How To Prevent Disaster. Why I’m Opening 200+ Of My Sealed Vinyl Records. Why You Should Too!

To be fair these records were never intended to be stored unopened. The sleeves (inner and outer) were little more than a shipping container. The outer ones being ripped on day one and the inner ones falling apart and tearing with use. I know sealed records are worth more but personally I would be much more happy with a mint condition original pressing that had been transferred to a good quality sleeve for long term storage. Great video! these things need to be said.

There are people that enjoy listening to music, and there are people that enjoy collecting items.

" I don't know why we have to be so protective of our sealed records... Just open them and listen to them, right?" Quote of the century!

Any record I buy is lucky to make it 2 hours at home before it’s opened and getting dizzy. Just spent $250 on an original pressing ‘98 Soul Coughing album from Japan that was still sealed. It lasted 90 seconds before it was in contact with the clean Seattle air, getting ready to make noise. Records are for listening, not putting on the wall or saving to flip. It’s about the music, not the money.

I agree I thinks it's kind of strange to buy a sealed record and never open it or listen to it, lol. So strange.

If you’re accumulating a pile of sealed records you might have a problem. Just sayin..

Any vintage sealed records I've bought are either warped or have had inner/bag rash. 100% agree, open them and play them to de-Burr the vinyl

one of my favorite things to do is opening older sealed records from ebay. YOU ARE FREE! PLAY ME SOME MUSIC!

This is something as a UK collector that I'm all too familiar with regarding off gasing. Our poly lined inner sleeves that were in production from the mid 60s to early 70s are prone to it. Decca, Deram, Polydor, Philips, Fontana, Atlantic, Vertigo and others all used poly lined inners that can result in the 'sweating' effect. Thankfully the majority aren't affected but a small percentage were. Whether that sweating is purely down to the chemical reaction or also the impact of bad storage, heat, damp etc I don't know. Heavy PVC outers certainly can have an impact but in my experience less so. People get hung up on others having sealed records. Who cares, it's a personal choice. I have over 6000 lps and probably have 50 or so sealed records, mainly modern releases from the last 15 years that I just listened to online and never got round to cracking the seal. Some are worth more now sealed and some worth as much as I paid when I bought them, such is the strange world of record values and desirability. As has been said many times, we're all just temporary custodians of our records anyway so do what you wish with them. Cheers Nigel

Thanks to you and Channel 33 RPM for the heads up. I am in the process of going through all my Blue Note labeled records including Tone Poets and Classic Vinyl, many still sealed. What I have found is that all the records that were previously opened, regardless of sleeve construction, are OK - no ghosting. My guess is the vinyl gas is allowed to escape from an open sleeve. Sealed records that have the ghosting, also have the the "pink-hued" vinyl sleeve. After I am finished with the Blue Notes, I'll go through the rest of my collection, opening anything that is sealed. Also, I am replacing all of the all vinyl sleeves with archival sleeves, as I have already done with my older paper-sleeved LPs. The same problem with vinyl gassing shows up on electric guitars that are closed up in their cases for long periods of time. Small screw heads begin to show corrosion even in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. Thanks again and I am subscribing to your channel.

The ghosting from RTI pink inner sleeves can generally be cleaned. The problems are with glue from certain inner sleeves and chemical reaction from PVC OUTER sleeves, which cannon be repaired or cleaned.

All sealed records i buy always get opened that day and cleaned then put in new inner sleeves and outer plastic covers on them then i store them after the first play to make shure it sounds good. If you do not ever open the record and look at it and listen to the sound you wont know if its crap or not keeping it for 30 years dont help you enjoy the music .

I would still replace those paper sleeves that are lined. I’ve had records that the glue strip that holds the liner in ghosted a line in my record. Aja Cisco. Luckily I caught it before it became audible. It’s definitely visible though. Also all Impex current and recent records have the thick PVC sleeves.

Great video and great topic

You just saved me tonight. I was unaware that these pink inner sleeves were PVC. After watching your video I went and pull all my Nirvana reissues from 2009-2010. Some had that same off gasing haze that your wish you were here album had. It wiped off with a wet wash; I wet washed everything before re-sleeving it into vinyl storage solutions 3 mil inner sleeves. Even if it looked ok; I washed it anyway. this also included the sub pop 20th anniversary white vinyl of Bleach. Whole reason I bought that was for the live record. I am going to pull my Foo Fighter records next that I bought at about the same time. Because I seem to remember some of them having pink inner sleeves. Thanks so much for taking the time to post a video about this. I too have sealed stuff from the 80s and 90s. Scary. We are all trying to think of the future and things like this just can destroy your collection quietly while it sits on a dusty shelf!

It's the Heavy PVC sleeves that leach and ghost as you mentioned. 60's and 70's had corrosive dye in the paper sleeves and did the same damage. "Ghosting" is good description.

That cloth definitely did the trick vision wise.thanks for the heads up.mine looks okay, but it's no longer in that sleeve

Earlier this year I noticed a few of my records had wavy ghost lines. I went through all of my LPs (about 1,300) and found hundreds of them had it - nearly half. I was using thin round-bottom sleeves and two were in generic “MoFi” style inner rice paper sleeves. None of the records were sealed. I wiped off about 99% (a few didn’t look completely back to normal) of the waves using a soft cotton towel with a couple drips of distilled water to make it tacky. I re-sleeved everything in heavy duty 3mil high density polyethylene that look like Tone Poet ones. They don’t contain PVC and aren’t pink. I’ll keep an eye on them. If I have to go with paper someday I will. I’m always careful removing and returning records so paper isn’t that bad.

OUCH! That Pink Floyd is one CLOUDY record you got there! I actually bought a sealed Chris Rea "On The Beach" album about 20 years ago. When I opened it, a white speck, likely a little styrofoam bead, was embedded in the groove on one side. I tried to wipe it off, but no luck. Alcohol, dish-soap, nothing worked. In desperation, I tried scratching it off with my fingernail. POP, it came off, and left ahole in the groove. That record was a tosser.

I haven't worked out a way of playing records without opening the shrink wrap, so all of mine are opened. However I understand people collecting sealed records. But if its sealed whats the problem with ghosting? Nobody will ever know!