How We Grade Vinyl: A Buyer's Guide to Media and Sleeve Condition

Every record we list gets played and inspected before it's graded — not just eyeballed under a shop light. Here's exactly what our grades mean, so you know what's landing on your turntable before it ships.

Media condition

We grade the vinyl itself using the standard collector scale (Goldmine-style), from Mint down to Poor. In practice, almost everything we sell falls into three realistic bands:

• Near Mint (NM or M-): Close to unplayed. No visible marks under normal light, no audible noise beyond the faintest pre-echo on some pressings. This is as good as used vinyl gets.
• Very Good Plus (VG+): Light signs of play — a few fine surface marks that don't translate to audible noise, or a very faint background hiss on quiet passages. The overwhelming majority of our catalog sits here. A clean VG+ copy is what most collectors are actually hunting for.
• Very Good (VG): Noticeable surface noise, groove wear, or light crackle throughout. Still perfectly playable and enjoyable, priced accordingly. We always say so plainly in the listing rather than let a low price be the only signal.

We do not sell anything below VG unless it's a genuinely rare pressing where condition is secondary to scarcity — and if that's the case, we say so explicitly in the listing.

Sleeve condition

Graded separately from the media, using the same scale. Ring wear, seam splits, corner dings, and writing are all called out individually rather than folded into a single vague grade. A record can be a clean NM playing copy in a well-loved VG sleeve, or vice versa — we list both numbers so you're never guessing which one applies to what.

What we won't do

We won't round a VG+ up to NM because a record "plays great." We won't hide a seam split behind a flattering photo angle. If a copy has a specific issue — a light click on one track, a spindle mark, a small stain on the back cover — it goes in the listing notes, not just the grade.

If a record arrives and doesn't match its stated grade, we sort it out. Every listing includes the exact grading terms upfront so you always know what you're bidding on before you buy.

Browse the current stock in All Records, or start with genre if you know what you're after — Jazz, Rock, and Blues are our deepest sections.