How many of your records have been damaged in transit?

[Lysander]

I would say about 15% of mine. It's such a pain yet there's nothing you can do about it. I've had a very, very well-packaged record which I spent over £100 on still end up arriving with a huge bend in the corner.

Someone who worked in a post office told me that if "fragile" is written on the packet, it's going to be all too tempting to some idiotic worker to toss it across the room. Oh well.

I'm slowly learning you can't be too precious over these things. As long as you haven't paid too much, either you get a playable record which could be get a damaged sleeve en route or nothing at all. I suppose it lends to their life and character.

I have thought of replacing those damaged records with better copies but decided against it, since to me, each record has a 'soul' and a personality all of its own [does that make sense to anyone?]. I wouldn't want to usurp it for another.

[Mark E Smith's Dentist]

I've been pretty lucky and I've had some very poor packages (the worst being the record packed in brown paper - no stiffening whatsoever) and none have been significantly damaged.

Of those I've sent, the only two to have been broken both went to France and must have been dropped hard on their edges.


JT

[Dave W]

I've bought a few off Ebay, Burning Shed and Amazon, and upto now none have been damaged.

[jake]

The only bad ones I get from shipping is when the dealer is shaving money by making his own mailers out of free materials, rather than use dedicated mailers. I get about 2 ruined records a year this way. What a pain.

[sparrow]

None.. had a few with dodgy packaging but all arrived safely..

[Singlemania45]

I've been pretty lucky and I've had some very poor packages (the worst being the record packed in brown paper - no stiffening whatsoever) and none have been significantly damaged.
JT

I had the the same. An LP in a paper bag sent from Australia complete with a dead spider The LP arrived safely, more than can be said for the spider. The weirdest was an LP encased in paper mache sent from Bolivia. The customs took a particular interest for some reason as it arrived opened with an official label I also get sellers send me 45s wrapped in black bin liners. Maybe its a statement on my musical taste, or lack of

I've had quite a few LPs arrive with creased corners in the past. I make a point now of asking the sender to not use a mailing envelope but a cruciform box instead or even layers of corrugated cardboard arranged in opposing directions being preferable to those sh#te envelopes.

[MonkeyBoy]

When I moved to Los Angeles my Father sent all my albums via UPS and only three got damaged, one beyond repair. the only reason they were damaged was because he put a wine bottle in one of the boxes and it broke on transit. It was a 1978 Chateau Margaux no less! At least the box smelled good.

[danieldust]

I've bought, sold and traded probably hundreds of records via mail in the last 15 years or so. I've only ever received one record that was damaged. It was in a proper cardboard LP mailer, and it appeared to have been dropped on its edge onto some narrow, hard edged object, perhaps the corner of a stair or some kind of narrow metal bar. The edge of the record is broken with a crack running most of the distance to the label, rendering the record mostly unplayable. Sadly, the record is a fairly rare Japanese import, and I'll probably never get another copy.

Covers are a different story altogether. I can't begin to count the number of times I've received a record in the mail that had not been removed from its cover, and the record had sliced through one or more edges of the cover. It's generally considered standard practice to put the record OUTSIDE the cover for shipping, but many eBay sellers are unaware of this fact. I've also had people who sell a lot of records online argue vehemently that this is unnecessary because records "can't" cut through a sleeve in shipping, but I have proven this false. I now ask sellers to put the record on the outside of the cover when I buy something online, but sometimes they ignore this request.

[newdreams]

I've probably had forty or so shipments and none were damaged in transit.

I did buy an integrated amp that the seller had packaged in foam "peanuts" rather than slabs of foam or other material. With the peanuts, they got rearranged in transit so the unit was no longer in the centre of the box and was damaged when the box was dropped somewhere.

Now let's talk about airlines. When was the last time I travelled and my baggage wasn't damaged?

I recall sitting at the window of one aircraft watching the baggage being loaded and seeing the handler slinging suitcases six feet over to the loading bay. Some missed and hit the tarmac, including mine. I had to sit there unable to do a thing about it.

[Waluch]

Only one, so far, so good :]

[bubba45]

None luckily and inspite of some sellers and postal workers best efforts.

[akb778]

Surprisingly, none that I can remember! Though I've had a few with questionable packaging...

[clarinete13]

It's interesting that most have been lucky with no damage in the post, unfortunately I must have a heavy handed sorting office because 1 in every 4 covers I receive tend to have a dented corner or worse. When I buy off eBay I normally ask for extra card for protection but it doesn't always work.

My worst run was buying vinyl from HMV here in the UK, their packaging is just a thin card envelope and nearly every LP suffered corner damage, ironically the only one that didn't get damaged had glue on the surface of the vinyl and now 3 months later I am still awaiting the replacement.

The best company by far is Burning Shed, they use the crucifix or cross style mailer and it protects the corners really well, in second place is EMP who place the album in a cardboard sleeve like HMV but then place that in a padded box.
Fortunately I haven't had any vinyl damaged in the post but it was close last month when a seller sent the package during the wet spell we had and didn't use a plastic bag, needless to say I wasn't impressed when he retorted 'I do hope this won't put you off buying from me again'.

Only wish I lived near a record store where I could examine the sleeve and contents before taking it home, hey ho...

regards
Mark

[chosenhandle]

I think I have had one bad record.

As others said, I have had several boxes mangled, but never a bad record. I did have one box with about 25 records arrive with the side split wide open, but the post office taped it up...sort of.