Even a visual inspection can only tell you so much- appearance of surfaces, spindle hole wear and if you spin it on a turntable at a shop, warps. Play grading is pretty variable, depending on who is doing the grading- (you may not want a seller to be playing an older album that hasn’t gotten a proper cleaning on a questionable turntable set up). Most visual grading is inflated--I won’t look at anything less than M- for the media (I don’t care as much about the sleeve unless there is an indication of water damage, which is a red flag for mold- stay away!). Records are one of the few products where "very good plus" means not very good.
I usually engage an online seller in a dialog through the message feature of the e-platform. It not only gives me more info about the record, but about the seller’s standards and knowledge. Make sure you have a right to return if it is an expensive album. I’ve had to do that a few times-- i’m not interested in a discount for a bad playing copy- but the dialogue has helped me screen many records as ’no buy’ before I committed. The cleaning is something you should do unless you know exactly what the seller’s methods are.
I usually engage an online seller in a dialog through the message feature of the e-platform. It not only gives me more info about the record, but about the seller’s standards and knowledge. Make sure you have a right to return if it is an expensive album. I’ve had to do that a few times-- i’m not interested in a discount for a bad playing copy- but the dialogue has helped me screen many records as ’no buy’ before I committed. The cleaning is something you should do unless you know exactly what the seller’s methods are.
