What should I look for when purchasing a quality album?

I would encourage you to create an account in Discogs (free), and even use it to catalogue the albums you have. Most albums have multiple releases, and sorting through all the releases to find the one you have is an educational experience. I learned about the information in the run out groove and how to decipher it. That helped me figure out which pressings may be better than others of the same album. It also tracks the value of your collection (based on past Discogs sales), and you can set up a “wishlist “ of albums you’re looking for. Their marketplace is also very good and very vast.

Goldmine is an excellent grading system, but remember, its use is based on the honor system and interpretation/judgement/assessment of the person grading the record.

Best of luck and welcome to the wonderful world of vinyl!!

@yoyoyaya - actually you hit on a a key point here and one I think is actually a very important part of the OP’s question.

I too am starting a analog journey and learning the trials and tribulations already from the onset. From my very limited experience thus far, it takes A LOT of work to get this right WRT to table, arm, cart, RCM and finally the actually record version - if you want to get the best out of it - this of course is subjective.

Figuring out what pressing out of the "200 versions" (using discogs) of an album is really daunting (and where I am struggling) and only someone familiar with how to interpret the dead wax numbers, years, labels, reissues etc...it goes on and on. I don’t know if there is a guide or if this can actually be "taught" short of experience, but provenance is key and knowing what to look for. One can reference the DR website as a resource, but many times the people submitting their values don’t even supply the %#$$ cat # or anything, but I digress and that’s a diff topic.

All that said, I understand just as with any other medium everyone goes about this at different levels of "care" - some could care less about versions and just get whatever is convenient and others will research to try and find the best SQ version of digital, analog pressing etc..no right or wrong method, just the way it is.

@OP - Sorry for the delayed response, my computer was down when you posted previously. Regarding new records, yes, there is mould release agent in new pressings. And I don't know if it is inferior quality vinyl or manufacturing defects in the stampers, but a lot of modern pressings seem to be of poor quality. In addition, and I've said this before on agon - the vast majorty of modern vinyl records are derived from digital i.e. they are DDA  or at best DAA. Dependning on the quality of one's digital system, buying those recordings on vinyl is of dubious benefit.

@redlenses03. I did know a person who was obsessive about matrix numbers and, yes, there were audible differences between different pressings/masterings of albums. That said, a lot of it was a bit akin to "tube rolling" in that sometimes the sound was just "different" rather than being unequivocally better. Personally, I wouldn't sweat - especially when building a collection. And I would prefer to have a quiet and flat less good version of an album than a better noisy warped one.