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Sleeve “Cracking”


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13 hours ago, bluewaterpig said:

 This seems to be present on a lot of the albums that I am re-sleeving. Is this normal? Or maybe because of something I’m doing wrong in storage? 

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That usually is something that happens during shipment or if you've dropped a stack of records (unfortunately I know from personal experience).  How are you storing them?

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I'm being a little facetious but there's something freeing about seam splits and corner bends. I spend a lot of time reading vinyl forums and browsing Discogs and the Great Quest for Vinyl Perfection can seep it's way into my subconscious as I read about people's frustrations with imperfect jackets or sleeves. It's sort of like getting your first ding on a new car; now, you can stop worrying about getting your first ding and continue with your life. "My jacket has a seam split. Phew. Now, I can just enjoy listening to this and not care about being an archivist and collector of mint memorabilia. I AM FREE."

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I wish I could remember the name of the member who was adamant that “if you’re paying for a new product, there is no reason that it should show up anything less than 100% mint”.  They would argue until they were blue in the face, despite everyone suggesting that they need to either taper their expectations for the occasional transit damage, or get into a different hobby.

 

Buying vinyl for a decade now - the overwhelming majority being ordered online - I think I’ve probably requested a new jacket or a replacement LP so few times that I can count the instances on my hands.  Sometimes a parcel gets stomped.  Other times the shrink is too tight and causes a bit of instant ringwear or seam splits.  I’ve seen water damage and pulled out record jackets that could double as dip bowls.  It’s unfortunately a dice roll, which sucks when the average cost of a new release is $25-35 PPD.  But it’s the name of the game, and I’d personally go crazy if I was sweating every little scuff or tiny corner bend on newly acquired vinyl.  Short of unplayable-warped vinyl and major jacket creases, I typically let it slide.

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1 hour ago, swb said:

I'm being a little facetious but there's something freeing about seam splits and corner bends. I spend a lot of time reading vinyl forums and browsing Discogs and the Great Quest for Vinyl Perfection can seep it's way into my subconscious as I read about people's frustrations with imperfect jackets or sleeves. It's sort of like getting your first ding on a new car; now, you can stop worrying about getting your first ding and continue with your life. "My jacket has a seam split. Phew. Now, I can just enjoy listening to this and not care about being an archivist and collector of mint memorabilia. I AM FREE."

Nothing hurts me anymore, guess what baby?

 

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11 minutes ago, Derek™ said:

I wish I could remember the name of the member who was adamant that “if you’re paying for a new product, there is no reason that it should show up anything less than 100% mint”.  They would argue until they were blue in the face, despite everyone suggesting that they need to either taper their expectations for the occasional transit damage, or get into a different hobby.

 

Buying vinyl for a decade now - the overwhelming majority being ordered online - I think I’ve probably requested a new jacket or a replacement LP so few times that I can count the instances on my hands.  Sometimes a parcel gets stomped.  Other times the shrink is too tight and causes a bit of instant ringwear or seam splits.  I’ve seen water damage and pulled out record jackets that could double as dip bowls.  It’s unfortunately a dice roll, which sucks when the average cost of a new release is $25-35 PPD.  But it’s the name of the game, and I’d personally go crazy if I was sweating every little scuff or tiny corner bend on newly acquired vinyl.  Short of unplayable-warped vinyl and major jacket creases, I typically let it slide.

Yeah. I get the idea of paying full price and expecting a non-damaged product and I do appreciate people who keep sloppy labels/shops accountable but, in practice, due to the reality of how records are made/distributed and the finite amount of time we get on this Earth, I just can't personally join that crusade for vinyl justice. If I needed perfect sleeves and perfect records (and to vacuum clean each perfect record before playing it for the first time) in order to collect records, I would quit collecting immediately. I barely have time to enjoy my dirty, slightly warped records as it is!

That said, when I sell a record, I'm more than happy to make sure it arrives as perfect as possible and field complaints about dings/splits. In 8+ years of selling stuff, I've only ever taken umbrage with one person who didn't email me or ask for a refund or anything but instead left a neutral feedback that said "Record arrived with a small hole in one part of the shrink wrap, wish they had told me this beforehand". It was a hole the size of a penny and it was in the photos. You'll be shocked to learn that the buyer was a vaporwave collector. :P

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I’ve only ever asked for exchanges from a label when a record has arrived warped, usually due to a combination of poor packaging and postal mishandling (and I’ve only done that maybe twice).

 

I don’t love seam splits and corner dings, but if I’m doing mail order I consider them part of the known risk and totally understand if the package gets a crushed corner or was dropped along the way it’s something you just deal with. 

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The sad thing is that a lot of the damage that happens during transit could be avoided with better packaging or just using frustration free mailers. A lot of the times I receive records in the old vinyl mailers they are usually packaged terribly. No cardboard stiffeners just the record thrown in a mailer. Even when there is some sort of protection 9 times out of 10 there is some type of damage. In 15 years or so of collecting and selling I have never once had a record get damaged in transit. A lot of these labels could avoid these problems if they just learned how to package their releases better

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19 hours ago, swb said:

I'm being a little facetious but there's something freeing about seam splits and corner bends. I spend a lot of time reading vinyl forums and browsing Discogs and the Great Quest for Vinyl Perfection can seep it's way into my subconscious as I read about people's frustrations with imperfect jackets or sleeves. It's sort of like getting your first ding on a new car; now, you can stop worrying about getting your first ding and continue with your life. "My jacket has a seam split. Phew. Now, I can just enjoy listening to this and not care about being an archivist and collector of mint memorabilia. I AM FREE."

100% on point. 

 

Live people!

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I get that seam splits like that don't matter when listening to the record and are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  That being said... If I was sleeving my collection and had a bunch of records with them and didn't know why I'd be trying to find out why and try to prevent it from happening in the future too.  That's what the OP is trying to figure out.  

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8 minutes ago, YouTwo said:

I get that seam splits like that don't matter when listening to the record and are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  That being said... If I was sleeving my collection and had a bunch of records with them and didn't know why I'd be trying to find out why and try to prevent it from happening in the future too.  That's what the OP is trying to figure out.  

I think the OP got their answer, no? The ensuing discussion (at least my contribution to it) was not intended as a counter argument or rejection of their question. If that happened, I'm sorry!

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1 hour ago, swb said:

I think the OP got their answer, no? The ensuing discussion (at least my contribution to it) was not intended as a counter argument or rejection of their question. If that happened, I'm sorry!

I actually don't know.  They kind of started the thread and disappeared.  I was interested in how they were storing them that might lead to the splits.  But maybe they did get their answer and move on.  

 

No where can I pre-order this new Sleeve record?

Edited by YouTwo
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