Have you found reliable online used vinyl vendors?

There are plenty of reliable sellers out there,you just have to take the time to buy and note what you get from who you got it from. Soundstage Direct sells sealed vinyl @ a discount if the record has a bent corner or a split seam. I bought a Foghat Fool for the City MFSL for 19.99 because it had a split seam. Vinyl was brand new and sealed.

Contrary to Ebm's experience, I've bought thousands of great quality, used LP's on Ebay... usually at very good prices. Of my 4,000+ LP's, about 80% came from Ebay (US, UK, France and Germany). 99% of those were in great condition.

Early on, I ran into one or two untrustworty sellers. If they failed to make good I left them scathing feedback and moved on. The sellers I stuck with have never shipped me a bad record. I'm friendly with some and we even trade Xmas cards. Ebay is no different than any other group of people: a few bad apples but decent folks on the whole.

It may help that my collection is mostly classical. Classical boxed sets offer ridiculously good value and the records are often Mint... literally never played before I got them.

eBay is not a vinyl vendor but rather a marketplace for literally hundreds or thousands of vendors each of whom has their own value and quality. To make negative generalized statements about the whole marketplace is absurd.

Joe,

Ya gotta love those generalized overstatements. Whether positive or negative they're often absurdly funny, each is a gem of Excruciatingly Bouncy Myopia. ;-)

Good luck finding MINT classical records on ebay HO HO!!!!