Our shop sits in Kozhikode, where the monsoon delivers months of 80 to 90 percent humidity and summer afternoons push well past 35 degrees. It is close to the worst climate on earth for storing records, and we store hundreds of them. Everything below has been learned the practical way.
Heat is the vinyl killer
Vinyl starts to soften around 60 degrees, which sounds safely distant until you remember what a parked car, a west-facing window, or a metal roof does in May. Warping needs only two ingredients: heat plus uneven pressure. A stack of records in a warm room will slump into dish shapes in a single season.
The rules that follow from this:
- Store records vertically. Always. Like books, packed snugly enough that they stand straight without leaning.
- Never stack horizontally. Even a small stack concentrates weight on ring labels and edges.
- Keep them off exterior walls and away from any window that gets direct afternoon sun.
- Snug is good, crushed is not. If you fight to pull a record out, the shelf is too tight.
Humidity kills everything else
The record itself tolerates moisture better than its packaging. What monsoon air destroys is cardboard and paper: jackets grow foxing spots, seams soften and split, and mould blooms across laminated fronts. Worse, mould spores settle into grooves and feed on the organic grime there.
Our defences, in order of value for money:
- Outer poly sleeves on every jacket. A few rupees each, and they stop moisture-laden air from resting directly against cardboard.
- Silica gel pouches distributed through the shelves, recharged in a low oven every few weeks during the wet months.
- Air movement. A closed, still cupboard is a mould incubator. Shelving in a living room that breathes beats a sealed almirah.
- A dehumidifier or an AC hour in the record room during the worst weeks, if the collection justifies it.
The habits that cost nothing
Handle records by the edges and the label only; fingertip oils are mould food. Return the record to its sleeve the moment the side ends. Sleeve openings should face into the jacket, not out, so dust cannot fall straight in. And give shelves a passing glance monthly during monsoon: mould caught in week one wipes off, mould found in month three has eaten the print.
What the climate has already decided
When you buy vintage Indian pressings, you are buying the survivors of fifty monsoons. It is why sleeve grades on Indian records run behind their Western equivalents, and why a genuinely clean Indian jacket deserves respect and a premium. The vinyl inside, ironically, often outshines the sleeve: EMI's Dum Dum pressings were solid, and grooves do not mildew the way board does.
Every record we sell has been through this regimen: cleaned, re-sleeved where needed, and stored vertically in ventilated shelving. Buy anywhere you like, but wherever you buy, put your records in poly sleeves before the next monsoon arrives. It is the single highest-return act in Indian record collecting.
