Hey! Records Are Hot! It's Time to Grade Shrinkwrap!
it's come to this
Heritage Auctions now does record albums. That's cool. But what they are doing in this area is anything but!
For instance they are auctioning an "early pressing" of Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? Fair enough! But it's a sealed copy so they don't know if it's a more collectible "Tri-color steamboat" original, or an orange Warner-Reprise or a later Warner Communications copy, or where it was pressed OR ANYTHING. You cannot know without opening and knowing what's inside.
What's more, as anyone who ever worked in a record store "back in the day" can tell you many stores had shrink wrap machines in the basement where they'd take 'defectives', re-seal them and return the to the shelves if the defect wasn't major. Just because it has a "vintage" price sticker doesn't mean it wasn't re-sealed.
So what are they auctioning? Well it's been "slabbed" like you should do with a collectible comic book, which for a record is ridiculous and most ridiculous of all the shrink wrap is graded!!!
They are being "honest" in one way: the description of the record is: N/A. The cover: 8.5. The inner sleeve: N/A. The labels: N/A. The shrink: 8.5.
Wait, there's worse, the current bid for this record is $750!!!!!!!!!!!!
