Have I ruined my stylus?

Clean the tip carefully;then listen.If you don't have one,go to R S and get one of those 30x lighted magnifiers. See if you have black on the tip. I would say it should be fine.

Herman, you have put about 8 hours of wear on your stylus, but you have not ruined it. I will need a good cleaning to get the plastic off of it. The groove builds up heat when being run over continuously like that, and some plastic will be amalgamated onto your stylus contact points. This will require some judicious cleaning to get it off. My recommendation is to use a fresh paper matchbook striker, angled in the same way as the angles on your stylus, and stroke lightly from back-to-front several times on each side. Don't hook the stylus with the staple! Or remove the staple first. This gets the "crud" off. I am not joking about this, although it may seem brutal. I have cleaned styli this way for years, and it doesn't hurt anything. This was the Linn recommended stylus cleaning procedure.

Hee hee, Twl. I've done this and it does work. As a matter of fact, didn't Linn (or someone) actually hand out, or even sell, a thingy that was no more than a matchbook striker back in the early 70's or so? I think I might even have one of these in a box in that red-hot space above the garage somewhere. Yet another reason to go up there and scrounge around, but been waiting for weather that didn't induce a stroke. :-)

Actually Linn also had a green sandpaper (sort of) that I still use, I have also read about the matchbook in these pages before too.

I have read that leaving the turntable running at the end of a record wears just like playing a record in the regular way.

It is interesting what you have said Twl.