The only way to store precious records for maximum protection at minimal cost.
Freeze the ageing process, banish ring-wear, minimize risk of vinyl handling accidents and escapes, provide dust sealing and moisture protection, easy retrieval of record and cover in one from shelf storage, easy reading of label detail of Side One without removing record from sleeve.
You know it makes sense. It’s just a case of whether you can be motivated to do it. However all you need is to spoil an irreplaceable record once to remind you why.
Postscript:
The other week I had payback for all this effort. I had a stack of ten recent LP acquisitions on a sidetable in my listening room. They had all received the above storage protection. Next to them a full glass of red wine I was enjoying while listening. I have no idea how, but horror of horrors, I managed to tip the glass over, onto the pile of records, red wine over the lot. Hundreds of pounds of irreplaceable records
After carefully mopping up the red wine, one record at a time, I was staggered to find at the end of the process not one record or sleeve had sustained even one drop of damage. The only casualty was one paper sleeve which suffered a trivial few drops of ingress. Realistically the only damage was the loss of one glass of rather pleasant Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.
Think of it as insurance. You never know when or if you will need it. But it is a good plan, and you would be crazy not to protect your investment.
I’m new to buying vinyl. My collection has grown to about 100 lps over the last year. Nothing as valuable as Blue Note first pressings, but there are a few that are going for a few hundred on ebay these days (which is a lot to me). Mostly I’m buying the few current band’s I like on vinyl and some older stuff that is typically in the $30-$100 range. I’ve also been into the Music Matters and Analogue Productions jazz reissues lately.
So, my point… I’m just not sure of the long term value of my vinyl. I also just want to be able to enjoy it. I do put all my new records into MoFi sleeves after they are run through the Spin-Clean.
The one thing you do that I’ve been grappling with is the cover sleeve. I was originally going to get sleeves for all my covers as well. But then I noticed that the few records I had that already had poly covers were a pain to get out and put back when next to another record with a poly cover (putting back was the real challenge).
How do you find taking out and putting back your records with covers sleeves?
Hi Goldtop
1960 will never come back, or 2013, your records are precious, they deserve the best care
I swear by 400gm polythene to hold everything. It will even take a gatefold, with two records in antistatic inners then paper unlined sleeves (just)
It is archival standard storage. Everything is new, mint, uncontaminated by previous owners, no foreign particles to rub, inert antistatic mylar against the vinyl surface, contains nothing hazardous to long term storage.. If there is an original paper inner, I store it inside the jacket.
Regarding the polythene outer, not had a problem ever. Checkpoint – open end at top, so when you pull them out from the shelf nothing stays behind, everything comes out together. You can still read the spine through 400 gm poly so filing system is good.
One use I have put the paper liner to recently – while the record is being washed – before it is ever played – I add a line of info in pencil across the top: date purchased, price, source, catalogue number and short title, vinyl weight in grams , any significant etchings (RVG etc) and confirmation its washed. When I come to update my collection database, everything I need is to hand without unpacking it all. I have found if you don’t do it immediately, you will never remember the half of it
Works for me.
LJC
This method makes a lot of sense. However who is supplying these protective sleeves?
400gm 12″ Polythene outer covers:
http://covers33.co.uk/index.php/record/record-polythene-covers
12″ white paper sleeves (unlined)
http://covers33.co.uk/index.php/record/record-paper-covers
Nagoaka-type inner sleeves – at half the price
British Audio Products
http://store.securehosting.com/stores/sh204131/shophome.php
Description: With the emergence of the Audiophile LP and the increasing availability of Japanese imports, consumers became aware of alternative inners that cossetted, rather than buffetted, the vinyl within. The former category of discs (when of U.S origin) usually come in luxurious rice paper liners with stiffening layers; U.K consumers soon found out that they were available in packs of ten at a cost that’s now shoot through the roof. But these same consumers also noted that the round bottomed luxury liners as used by the Japanese were also available seperately, and they matched the wondrous American sleeves in all but two areas. They share the same static fighting properties and they don’t – if kept clean inside – scratch discs, but they lack the easy-to-handle stiffness and the higher price.
I swear by these – Perhaps they ship to Savoia, you could ask.