Outer Vinyl Sleeves, is it a good idea?


I’m replacing all my “inner” sleeves, but am unsure if I should add outer sleeves also.  With outer sleeves, it’s harder to see titles from the edges but may offer wear protection?

What’s your opinion?

kennyc

Weird how many people have mold issues. Never seen a moldy album. But have see a ton of dirty, scratched and nasty album covers. Think if mold is an issue you should have desiccant around your collection!!!

Not sure if they use it anymore, but the old plastic that albums used to come with can leach onto the album. I was told to always remove the plastic they come in. Just paper, or cardboard sleeve just scratch and imbed stuff on the records. So don't use them either. 

All my records have proper inner and outer sleeves. Have tried a few places, but MoFi makes great ones, as does Vinyl Storage Solutions. Anytime there is a sale, I just stock up, usually getting a few hundred at a time. Have a bit over 3000 records. 

It does help keep them clean, easy to slide in and out, keeps the jackets pristine. When storing records, I put the outer sleeve pointing up, this allows you to slide the album in and out of the rack without the sleeve coming off, or jamming. Also put the  sleeved record in the back of the album jacket on the outside, but inside the outer sleeve. Albums never fall out, are very easy to remove for play. It also allows me to never have to remove the sleeves, will never damage the record jacket, trying to get the record in or out of it. 

A Sleeve is not a Sleeve unless it shows its age, perfect Sleeves on Original pressings look fake, there is no usage evidence.

Lock a Photo Away and it has not lived its intended purpose to have a life of being seen.

Isolate a Sleeve from being handled, the same applies, it has not lived its life of having been part of the Haptics that are so intwined into using a Hard Medium as a Source Material. 

 

My LP collection dates back to the 1960’s, and until 2020 it was without plastic outer sleeves. The LP jackets are all ring wear-free, as I packed them in cubes mildly snug, which means each LP can be removed with little effort, yet each remains perfectly vertical. I regularly see record collections with the LP’s not filling an entire cube, the LP’s leaning/tilting against one side of the cube or the other. When so stored, removal and reinsertion of an LP may result in wear to the jacket. And the weight of all those leaning records on the LP’s closest to the "leaned-to side" can be significant, enough to cause warps.

Then in 2020 I started watching videos on YouTube, and discovered the group of record collectors who identify themselves as members of "The VC": The Vinyl Community. Most of them are not audiophiles, "just" music lovers. Some of them are boomers---who have bought records their whole lives, others are youngins’, having started buying LP’s only recently.

One VC member who started posting videos on YouTube goes by the handle "45 RPM Audiophile." His videos contain reviews of audiophile LP reissues almost 100% exclusively. In one of the first videos of his I watched, he reviewed a new, patented LP outer sleeve made by a Canadian, his company named the already-mentioned above "Vinyl Storage Solutions". 45 RPM Audiophile’s review of the patented outer sleeve aroused my interest not because of the protection the sleeve provides to the LP jacket---regular outer sleeves have long provided that. No, it was the second pocket of the sleeve---the part of the sleeve that is patented.

I have long disliked how tight the cardboard jackets of LP’s are, making removing and reinserting an LP into the jacket somewhat (with variability) difficult. I was unaware of the fact that some LP collectors who kept their records in plastic sleeves did so with the LP (in an inner sleeve, of course) outside of the cardboard jacket, just slid behind it in the outer plastic sleeve.

The Vinyl Storage Solutions double-pocket sleeve goes one step further: the sleeve has one pocket for the cardboard jacket, a second pocket for the LP. The double-pocket sleeve is offered in a few different versions (go to the Vinyl Storage Solutions website for details), all of which I tried. I settled on the version with a strip of resealable tape on the sleeves’ "flap" (the sleeve is also offered with the tape on the sleeves’ "body").

I slide the cardboard jacket into the pocket open end first, remove the plastic film covering the resealable tape on the flap, wrap the flap around the jacket’s spine, and finally press the end of the flap (wear the resealable tape is) onto the body of the sleeve. The cardboard jacket is now sealed within it’s own pocket, the spine and it’s printed info clearly visible (the VSS plastic is very transparent).

When so used, the pocket for the LP itself is located opposite the spine, on the backside, just like the open side of the jacket. Slide the LP into the second pocket, and when stored inside the common record cube, the LP is now pretty much immune to contamination of dust. And if you buy used LP’s, the LP and it’s inner sleeve are separated from the cardboard jacket, which are often found in various states of nastiness. I’ve long cleaned the cardboard jackets of used LP’s I buy with Clorox Disinfecting Wipes (and remove sticker price glue residue with Bestine brand solvent and thinner, the best I’ve found), which the double-pocket sleeve renders unnecessary (though I still do it. smiley

The double-pocket sleeve may also be used with gatefold covers, double LP’s, even triples (used in conjunction with the VSS Multi-Function model). The Vinyl Storage Solutions Double-Pocket Sleeve is a fantastic product, and very reasonably priced. I sleeved my entire collection, and no, I’m not on the VSS payroll.

 

@bdp24 - if it is the same guy I’m thinking of, he owns an ad agency in Germany, was involved in the whole MoFi debacle a few years ago where everybody was named "Mike"--the In Groove guy who did the expose, this guy, Fremer, and even that OCD Mike guy of Interwebs fame (at the time when there was a flurry of posts about the issue, it was the four "Mikes" which made me laugh). I don’t usually watch web-based talking head stuff--I will resort to YT videos where a manufacturer shows how to do something with one of their products.

Plus, if it is the same fellow, I also thought he got rid of all his new MoFi records that were pulled from DSD "masters" and got into buying up OG pressings, but haven’t followed him. 

@lewm- I use the method but not the product BDP24 describes, and yes, it makes for a thicker package even when using a simple oversized outer jacket without an extra pocket, shown in that photo I posted upthread.