I'm afraid my luck buying used LPs thru the mail has been awful, ebay
(smashbay) was by far the worst so I no longer buy used LPs
in this way..........Bill
The grading definitions on Discogs are pretty stringent and so far it looks like the vendors, especially those with a good history at 99%+ tend to slightly under call the condition to maintain the seller rating.
I think the problem with ebay is that their sellers don't all conform to a standardised grading system (I know they should).
Mint, Near Mint, Excellent are used too frequently.
I've had VG+ on Discogs at better condition than some identified as mint on the Bay.
One good tip when searching for vinyl on DiscogsIn the drop down menus you can only select the generic search field "vinyl".
To then target a specific format, type in the description e.g. "LP Album" into the blank "Search" field.
This is great if you find a specific album you're after, then want to see what other albums the vendor has for sale. Saves you needing to leaf through a load of singles if you only want albums etc.
Typically P&P for extra items is a fraction of the first, so it's worthwhile checking the rest of the vendor stock to see what else might tickle the fancy.
This is another key feature over ebay for me.
No Auctions - See what you want, add to your Trolley then Checkout and Pay.
The Want List Feature works pretty well too. I've got a few in there, no rush!
Wait for notification of one to come on at a price and condition I'm prepared to pay then off you go.
The above two approaches were applied to my last purchase.
I was after a new copy of Thin Lizzy's "Live and Dangerous", one came up described as VG+ for 2 GBP (approx 3 USD).
I trawled the vendors other albums and added three more and hit the button.
I like it
Now uploading an album that's not on the register, that's a different story!
