Purchasing used lps on Audiogon

There is a large LP seller on eBay who on each listing has a copy of his own grading scale, which saves him time describing each LP separately. He just puts his condition grade code in the listing.

It is actually quite helpful. He have very good feedback, so I assume it is accurate. I will see if I can find it.

Maybe we can get AudiogoN to use something similar.

I've only had wonderful experiences buying vinyl from the audiogon community. One member in particular (jimbo3, I think) even sent me my order before I got the check in the mail AND all the vinyl was like new. I've also traded vinyl with Twl and was most pleased with the transaction.

I recently sold a number of boxed sets of classical music here and struggled with grading. I eventually decided to sell them as a lot at a very cheap price. The buyer was happy and I was happy to find a good home for them.

It's got to be a tough job grading albums. Appearances don't tell the whole story and the price a generic album sells for doesn't justify spending a lot of time play grading vinyl. I have a lot of duplicates that just sit and gather dust for that very reason. It's more work than it's worth.

Here's a great explanation and standard for grading vinyl:

http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/6784/gradings.html

I buy a lot of vinyl on Ebay, and get pretty good results. It seems like you have to read between the lines sometimes and guess how professional some of the sellers are to make sure they actually grade conservatively. Also, I could care less about the jacket condition...I'm much more concerned about the vinyl!

I have bought a number of used albums from audiogon sellers such as Kaleidakol, Albumhead, LPGal, and emil_anghel. I have been extremely pleased with my purchases, none was very expensive, and all of the albums were as represented--excellent to very good. I don't know how to grade LPs myself and from shopping in used record stores for years I am aware of how greatly quality can vary and how hard it is to tell from looking at the vinyl. It's a crapshoot, really, unless you know the seller and he/she has played the album before listing it for sale. But for $10 or $20 I have considered it a worthwhile gamble, and have not been disappointed on Audiogon. I would most likely not spend more than $50-60 on an album sight unseen, however, unless I knew the seller or had had other transactions w/him or her.

I have purchased a number of lps on Audiogon. For the most part they were as described as far as condition. I think the prices are sowewhat high though. I don't understand why so many people think that every record is collectable and worth higher prices. I see lps going for 15 -20.00 here that can be purcahsed in used record stores for 3-5.00. I guess if you don't have access to record store online buying is necessary. It kind of takes the fun out of collecting when you see some of these prices. I think that Audiogon members have a reputation of being into vinyl and sellers sell here to max their profits.