Endless supply of resealed vintage vinyl on the market

True, the U.K. exports to the USA, especially EMI were resealed with stickers for USA sale as "imports" in the 70's. The baggy shrink was great but the tight ones were bad to the covers, lotta bending.

 

I'm not even sure why one would want to spend a lot of money on sealed vintage records unless you're operating a museum and don't intend to open. You never know what you're going to get. Granted, pressings from 35+ years ago are more than likely going to come out better than modern sealed records, which is a real crapshoot.

 

Sorry, I should have said Beatles original UK LPs. I wasn't thinking about represses from the 70s....

 

Not record-related, but I just recently bought a cardigan sweater off Grailed that was clearly advertised as mohair; when it arrived, it turned out to be acrylic. I filed a not-as-described claim through PayPal, and I even sent them both the link to the original page as well as a picture of the tag stating "100% Acrylic" (that the seller had conveniently covered with his thumb in the listing photo). Slam dunk that I would be granted a return, right? PayPal DENIED my claim, stating that "the item arrived with no missing parts and wasn't materially different from the description." I'm still in shock. Anyway, my point is that we should proceed with caution when thinking PayPal is our safety net.

A few years ago I purchased through eBay a sealed copy of Johnnie Taylor's "Wanted: One Soul Singer," which is my favorite Stax LP; I think I paid $80 for it. I'd never spent big $$ on a 50-year-old sealed record before, and I remember hearing stories about a certain long-time vinyl dealer from Houston who was an expert re-sealer. This particular LP arrived to me and it didn't quite pass the sniff test, so to speak, in that it looked like there were spots of wear to the cardboard that shouldn't be happening under cellophane. Do I open it--and thus kill the collector value--to find out if the record is in fact new? Back onto eBay for sale it went. It took a few weeks and many inquiries as to whether or not there were breather holes in the cellophane, but I think it finally sold for what amounted to break-even money after fees were factored in. I was relieved until I discovered that the buyer in turn flipped it himself on eBay for $400.

So it goes.

 

Lotta resealers in Texas through the decades.....I'd see a lot of the product at the Austin Record Show in the 90's.

 

Everyone remembers Les Harris!

 

Apparently, he's still around, using various aliases:


Warning: Les Harris is selling on Discogs under the name NancyBuddy

And someone on SteveHoffman claims to have visited Les Harris' house and seen the sealing machine:

Sealed LPs and shrink wrap...

 

NancyBuddy, yea that's Harris......he'd sell pre eBay in Goldmine Magazine with hundreds of sealed albums, an endless supply.

 

I was wondering who was behind NancyBuddy. Someone made a cryptic post on another forum but I couldn't decipher it. Didn't he used to sell on eBay with a similar moniker? I recall someone on eBay with a similar handle.

 

I think his old handle was changed. Too many complaints I guess.