Question to the vinyl collectors

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I have a record that I'm ready to pay up to $200.00 for on Ebay in mint never-been-played condition. Its one that's quite epic, very limited supply, and which on one hand I think might be worth thousands one of these days but I also want it for sentimental value as well.

Here's the question - when you're buying vinyl more for its Honus Wagner baseball card status than to play it; are there any cases that are particularly good for keeping them in flawless condition? Even with that said are there issues like gravity taking its toll on a record if you have it laying flat or on its edge? Lots of probably stupid questions I know but if I could seal this thing in a record shape bank-vault, if I buy it, serious I would.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I would imagine that the type of frames used to display gold / platinum records would do the job nicely. Have a look at this site, it looks like they've got a pretty decent selection at reasonable prices.

http://hobbyframes.com/Records.htm

Well I doubt I could ever buy an album that I did not plan on listening to.....looking at it is only 1/2 the enjoyment.

Yeah, my friend actually mentioned that. That may be the way I go.


I hear what you're saying, although for me if something is rare enough and prestegious enough in its own right it's a bit closer to like what one of my friends had with a signed Megadeth Jackson V Pro that, ideally, you showcase rather than play. Mind you though, this one will be on a full cd, so its not like I'd never hear the songs, I'd want the 'never played' claim on the vinyl though.

That's understandable......lol I just love the sound of vinyl.

Right now I've also got something like....150 or 200? vinyls sitting in my basement from a friend who used to spin jungle - all from 1997 to 1999, old dark, jazz step, and jump up, unfortunately though all dirty as heck - the guy didn't keep em well .

I think you've just killed my whole evening as I'll have to google this now! I might have been doing it wrong all the time! :O

damn you, Newton!

i've had good luck storing my records tightly packed in the vertical [on edge] position. i remember when i was a little kid my mom found one of her records drooping over the side of a table like in one of those dali paintings, and she tried to fix it by putting it in the oven, but ended up with a pile of goo at the end. there is a right way to do what she did, and that is to get 12" x 1/4" sheets of tempered glass, and an atmospheric thermometer to be placed in the oven beforehand for preheating- zap the record with a zerostat, then clean the record thoroughly with a discwasher angled-fiber brush moistened with distilled water vapor [any debris left in the grooves will be melted into the vinyl forever afterwards if you neglect to clean the record beforehand] before placing it between those sheets of glass, place it all on a cooking tray and place in an oven preheated to 150 degrees, and set a timer for 12 minutes- at the ding, turn off the heat and open the door for a few minutes before removing the package, let cool naturally to room temperature before separating the glass sheets.
all this said, phonograph records are a giant pain in the donkey. i bought all of mine over several decades, only because i couldn't find a suitable CD copy of the material, and i played 'em only once, enough to make an archival dub onto tape [then minidisc and eventually CDR in 1995. worn gimbal bearings or a blunted stylus [very common ails of old turntables] causes permanent mistracking damage [which sounds like lisping] which trashes the record beyond repair. improper tracking force [too high or low] and cheap cartridges/stylii also cause permanent groovewall damage because the angular excursion velocity exceeds the cheapo tonearm/cartridge's ability to keep the needle in contact with the groove instead of bulldozering through the undulations or rattling back and forth. i can get decent sound from the cheapest CD player but to get decent sound from an LP requires expensive equipment set up to studio-grade calibration. i wish i could afford an ELP [10k and up] as those have fine-tuneable lasers that can ride above the damaged groove areas.

I was hoping you'd show up sooner or later.

I'd be too chicken to do all that. On another note I did contact an LP framer by email out in Rhode Island to see if they have dual vertical frames that can house a record and inner sleeve for a 180g press on the bottom. Ideally I want to have it there in the sleeve but under enough pressure to keep it vertical and in good health, not pressing the sleeve into the grooves or anything.


Yeah that type of damage is profound. I have a pair of Technics SL1200 mkIIs downstairs, only downside is they aren't mine and I have no idea what condition the needles are in.
Regardless though I have no desire to play this thing, its getting wall mounted, that's it.

if it has anything to do with my love of recorded sounds, you can count on me.



you could take the aforementioned 12" or 14" x 1/4" sheets of tempered glass and place the vinyl specimen between them, then make some corner braces to keep the glass and vinyl tightly together, then put the package into shrinkwrap, if the purpose is to display it. just a thought.



unfortunately, scopes for stylii are expen$ive. old turntables are best checked out before use, by a good turntable doctor, who are increasingly a rare bird. there was an israeli audio hobbyist who [a decade back] wrote some rudimentary code for enabling an ordinary 3d flatbed document scanner to scan phonograph LPs, but the sound quality indicated the code needed much more work. but the very idea of that is totally fascinating, i wonder why hardly anybody else* has pursued this further?

*the library of congress has their IRENE [Image Reconstruct Erase Noise Etc.] digital microscope/camera/digital photographic/phonographic scanner

for this purpose - the aural results are excellent, with even broken records restored to better-than-normal sound. but there needs to be an IRENE for you and me as well.