How to Pack Vinyl Records for Posting (UK Guide)

If you have been searching for how to pack vinyl records for posting, get an offer before you reach for the tape. On vinylbuyback.co.uk, enter the barcode on the sleeve, or the catalogue number when the sleeve has none, and the page shows an offer for that record straight away, before you pack anything. You add the copies you want to sell and leave the rest on the shelf. How it works is the sequence after the offer, and the terms are the rules of the sale.

Take the disc out of the outer sleeve

A split seam is what a squeeze does to a jacket. An outer sleeve is card, folded and glued along the edges. With the disc still inside, pressure pushes the vinyl into that seam until the glue gives way.

Slide each record out of its outer sleeve. Leave it in the inner sleeve, and place that inner outside the jacket, behind the cover, or between two jackets if you are sending a few. The jacket travels empty.

Keep the printed inner, and any lyric sheet, poster or insert, with that same record. If the inner is torn or missing, a plain paper or polythene one stops the vinyl rubbing the jacket or the mailer. A seam that is already split is a condition question. The grading guide is how that condition is described. When the parcel arrives, the records are checked in person.

Stiff card, mailers and padding

One LP, or a short stack, fits a purpose-made LP mailer: stiff card cut for a 12-inch sleeve. Two sheets of stiff card, a little larger than the sleeve on every side, do the same job. One goes in front of the jacket and one behind the disc. Tape the sheets to each other and keep the tape off the artwork, so the record cannot slide out.

A thin padded envelope bends, and a bent record can warp. Use card you cannot fold in half with your hands, and let it cover the corners, which take the knocks. A sheet of card between every few records stops print rubbing from one jacket to the next. Crumpled paper in an empty corner stops the stack shifting.

Upright, and not so full the box is too heavy

A mailer lies flat. In a box, stand the records on their edges, as they stand on a shelf. A flat pile is easy to crush from above, and the bottom jackets carry the rest.

Use a box close to the size of the records. A 12-inch sleeve needs room for card and a little padding, not a wide empty gap. That gap is where a record tips and splits a corner. If the stack rocks when you tilt the box, pad the ends until it stays still.

Records are heavier than they look. Stop before the box is a strain to lift, and before the flaps shut only if you force them. A forced lid bows the vinyl and opens seams. Sell a record collection sets out an order of work for a long shelf. For a larger collection, get in touch through the contact page.

Sealing and labelling

Tape every seam, including the bottom, so a flap cannot open if the parcel is turned. On a mailer, tape the flap and the open edges. Keep the tape off the sleeves.

Write the address after the parcel is sealed, on a face that stays outward, not across a flap you will tape shut. If you are sending the records here, put your order reference in the parcel too. How it works sets that out. Postage and payment are in the terms.

7-inch singles and 12-inch LPs

A 12-inch LP and a 7-inch single need different packing. An LP mailer is built around a 12-inch sleeve. A single loose in that mailer slides, chips its edges and creases its paper cover.

Give singles a smaller mailer, or a small box that fits them, with stiff card either side. Take the disc out of a fragile picture sleeve and keep that sleeve with it. If you only have an album-sized box, put the singles in their own carton inside it so they move as one block. Fill the gaps around the LPs with padding, not with loose singles.

The barcode on the back, or the catalogue number on the spine, the back cover or the centre label, is what the offer follows. How to find a vinyl catalogue number shows where that code is printed. Instant vinyl record price from a barcode covers sleeves with bars and older sleeves without them.

Before you close the parcel

• Each disc is in an inner sleeve, outside its outer sleeve, with its jacket and any insert still together.
• In a box the records are upright and do not shift. In a mailer they sit in stiff card.
• You are packing only records you have already looked up and chosen to send.

Get a price for each record on the Vinyl Buyback homepage. Enter the barcode or the catalogue number, read the offer, and then pack the copies you want to sell.