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How not to package vinyl


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So our story begins with yours truly finding a pink variant of Jimmy Eat World's Stay On My Side Tonight on eBay going for dirt cheap ($15). I was the only bidder and got a steal. 

 

The record shipped and I had it held at the post office for pickup. I went today to pick it up, and you can imagine my confusion when they brought out a 14x14x12 box from the back that looked like it had been to hell and back. My first thought was that they must've grabbed the wrong package from the back. NOPE. As I looked at the label addressed to me, my stomach started to sink.

 

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I took the package to my car and opened it expecting to find the record smashed into pieces. I opened the box to find the record, wrapped in a thin piece of bubble wrap, then wrapped in a Walmart bag...in a massive box, just bouncing around in there with all that empty space. Oh boy. After unwrapping the record, I was SHOCKED that the sleeve only has minor damage and the media itself was perfectly in tact and looks like it has never been played. I truly lucked out.

 

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Even though I avoided the worst case scenario, I definitely learned a lesson today about making sure sellers know how to package properly. I wish everyone packaged as well as sellers on VC do!

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39 minutes ago, museummouth said:

I once got a record shipped to me in an empty grease covered pizza box with no padding. It was a $100+ record too. eBay shippers are never to be trusted. 

I hear ya. I bought slipknot vol.3 off eBay and had it sent in a padded envelope. Needless to say it was wrecked by the time it got to me 😭

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Bought a copy of the 28 Days Later Soundtrack off Discogs a couple years ago. Got a good deal, meaning less than a hundred. It was coming from England to the states.  Motherfucker put it in a padded envelope. Somehow, it came through with minimal damage. What he didn't notice when he graded it was the huge scratch across In The House, like the best song on the album. I returned it to him in a padded record mailer. He later sold it for about 50 bucks and hopefully he got the hint but jebus people be dumb. Learned my lesson. Bought a copy of Ghosts by NIN off ebay from a seller who didn't seem like they didn't sold many records. I grilled that dude like he was trying to date my daughter. How you gonna package it? Do you have record mailers? Can you reinforce it? Dude packaged it like a boss.

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Once got a record off discogs that came in two pieces of cardboard taped together with no padding inside that was squished into my 4 inch wide apartment mailbox.  
 

Well not only was the record was bent in half and broken, but it was also not the variant of the album i ordered.  

 

some people are lazy and shitty

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Amazon sent me a Mogwai box set once without any packaging at all. Just threw a shipping label on there (thing was sealed, fortunately), and called it a day. Somehow it arrived almost intact. Kind of ironic since often it’s the other way around with them, and they use insanely large boxes filled to the brim with padding just to ship a single record. 

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18 hours ago, museummouth said:

I once got a record shipped to me in an empty grease covered pizza box with no padding. It was a $100+ record too. eBay shippers are never to be trusted. 

Glad I'm not the only one who has received records in pizza boxes. I ordered a bundle of some throwback rap singles a few years back and they came taped up in a Forever The Sickest Kids pizza box. The box was trashed, but the records were rubber banded (big no-no) and wrapped in enough bubble wrap that they didn't bounce around much. Surprisingly, the rubber bands didn't leave any creases on the sleeves. I guess I just got lucky, but I was baffled by the pizza box shipping.

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Once ordered a 10" off of ebay....was packaged perfectly well.   Arrived with no bends or big creases in the cardboard or anything....but it looked as if a screwdriver had stabbed the package.  Puncture-wound straight through the cardboard, through the jacket, through the dust sleeve, through the record, through the other side of the dust sleeve, through the jacket, and out the other side of the cardboard.   No fucking idea what happened.  I got refunded on the purchase thankfully and found another copy of that record eventually, but to this day it's the strangest thing i've had happen.

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Man that sucks, I'm glad the record was okay in the end! One of my most recent buying experiences was with an lp that came with.. coffee stains. Upon first receiving it, it looked fine, the jacket had minimal scuffing and some corner damage but nothing major. When I actually took the record out and saw the inner sleeve, it had clear water damage from whatever was mistakenly poured on it. The inner labels also had water damage and were all wrinkly and discoloured as a result. I tried to clean the disc itself as best I could, but there was no real point. Thankfully I found a replacement, but how could you not notice something like that before listing it for sale

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Shipment Courtesy #127: Do not package your LP from the scene of the crime.

 

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Seriously haven't seen anything like this in a decade of buying stuff online.  Showed up from a label (TRL) and not some obscure Discogs seller, and I highly doubt it's actually blood.  But.  Definitely the first time I've received anything like it in my decade of ordering records.  Considering the album in question there's a part of me that suspects it was intentional, but I snooped around on Google and found nothing.  Maybe I'll message the label and see what's up.

 

Edited by Derek™
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35 minutes ago, Derek™ said:

Shipment Courtesy #127: Do not package your LP from the scene of the crime.

 

Mw7qVIM.png

 

Seriously haven't seen anything like this in a decade of buying stuff online.  Showed up from a label (TRL) and not some obscure Discogs seller, and I highly doubt it's actually blood.  But.  Definitely the first time I've receiving anything like it in my decade of ordering records.  Considering the album in question there's a part of me that suspects it was intentional, but I snooped around on Google and found nothing.  Maybe I'll message the label and see what's up.

 

If it were blood it would have dried brown.

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On 2/16/2020 at 9:04 AM, freezeflash said:

Been having weird luck with Amazon lately where they will just put the record floating inside a big box, with no packaging at all. They used to always come in a mailer at least. Cancelled any pending orders and placed them with Bullmoose because that shit is crazy.

seriously? amazon had invented the best vinyl mailer years ago and then other companies like taget and others started using the same style.  that's a shame amazon would do that, I have a vinyl on PO with them now I wonder if I should switch it to target.  hmmmmm.

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On 2/16/2020 at 9:04 AM, freezeflash said:

Been having weird luck with Amazon lately where they will just put the record floating inside a big box, with no packaging at all. They used to always come in a mailer at least. Cancelled any pending orders and placed them with Bullmoose because that shit is crazy.

Just happened twice for me with Amazon too. The replacement they sent was sent in a big box with another somewhat heavier small item in the box also loose. Was more damaged than the original one. 
 

Also just got one from Deathwish that was the record in a mailer with a small wad of bubble wrap rolled up. Record was sliding around like an air hockey puck inside the mailer. Their response was basically fuck you, not my problem. 

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Amazon seems to be using a few different mailers. It's been a while since I got a record in their 'classic' LP mailer. Everything has been in two different versions of these thinner and less wide mailers that leave space in front of the record while keeping it snug in place. Those are seemingly OK. I haven't had any damage with them. The record loose in a giant box (with or without those air pads) has happened maybe 1 out of every 5 orders and I'm lucky that it hasn't caused damage yet.

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