My 2nd poor experience with a Discogs Seller (out of about 150). Badmotorfinger 320

If all sellers were like you, the world would be a better place. That being said, that was 10 years ago. Today's hobby is a much different place, hoards of people have jumped on board with unrealistic expectations of perfect vinyl, and have been raised on the 'no questions asked' return policies of giants like War-Mart and Amazon. I'd expect your return rate would be much higher (but then again so would your profits!).

 

Good points. This is a tricky hobby. I just wish more sellers would adhere to Goldmine. Goldmine near mint is an almost perfect record. Unfortunately, many VG records are getting graded NM because the price difference is significant. However, Goldmine is not a curve grading system. If a buyer purchases a record listed as mint or near mint and it has ticks, crackle, pops, clicks, spindle marks, scuffs, scratches, etc., a seller saying "Hey, vinyl is inherently noisy" or "Dude, it is a 50 year year-old used record" is disingenous. If the record doesn't look minty and sound minty then it isn't near mint. As we all know, some records look below and/or play below near mint right out of the shrink. If the record is VG then grade it is such and accept the market price. Don't send me a record that you claim is a virgin and then I pull it out of the sleeve and it has an incurable STD.

For buyers that are cool with VG vinyl, the seller can simply discount the NM listing to the VG price and no return is necessary. However, for buyers that have no use for VG and below vinyl, a discount offer does us no good because we now have a record we don't want that we would have never purchased at any price.

Goldmine:
NEAR MINT (NM OR M-)
Near mint records are shiny and free of visible defects. No writing, stickers, other markings or spindle marks appear on the label. No major factory defects are present; a record and label obviously pressed off center is not Near Mint. If played, an NM record will do so without surface noise.