We inspect every record we buy for the shop, and the routine has hardened into ten checks that take under two minutes. Copy them and you will walk out of any flea market, house clearance, or record fair having paid for what you actually got.
The checklist
- Pull the record fully out of the sleeve. Half the surprises in used vinyl are found by sellers who never did this. Handle by edges and label.
- Tilt it under the strongest light available. Rotate slowly. Hairlines glint, scuffs scatter light, and deep scratches cast shadows. A scratch you can feel with a fingernail will almost always be audible.
- Sight across the surface for warps. Hold the record flat at eye level. A gentle edge warp usually plays fine; a dish warp, where the whole disc bowls, is a walk-away on any expensive record.
- Check the spindle hole and label. A chewed-up hole and spindle scuffs across the label mean a stack-loading changer and a hard life. Clean labels usually accompany careful owners.
- Look at the inner grooves. Wear concentrates at the end of a side. If the last centimetre of groove looks grey while the rest shines, the record was played heavily on bad equipment. Greyness is groove damage and it does not clean off.
- Confirm the record matches the sleeve. Read the label, not the jacket. Decades of family use shuffle records between sleeves, and a beautiful jacket is regularly sold with the wrong, or a wrecked, disc inside.
- Read the catalogue number and pressing details. Label text and the deadwax tell you which pressing you are holding, which decides what the copy is worth. Our guides on catalogue numbers and runouts cover this in depth.
- Smell it. Seriously. Mould has a sharp cellar smell that means spores in the grooves and neighbours in the same crate. Mild mustiness cleans; active mould smell means inspect everything twice.
- Check the sleeve honestly. Seam splits, ring wear, tape repairs, and writing all subtract value. None affect sound, so decide what you are buying the record for and price accordingly.
- Ask to hear it if a player exists. Thirty seconds of the quietest passage, and the run-in groove, reveals what no light can.
Pricing what you find
A flaw is not a reason to walk away; it is a number. Roughly: sleeve damage discounts lightly, visible-but-inaudible marks discount moderately, and anything audible discounts heavily unless the record is scarce. The only true walk-aways are dish warps, cracked vinyl, and grey inner grooves on a record priced as clean.
Why we do this so you do not have to
Every record on our shelves already passed this checklist, then got cleaned and play-tested on top of it. But we would honestly rather you knew the routine, because collectors who inspect confidently buy more records from everywhere, and the hobby grows. Take the list, use it anywhere, and if a seller objects to you tilting a record under the light, you have learned what you needed to know about the seller.
