A new one for me- a 'sealed' record.

[Rotoplooker]

Yeah, there's something intoxicating about cracking open a 30-40 year old time capsule! There was a time when I grabbed every sealed record I came across. I have close to one Expedit shelf full of sealed records now, so that's about 60 sealed lp's! There's a early 60's sealed Chet Atkins Xmas LP I've been thinking about opening, along with Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Bruce Cockburn(1/2 speed mastered) Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws and Zappa's Joe's Garage. I generally won't open one if I have a really great play copy but sometimes, you just gotta say wtf...

 

[Toasted Almond]

Brings back memories. I always used to get my thumbnail hung up on the sharp edge of the cardboard sleeve, ya know? That thing when you push something up under the cuticle a bit. Hurts for like two days. But yeah, the smell of fresh vinyl. Wow.

I don't think I ever learned to do that properly. That sure did hurt like a mofo as soon as you did it.

I get sealed all the time, and haven't heard about a warp yet.

 

[Robint]

Haven't got round to opening my 53 year old record yet, but here is a picture.

 

[luvvinvinyl]

That 'breather hole' is actually a "punch-out", designating an lp that didn't sell, first time around, and got returned to the distributor. Sometimes a corner is cut, indicating the same thing. A few times, I have seen sawcuts on lp sleeves, similar to the cuts on cd jewel cases, which has the same meaning.

I like to find those, as my musical taste is, ahem, somewhat eclectic. :scratch2:

 

[wlmill]

Yesterday I found a sealed copy of Don Henly building The Perfect beast. I am going to crack it open in a couple of days. I hope it still sounds good because I really liked this record when it came out in 1984.

So much for listening to this record. When I cracked it open, it was warped around the outside edges. I will have to look around for a better copy.

 

[hank520]

I hate it when you get a sealed record and find that the pressing is terrible. Some of the pressings from when record companies were giving up are terrible, even though they have never been played. I have a recent "Abbey Road" that could have been pressed better! As for warps, a friend of mine won "Pretty In Pink" years ago and left it where the afternoon sun warped it pretty good. I put it in with the rest of my records and forgot about it. A couple of years later I took it out to see how bad the warp was and it was virtually gone. Has played well ever since. Some people use glass sheets and a little bit of oven heat (very little) to warm up the record and then let it cool down in between the glass sheets to unwarp it. Like cooking prime rib: do this low and slow (low heat and long cool down). There is probably a good link in AudioKarma or on Google. I never knew that those old Columbias with the plastic sleeve were actually sealed: I never found one of those new. Those sleeves were always a pain to get back in the jacket without lots of wrinkles.

 

[Anubis]

I picked up a Vouges record still sealed for $1 not long ago.
It is not a re-issue, but an original and it was fine, no warp. I do however recommend even cleaning the "new, wrapped" records as well. They have been sealed for 30+ years and will probably have some anomilies at least sitting on the surface even though sealed all this time = usually release agent).

 

[Wally Swift]

G'day all, whilst washing my newly acquired records this morning, I discovered that one of them is 'sealed', that is, the plastic sleeve is not opened.

This is my first record found in this way. Can anybody tell me about 'sealed' records? Regards, Felix aka catman.

If it's not too late, upon opening the record take a deep whiff of the inside. The smell that emenates from freshly opened old records is magical.

It's always fun finding unopened records in the wild. Some examples of sealed records that I have found at flea markets/garage sales/shops: Bob Seger - Brand New Day, Beach Boys - Friends, KISS - Alive! 2, Gillan - Glory Road, 2 UFO albums recently, Twisted Sister - YCSR'nR, Saxon - Denim and Leather, Several Whitesnake LPs recently, etc. Sometimes I keep them sealed, othertimes I open them. Sometimes I resell'm that way.

Oh yeah, also found this oddity sealed a couple of months ago at a flea market in Raleigh, NC [lower left];

It's also cool sometimes to be surprised by those older LPs that were sealed inside, the disc sealed inside a plastic bag inside the cover. I found a Peggy Lee LP like this a few months back.

The next sealed LP on my "to open/playlist" is; Musik und Gemütlichkeit on Capitol Full Dimensional Stereo. That was a $1 find my last trip to Princeton Record Exchange.

I also found a SS Elvis Costello - My Aim is True 2 CD Rhino Remaster at a garage sale recently for $1.

 

[Wally Swift]

That 'breather hole' is actually a "punch-out", designating an lp that didn't sell, first time around, and got returned to the distributor. Sometimes a corner is cut, indicating the same thing. A few times, I have seen sawcuts on lp sleeves, similar to the cuts on cd jewel cases, which has the same meaning.

I like to find those, as my musical taste is, ahem, somewhat eclectic. :scratch2:

What about when they drilled holes right through the label/record to indicate the same thing? One of my favorite LPs, Saloom, Sinclair and the Mother Bear has this atrocity. But the vinyl is otherwise mint and sounds fantastic. Another weird thing: I found this US lp on Cadet in Zlin, Czech Republic!

 

[SkyLounger]

A couple of years ago, I bought an older lady's late husband collection, about 800 classical LPs mainly in EX condition except for a very few VGs and VG+s.

In the lot were about 200 still sealed records. To this day, I still have around 175 LPs to open... So far, none of them are warped... :thmbsp: