Grading Vinyl Records

Near mint nm the record has been on a shelf between other records.

Grading vinyl records.

Since grading vinyl records can be subjective there have been some effort to standardize a grading guide. In fact it s essential to your collection piece s quality. Goldmine developed the guide below and it is now the most widely used guide for the buying and selling of vinyl albums. Never been played and usually sealed.

Grading a vinyl record is inherently subjective but knowing what to look for will help you accurately determine what condition a record is in. Questions in this section. Fortunately the excellent record collector magazine provide a grading guide which is now widely accepted. These grades were established from various other resources pertaining to collecting for example coin book comics and card collecting goldmine magazine first published a grading scale in 1974.

There are no marks on the vinyl and the whole package is complete. To visually grade a record inspect the sleeve and any inserts lyric sheets posters etc for ring wear discoloration sticker residue and seam splits. The record itself is in brand new condition with no surface marks or deterioration in sound quality. Goldmine vinyl grading system explained in detail goldmine is the standard in record grading.

Many ebay auctions and stand alone web sites swear by it. Vinyl grading isn t an exact science but it s certainly a useful metric. To determine a vinyl record album s value the most important factor is its condition. It has undergone changes through out the years.

The condition of the vinyl record and the album jacket both affect the price. Over the years the goldmine grading guide has tried to standardize this. Goldmine grading system defined. People have been willing to pay money for the album jacket.

The vinyl looks glossy and clearly has only been played a few times. It will ultimately decide what you pay for an album or what someone will be willing to pay you. The goldmine grading system explained the goldmine grading system was 1st created in the early years of record collecting. Mint m absolutely perfect in every way.

Make sure the combination of answers is plausible in real life to get an accurate grade e g. For example if the record is perfect but you hear a background noise when playing according to the guidelines it can t be higher than vg. But we recognize that there are many variables to grading a record. The goldmine grading system was 1st created in the early years of record collecting.

You might get weird grades while messing with the answers. It is now the most widely used guide for the buying and selling of vinyl albums. What is the goldmine grading system.