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500 albums in a basement flood--worth saving?

Hi--just had 6' high (relatively clean) water fill basement during recent hurricane/tropical storm. Lost everything down there including 500 albums: some late 60's rock, 70's & early 80's rock, some jazz and a few classical, most in pretty good shape prior to this. Couple of Original Master Recordings. No turntable at the moment. Insurance not covering.  Question: is it worth peeling/discarding album covers, buying 500 new sleeves, buying record cleaning machine (lots of time & labor), or just toss the lot?  Are they worth anything without the covers, just inner sleeves (what type are best, paper or plastic?)?  What is average value?  TIA.
 
tt1man
au_lait
335 posts
 
Yes. Save them. My friends shop flooded and we lost about 50k records on the bottom of the shelves, but maybe a 1/3 of them were salvaged before mold took over. 500 though, is not too much hassle to clean up, couple hours work? Those records have a soul!
asvjerry's avatar
asvjerry
4,346 posts
 
500 of Anything is more than 'a couple of hours' to do properly...
...especially 'manually'....

Triage time:  Decide what you really want to keep.
Take pics of the covers if they're not too shot.
Labels too, unless you've got the leisure to drag the net for the info.
Do 10~20 a day.  You already have a life, and you're not a pro curator.

Used to live in Houston....been there, did that.
Fortunately, not that many....
au_lait
335 posts
 
Sorry I missed the record cleaning machine mention. Agreed long time. I hate record meaning machines tbh - it’s annoying but you can actually do better with a very soft toothbrush, Dawn soap and a dish drying rack. Sleeves being ruined is a big bummer, sorry to hear about this!
moofoo
289 posts
 
Keep the records. I had minimal flood damage to the covers of records stored on the bottom shelves in my music room. If I would have had each album in clear plastic outer sleeves there would have been no covers wet and no damage. Fortunately I had most of the records themselves in Mo-Fi plastic inner sleeves and not paper sleeves. I never liked paper sleeves. Every wet-cover-record played perfectly. My wife toweled off each of a couple hundred lps and opened every gatefold lp and set out all lps all over the house to dry out. She is golden! After drying out the outer covers there was minimal damage. Keep those records!😁
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,545 posts
 
What were you thinking when you opened the steel door?
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