PVC record covers...

[glengowla]

Having recently decided to let my LP collection go naked, so to speak, I have over 2000 heavy-duty PVC covers awaiting a good home. I don't want to chuck them, as it would be an insult to the environment (and they were expensive, too). However, if anyone wants them and can collect from West London, please let me know. They're in excellent shape, and don't have thumb-cuts at the top.

[Saint Jude]

Having recently decided to let my LP collection go naked, so to speak, I have over 2000 heavy-duty PVC covers awaiting a good home. I don't want to chuck them, as it would be an insult to the environment (and they were expensive, too). However, if anyone wants them and can collect from West London, please let me know. They're in excellent shape, and don't have thumb-cuts at the top.

Are they the ones that off-gas?

[glengowla]

Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me!

[Saint Jude]

Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me!

Rather than my crap explanation have a look here:
http://www.verygoodplus.co.uk/showth...hlight=gassing

[The Divine One]

Would a record shop not want them? I'm sure if you have 2,000 then they'd probably trade them for a few albums. Maybe not Galactic Ramble privates, but something anyway...

[IAN]

Would a record shop not want them? I'm sure if you have 2,000 then they'd probably trade them for a few albums. Maybe not Galactic Ramble privates, but something anyway...

Worth a try! Flashback in Essex Road still use PVC covers. 500 from a wholesaler are about £100, so I'm sure they'd be willing to do some kind of deal for 2000...

[Col Wolfe]

I wonder why glengowla has decided to "go naked"????

Have the sleeves proven to be damaging to your record collection?

[IAN]

I wonder why glengowla has decided to "go naked"????

Have the sleeves proven to be damaging to your record collection?

It's a ticking timebomb - you never know when that chemical reaction could take place. I de-pvc'd a while ago and have slept more comfortably ever since.

[Col Wolfe]

It's a ticking timebomb - you never know when that chemical reaction could take place. I de-pvc'd a while ago and have slept more comfortably ever since.

I've never used them, personally. Not for the reason stated above but because they're awkward on many levels.

[IAN]

I've never used them, personally. Not for the reason stated above but because they're awkward on many levels.

Yes...they don't fit as well in LP carry cases, you can't read the spines, they spoil the effect of the LPs en masse on the shelves, they're not so nice to handle and so on.

I only ever used them to protect really thin fragile sleeves from Eastern Europe/Africa, and things like Small Faces Ogdens. But then I decided I wasn't pulling these LPs out of the shelves regularly enough to warrant the pvc which was potentially going to work it's evil on the vinyl anyway...

I've been gradually getting rid of mine each time I sell an LP online. Gives a professional sheen to my otherwise amateurish second hand packaging.

[jb stanislas]

It's a ticking timebomb - you never know when that chemical reaction could take place. I de-pvc'd a while ago and have slept more comfortably ever since.

For those members who have been/joined here only recently, I posted 1 or 2 times about this matter called "polymer transfer", a while back. I worked in the field of R&D in the plastics industry.

[DirtyWater]

Anyone know which type of plastic sleeves Flashback Records uses? They're clear and midway between stiff and soft. PVC or polythene? I like them myself and am I hoping they're not the gas timebomb variety.

[The Divine One]

Anyone know which type of plastic sleeves Flashback Records uses? They're clear and midway between stiff and soft. PVC or polythene? I like them myself and am I hoping they're not the gas timebomb variety.

It's not the kind of thing that's going to happen with an album sitting in a shop for a few weeks or months. My understanding is it's albums which sit, unplayed for decades, densely packed onto shelves? PVC sleeves make perfect sense for record shops, since they're trying to stop the general public from destroying them! Unless, of course, it's a shop where albums sit in the racks for decades, in which case it is probably quite a bad idea.

Glengowla - when you say "naked" do you really mean naked? I use polythene covers, and I know the truly obsessive use mylar (which archive comics are kept in) - I can't really see how you can keep things nice without any protection? Maybe I'm just a bit uptight like that...

[alanmck]

Anyone know which type of plastic sleeves Flashback Records uses? They're clear and midway between stiff and soft. PVC or polythene? I like them myself and am I hoping they're not the gas timebomb variety.

PVC, on the basis of the stuff i've bought there recently.

[glengowla]

Apologies for the silence - I've been putting records onto shelves. Apart from the aesthetic reasons mentioned by Ian above, cumulatively they're very heavy, and take up a lot of shelf space. I've never noticed anything along the lines of polymer transfer, but some sleeves do cling to the PVC a little, and could possibly tear when being removed. Admittedly, that only affected about 20 of the 2000+ LPs I've just debagged, but one or two of those took a lot of patience to remove. Glue fragments on flipbacks were usually the culprit, though the finish on some sleeves proved a little stubborn as well (Cargoe on Ardent springs to mind). My final reason is that I hope never to get a tiny but agonising PVC cut ever again. The only ones I've left in are especially fragile or fiddly ones, as mentioned above. I might massively regret this in years to come, but for the time being it feels rather bracing to have them all lined up as nature intended. From where I'm sitting I can see the Roundtable having a nice chat to the Rotary Connection, and Graham Bond has just offered Luiz Bonfa a cuppa.