Creating your "good luck" buying vinyl on Discogs & eBay

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by Brian Gupton, Apr 29, 2015.

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  1. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    You have a notepad on your computer? Even a physical writing pad?
     
  2. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    You get some dealers that sell under various IDs. They are basically different people in different parts of the country working for the same dealer. I'm not saying that's the situation here, but it's one reason.
     
  3. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    I've had similar results, and use essentially the same 'rules of thumb'. I'm not buying anything online that is expensive, rarely if ever buying $20+ records, and I try to stay away from Buy it Now things and wait for auctions - it's amazing what you can get sometimes for way below market value. I can't think of a time where I was given a hard time by a seller in the case of a bad grading (maybe 3-4 times), in fact I've been refunded and told just to keep the record a couple of times. Still have a warped but good sounding first pressing of Zuma.

    I don't have as much experience with Discogs, but as an eBay seller, I strongly disagree that they are biased towards sellers. They have chased away a ton of big sellers by changing feedback policies and gearing everything toward the buyer, and it is only recently that they have come back in the other direction a little bit.

    Yeah, there are some really bad sellers, but I've found there are far more good ones - you just have to be smart as a buyer, and follow some basic guidelines that many have talked about here. Always makes me laugh when buyers complain afterwards about a seller who lowballs his stuff and has terrible feedback. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
     
    Dave S likes this.
  4. Izozeles

    Izozeles Pushing my limits

    I always discount one condition grade (say Ex is really VG or VG+). I don´t believe in concepts like "scuffs that barely affect playing" or "nothing like a good brush can´t solve". Rating is important, but so it is years in the business and number of ítems sold since the seller started in the web. And if you are new in to this, don´t believe in any "audiophile" tag or "color pressing". The latter is probably bootleg stuff.
     
  5. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    I've done this several times, with excellent results.
     
  6. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    One thing that can pretty much be taken as a certainty - there are very few sellers who even get that matrix or deadwax information signifies anything at all, and are generally perplexed when you ask for it, as if it's some deep, dark secret. I usually get a response followed by a question of what it means and why I'm asking for it. The vast majority of sellers, even good ones, are clueless about record pressings and all the other minutia that we obsess over.
     
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  7. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    I find that nearly all Ebay sellers respond to questions, with Discogs it's more like a third...
     
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  8. Dave S

    Dave S Forum Resident

    The obvious exception would be rare and unusual items listed at bargain BIN prices.
     
    sami likes this.
  9. 56GoldTop

    56GoldTop Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nowhere, Ok
    I prefer Buy It Now and appreciate sellers who grade accurately/fairly and price accordingly (even those who know what they have). I have a few that I purchase from routinely, who fall into this category. It beats over paying in an auction and getting stuff that's lower quality than it was graded. I don't have to wait. I don't have to worry about getting sniped at the end. I grab it, bag it and bring home. If it's over priced, like a $300+ Diana Krall LP... I just leave it be. :) I love getting a deal; but, I love not having to worry about what I purchase, even more.
     
  10. bopdd

    bopdd Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    What I'll never be able to wrap my head around are the buyers who consistently pay waaaay above market value. Every now and then I'll see an eBay and/or Discogs seller using gimmicky phrases and colorful writing to repeatedly fetch insane sale prices. Such a thing would have made sense a decade ago when competition was slim, but to fall for it nowadays is in my opinion extremely short-sighted on the buyer's part. I started a thread a few months ago in the marketplace section about one seller on eBay who routinely charges anywhere from $50 to $100 over the next highest price for VG+ vinyl, citing often irrelevant details to make items sounds more desirable and also using some gimmicky phrasing. I know the condition of the records the guy was selling because in some cases I was the one that sold the record to him, and these items weren't worth anywhere near the prices he was charging. Sellers like this one are possibly more communicative and use better packaging, or maybe they offer shipping to countries that other sellers won't go near, but no reason under the sun really justifies the sale prices. For one seller, he fetches crazy prices on his auctions, which is even further beyond my comprehension when any given buyer has the entire spectrum of prices and products on display with the click of a button. It's like knowingly being robbed and then being happy about it. I would think that there would be a compromise somewhere and that buyers would be a little more sensible about paying for common records, even when getting those records from sellers they trust.

    I can understand the latter ("nothing a good brush can't solve") as far as not including it in a description, but not really the former. In my experience there is tons of vinyl that has visible wear but excellent playback--I'll still grade these records on a visual scale but see no harm in mentioning the fact that played well during a quick playtest. Take Neil Young for instance. Don't ask me why, but I very rarely find 70s US Reprise pressings of his albums that don't have visible surface wear while playback remains a solid VG+. I don't really see the harm in mentioning such a thing. I'm also just as likely to mention visually solid vinyl that for whatever reason plays with audible distortion or persistent surface noise during a quick playtest.

    Additionally, I've come to discover that lots of visible wear (i.e. superficial wear that's apparent without using a harsh light) is very frequently less harmful to the music than the wear you notice when you use a strong light (i.e. lots of scratches that aren't too deep but still cause noise, less visible groove-wear, etc). The majority of sellers I see on eBay/Discogs barely use proper lighting and are more likely to catch the kind of wear that comes as a result of removing a record from its sleeve as opposed to the kind of wear that comes as a result of frequent playback with a bad needle.
     
    56GoldTop likes this.
  11. TLMusic

    TLMusic Musician & record collector

    I think you mean VG+++++++++++++

    and

    Mint Minus Minus



    Also, in the UK there is EX+++++++++++++!!!!!!!!!

    ;)
     
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  12. TLMusic

    TLMusic Musician & record collector

    You are saying that he buys a record graded by another dealer as VG+. And, he gets upset if he won't be able to resell it for $400-- and call it "Mint Minus Minus"?

    This is the grading system on his site:

    Vinyl Playgrades for Hot Stampers

    Notes on the grades we use, with each vinyl playgrade ranked on a scale of 1 to 10 -- 10 being the quietest.

    Mint Minus (M-)

    9 - 10 on a scale of 1 to 10

    An exceptionally clean record. An exceptionally well-cared-for, properly pressed modern record (say from the '70s up to today) should play this quiet when cleaned. Records from the '50s and '60s will have a much harder time making this Mint Minus grade, regardless of what kind of music they contain: rock, jazz or classical. Classical records, with so many quiet passages in the music, will have an especially hard time.

    Mint Minus to Mint Minus Minus (M--)

    8 - 9 on a scale of 1 to 10

    Between Mint Minus and Mint Minus Minus. This is a very typical grade for a record from the '70s or '80s. There will be some surface noise, likely in the quietest passages, but overall the surface noise should not be objectionable to most. Customers often remark how quiet they consider our records at this grade, because we are very conservative graders.

    Mint Minus Minus (M--)

    Around a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10

    Typical vinyl for ’50s & ’60s recordings and very common for classic rock records from the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and so on. Will probably have constant light surface noise behind the music but it should not be of a terribly objectionable nature. Might have a click or pop here and there but nothing that repeats for very long. We make every effort to comment upon marks that make more than three ticks or pops. For many vintage records, even after a good cleaning this is as quiet as they will play.

    Excellent Plus Plus (EX++)

    Surface noise will be more objectionable but still tolerable. This grade is rarely used, if for no other reason than the fact that most audiophiles will not put up with vinyl that plays this poorly. At this grade and below this grade we rarely will bother to list such a record. M-- to EX++ records are a bit quieter and may be listed in the case of excellent, hard-to-find recordings.


    This BR vinyl grading scale is the most inflated system I've ever encountered. It surpasses (by a wide margin) even the most hyperbolic UK sellers.
     
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  13. bopdd

    bopdd Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Based on my experience, this is exactly what I'm saying. A nightmare to deal with for any seller. You have to sit there biting your fingernails and hoping he doesn't find the slightest blemish on your VG+ record. Of course he will half the time, and then I guess the other half of the time he'll resell it at some astronomical price. If you're lucky, he won't critique your packaging (I use standard mailers with extra cardboard insulation) because again he seems to hold the rest of the world to his standards, in spite of the fact that most sellers charge about 1,000% less for their records and abide by the goldmine system of grading.
     
  14. TLMusic

    TLMusic Musician & record collector

    What you are describing does not sound very cool. My only experience with TP was buying one record from him, on eBay. Remarkably, I already had not one, but two copies of the same album that had less groove wear and sounded better to me. So, I returned it. The money back guarantee was honored, but not until after he informed me that my Linn tonearm couldn't track his copy properly and my LP12 had a propensity for fat mid-bass.
     
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