Record buyers: do you prefer vintage covers left "as is" (user damage), or repaired (well)?

There is a local shop I sometimes sell records to. A successful and very well organized business; records all classified, graded on a sticker, etc. Well I am surprised at some of the near shabby covers of vintage albums they sell at a fairly high price on the floor; covers graded VG+ I would personally never grade higher than G... (Rarity?)

Coming to the point. The shop buyers there may occasionally give me a funny look (is it a strategy?) when upon close inspection they see that I have repaired split seams and bond lines. I would never conceal this, but I swear I do a terrific job (using bookbinder translucid glue, wiping any excess clean with a wet rag, etc.).

Personally I'd be more than happy to buy records like that. But as consumers yourself, what do you think?

I do realize some items would be "saintly" stuff best to leave alone. I'd probably leave an original mono White Album as is... I am talking here more run-of-the-mill vintage...

 

IMO, a repair would not add value for the final price, a damaged cover is still a damaged cover even repaired, so why sellers should bother with repairs. However why not to take 2 minutes to wipe the cover and remove dust or dirt.
I would love to see sellers replacing inner sleeves in poor condition with a fresh one though or even housed the damm record in an new inner sleeve when the original one has been lost. I've seen too many records without their inner sleeve for sale at $$ in stores here, often these records are trashed. Those professional sellers don't give a **** to what they are selling and are happy that someone is gonna buy them anyway !

 

As is. Only thing I do is remove old price tags if they are on the jacket itself

 

Notes taken.

I have been told once about the value aspect unchanged and I understand it. In fact I am a bit of OCD about this, and feel a sense of "mission" that the cover of a nice album don't get damaged any further than it is (seam splits). Or worse, that the nice record itself don't get dropped on the floor and trashed because of an unrepaired flap joint...

 

Gorts, could you please add the word "Poll:" in front of my title?

Thanks!

 

90% of my collection is in Sleeve City resealable sleeves, with the seal on the same side as the opening on the jacket. Once I slide an older damaged jacket in there, its pretty safe from further damage as long as Im careful. The jacket stays in the sleeve at all times.

 

You could buy an album with the most amazing repair job on a cover you've ever seen, saving you a lot of aggravation...but there will always be that one guy who will get miffed because he could have done it better.

 

I usually clean the cover with a micro-fiber cloth, remove dirt using a vinyl rubber on mat jacket, repair seam splits from the inside of the jacket, remove non-original price stickers (I leave the original ones), re-attached unglued seams. Sometines removing adhesive residues from old tape repairs : I got a nice result on a laminated cover of a first press of Straight Up by Badfinger. All of this repairs are usually invisible.

The most visually invasive treatment I've done it was on a collectable first press of DSOTM : all the spine had an ugly red thick plastic tape. Visually it was really ugly. I removed that tape quite easily. The spine was damaged what's why it was repaired using the red tape. Since the spine was damaged, I decided to re-attached a paper tape inpainted in black. Visually it is more pleasant than before. But I don't know which way was the best : leave the red tape ? leave the damaged spine as it was after the tape was removed ? or repair the spine more descretely as I did ... I think none of these would add more value to the record. A damaged cover remains damaged.

 

I am like you. But I would probably have left the ugly red tape in place, thinking that if someone comes along with more knowledge than me, that person might fix it better. I have come to learn about the really old and nasty stuff that's better left alone, at least with the means ("science") I have at the moment...

 

Unless the record is really rare, or unless you are doing a poor job at repairing split seams, I would say that a repaired record cover would be somewhat more desirable to me. I might not pay more than a normal price for it, but if it was with really bad split seams I might pass on it completely whereas a repaired seam I would be more likely to consider.

 

I chose the first one, but only because of the circumstances, which is possibly selling the record. Imo if you plan to sell it, you probably want to avoid any type of repair work on your own.

However, if it's to be enjoyed as a buyer? Different story entirely. I'll do repairs if I can, or get a new cover and mix/match if need be.

 

What bothers me more is what I saw this past weekend: sealed records with a BB hole underneath the shrink wrap! Hmmmm... Me thinks how'd'ey do dat; get that BB through the jacket without it passing through the outer shrink wrap. Some kind of strange magic is going on here. As far as a good repair job (not tape and glue all wonky everywhere), I don't mind. Some covers are just really beyond repair. It bothers me more to have to take an album cover out of the protective sleeve in pieces (front cover, then record, then ooops, here comes the back cover). For me that's just tatter. Don't much care for tatter. But, I'm not a flipper. I do offload my duplicates and stuff I just have no interest in listening to anymore. As a rule, I buy records to enjoy the music.

 

Some good points here.

I for one love to hold the record cover while listening; looking at the artwork and reading the lyrics and liner notes. ...And marvelling that this artefact, in the best case scenarios, has survived and found its way in my living room through the ages... Especially in the case of the older, more elaborate jobs. Vinyl for me is a global, physical and intellectual experience, so the cover must be functional in this regard. Otherwise good CDs are just great, but their print is too small and cluttered anyway, so I just shut my eyes...