wanted to hear it on vinyl. This Noname record has been maybe the 3rd or 4th album I've really wanted on vinyl to come in bad shape. And the fact that it happened twice is upsetting and frustrating.

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Just now, Sunshine said:

I'm in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area of Florida there's probably not a more similar place in the US of A.

Who knows then, maybe I'm really just having bad luck, although I wouldn't count out LA being one of the worst places to recieve shipments of any type given how ridiculously overpopulated the area is. There's almost 2 million more people just in the city of Los Angeles versus all of Miami-Dade county.

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Collecting vinyl sucks and is a huge hassle so if you aren't getting much out of it, stopping is the right move.

 

I also live in Los Angeles and maybe 30% or more of records I get have at least some kind of warp. I've become kind of numb to them, unless they are really gnarly or cause skips. Corner bends and seal splits are pretty rare though. If I cared every time there was a cosmetic defect on a record or a hint of surface noise, I'd go insane because it's pretty common for me.

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1 minute ago, swb said:

Collecting vinyl sucks and is a huge hassle so if you aren't getting much out of it, stopping is the right move.

 

I also live in Los Angeles and maybe 30% or more of records I get have at least some kind of warp. I've become kind of numb to them, unless they are really gnarly or cause skips. Corner bends and seal splits are pretty rare though. If I cared every time there was a cosmetic defect on a record or a hint of surface noise, I'd go insane because it's pretty common for me.

Talking to other people in the LA area, not too many people have issues as bad as mine except one other person. I'm convinced it's just my post office, if I continue I might just have them shipped somewhere else, like a friends house, to see if that helps.

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9 minutes ago, Reshiram454 said:

Talking to other people in the LA area, not too many people have issues as bad as mine except one other person. I'm convinced it's just my post office, if I continue I might just have them shipped somewhere else, like a friends house, to see if that helps.

I think some labels (or maybe the plants they use) have shitty quality control when it comes to storage and shipping too. Hard to believe that certain labels always get warped from LA heat while others have a much less frequent warp rate. If I'm getting a record from Joyful Noise, and I love their label, there's a 75% chance it's warped.

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47 minutes ago, Reshiram454 said:

Who knows then, maybe I'm really just having bad luck, although I wouldn't count out LA being one of the worst places to recieve shipments of any type given how ridiculously overpopulated the area is. There's almost 2 million more people just in the city of Los Angeles versus all of Miami-Dade county.

Ya but that's over way more space. Miami population density is 10000 per square mile and Los Angeles is less than 6000. Miami Dade is mostly swampland. I'm not sure why this is an argument lol population doesn't affect how much your shit gets messed up.

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1 minute ago, swb said:

I think some labels (or maybe the plants they use) have shitty quality control when it comes to storage and shipping too. Hard to believe that certain labels always get warped from LA heat while others have a much less frequent warp rate. If I'm getting a record from Joyful Noise, and I love their label, there's a 75% chance it's warped.

Yeah I've definitely noticed certain distros or labels have more consistent shipping, I've noticed I almost never have issues when I order from metal labels, I feel like they know how to package records. It all just depends I guess.

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2 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Ya but that's over way more space. Miami population density is 10000 per square mile and Los Angeles is less than 6000. Miami Dade is mostly swampland. I'm not sure why this is an argument lol population doesn't affect how much your shit gets messed up.

I'm not sure why you see this as an argument, definitely not trying to argue with you over such a silly matter, I'm just saying more mail comes through Los Angeles than most cities, this having a higher chance of mail getting damaged, though other major cities definitely get their fair share. Sorry if I came of as arguemntive.

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Just now, Reshiram454 said:

I'm not sure why you see this as an argument, definitely not trying to argue with you over such a silly matter, I'm just saying more mail comes through Los Angeles than most cities, this having a higher chance of mail getting damaged, though other major cities definitely get their fair share. Sorry if I came of as arguemntive.

No no no not that type of argument. I mean an argument as to why your records may be damaged. I'm not mad lol.

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I get records delivered every week and I don't have the same problems you're having. Split jacket seams bug me. Even when I was a teenager it bugged me. I think it's your area/post office. I've also noticed that more labels seem to ship the records outside of the jacket. which is a good thing and something you can request. Anyway, sounds like you're over it and should probably start selling. No shame in that. You need to figure out your priorities for finances and happiness. Good luck.

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I had a habit of picking up things semi blindly that I've kind of kicked into touch this year. I try to avoid imports as a whole just because the shipping is extortionate and that is a real bummer when you drop $45 for a record that is $20 and then it comes damaged. I don't see my collection as an investment at all even though I do have some choice pieces that could command a decent price but in reality I'm too lazy to sell anything. If I was in your shoes getting a 50% damage rate and arbitrating re-ordering and refunds all for records that will sit on a shelf un-played I'd see the logic in quitting.  That being said I was between record players for a long while and stopped as a result only to miss some items that are now unreasonably priced white whales for me.

I guess if I was in your shoes I'd take a break until I've sorted out a new rig. Keep an eye on some of your big faves though because sod's law dictates as soon as you take that break your number one artist will release something pure gold you'll have to chase when you pick this hobby back up.

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