One of the numerous problems with the 'Rare Record Price Guide' grading system (adopted as a universal 'standard' by all U.K sellers & record lovers) is that it works from the assumption that the deterioration in condition of any records always occurs in an incremental way (first of all you get very faint surface marks from general handling - taking it out of the sleeve & placing it on the record deck; then more noticeable surface marks build up from repeated plays; then after even more plays the record starts to get scratches - first light ones that cause faint distortion, then heavier ones that cause clicks & pops: then it starts to get severe scratches & deep scores that cause jumps; then finally the dog bites a whole chunk out of the record, leaving it totally trashed).
The assumption is that the damage to vinyl always fallows that set incremental pattern, & that ultimately, given enough plays, all records will deteriorate from Mint to dog-bitten in the same predictable way. According to this theory, the grading of any record can be accurately given as a fixed point somewhere along the scale.
However, in reality there are just far too many variables - the way individuals treat their records, whether or not the equipment they use (stylus etc) damages the record, & patterns of playing (e.g - the difference between people who play each side from start to finish, as opposed to people who jump about from track to track, often knocking the needle in the process). Some people can trash a record within three or four plays, whereas other owners can play an album a hundred times, & other than some inevitable handling marks, there won't be a single scratch.
As a result, so many second records I buy just don't easily fit into any of the gradings, as the damage to them hasn't followed the set pattern. There are albums where the vinyl is still incredibly shiny & there's next to no surface marks (indicating that it's probably only been played three or four times). However, there's long thin scratches running across several tracks, suggesting that on the few times it has been played, somebody's been extremely careless & knocked the needle, sending it flying across the vinyl surface. There's albums where one track has obviously been played to death, but every other track has been left almost untouched (or perhaps one side has been played far more than the other - this is more noticeable with singles). There's albums that are almost Mint, but have one really bad deep scratch (suggesting a possible accident on it's first playing, after which the owner decided never to play it again).
There are even albums that have unique, & completely unclassifiable forms of damage (such as a U.K Subs album I picked up, which was in lovely condition, except for the fact that the last track on one side had a wavy 'up & down' scratch running around the entire circumference, as if the owner hated that track so much that they'd deliberately scored it with a sharp object to render it unplayable).
A wise record dealer once said (in an article in 'Record Collector' magazine) that buyers should be wary of anybody selling records who resorts to such easy one or two word gradings (e.g - 'Excellent', 'Very Good' etc) because, as I have already pointed out, the condition of so many records just doesn't neatly fit into any of these incremental gradings. His suggestion was that a good dealer should be able to give you a more detailed description of condition (e.g - 'Side One has a lot of light surface marks, but no noticeable noise on playing. Side Two looks excellent, other than a 1 centimetre scratch on the second track, which causes a bit of crackle & an occasional loud pop').
However, the point of this article is not so much to find fault with the RRPG grading system (or to suggest an alternative). Instead, moving on from my observations that so many records don't fit any easy grading categories, I want to suggest that, after decades of obsessively hunting down & buying second hand records, a form of psychometry comes into play, where one can guess what sort of person owned the record, based on the type of damage to the vinyl.
Several categories I have come up with are as follows ~
(1) THE FIDGETER The Fidgeter bought a lot of indie & dance music albums back in the 1990s. Apart from when he first bought a new album, he could never play an entire album's side from start to finish. Instead, he would constantly be leaping up (especially when he was stoned & had his mates round) going "No. That's not the track I want.. There's a better one. Hold on ...". Then he would try to lift the needle onto another track. However, given the fact that he didn't have a lever to lift the needle up properly, & given that he was stoned & excited, the needle would invariably go flying across the vinyl surface (with that excruciating scratch noise that those of us who spent time with any Fidgeters back in the 1990s grew to expect every two minutes).
The Fidgeter had a lot of records though (he was, after all, a big music lover), so no individual album was played more than perhaps a dozen times. As a result, all his albums remained shiny with not too many surface marks. However, every single one of them is scarred with these long thin scratches caused by knocking the needle in a fit of marijuana induced excitement.
(2) THE OLD MAN. The Old Man collected easy listening records back in the late 1960s / early 1970s (often on the Studio 2 Stereo label). To his credit, The Old Man took exceptional care of his records (unlike The Fidgeter, he probably played each side straight through without jumping up & sending the needle flying). He never put his fingers on the vinyl. and probably had a state of the art record deck & good stylus. As a result, his albums are all in immaculate condition.
However, he had an obsessive need to 'catalogue' his records, & often in the top right hand corner of the front cover, he's added a large sticker on which he's written a number, or even worse, used one of these 1970s 'label makers' that printed sticky labels on thick plastic with raised lettering (which are impossible to get off without severely damaging the record cover). He may also have written in biro pen (in very small neat writing) notes on individual tracks on the back cover ('Fast Tempo', 'Slow Tempo' etc).
(3) THE SAMPLE HUNTER. The Sample Hunter is a D.J or dance music 'producer', who buys loads of cheap second hand L.Ps from many eclectic genres, in a search for 'samples' & 'breaks'. In theory, records owned by The Sample Hunter might be very hard to spot, as with him buying second hand albums (& not really caring about condition), this means that a lot of albums that pass through his hands might already have had a lot of wear & damage.
However, those of us with a keen eye, & knowledge of vinyl, will be able to spot the difference between any original wear on the vinyl, & that inflicted on it by The Sample Hunter. The Sample Hunter will have a top range record deck, with a very sharp thin stylus. Therefore, any scratches he inflicts will be thinner & finer looker than any scratches that may have existed prior to him getting the album (especially with 1960s / 70s albums, when people used thick & heavy styluses).
The Sample Hunter buys cheap albums in bulk (at car boots & charity shops), & has no respect for them. He gets home, throws them on his record deck, and in his impatient hunt for 'samples' & 'breaks', can't listen to an album all the way through. Instead, just like The Fidgeter, as soon as he gets bored, he'll just knock the needle forward, leaving the same kind of long thin scratches as The Fidgeter does. Having just picked up several dozen L.Ps at a car boot, he isn't going to devote the requisite forty minutes listening to each one. It's really a quick 'skim over' in each case, then on to the next one.
Another telltale sign of The Sample Hunter is circular scratches (i.e - white scratches that follow the circumference of a record). This is obviously where they've played one segment over & over again, or tried some D.J 'scratching' on it. No matter how trashed a record is, it is only The Sample Hunter who puts these kind of scratches into a record.
Once they've searched for samples, The Sample Hunter will sell all these records on to a second hand record shop. Heaven forbid that they should actually clean them first (as in their attempts as 'scratching' & their general disrespect for the vinyl. they tend to cover the record surface with grubby fingerprints). Apart from top D.Js, most dance music record buyers seem to have no knowledge about cleaning vinyl (or just the fact that touching the vinyl leaves dirty fingermarks). Dirty fingermarks are also a sign that an album has been 'got at' by The Sample Hunter.
(4) THE INDIAN FAMILY. Obviously this only applies to Indian albums. Whereas Indian Classical albums usually are in immaculate condition, Bollywood albums from the 1960s /70s are often in very poor condition (something you get used to as a Bollywood collector, though occasionally old Bollywood do turn up in beautiful condition). I imagine this is a combination of having really cheap record decks back in the day, and just loving the music - playing it again & again, while the children danced up & down, making the needle jump.
Interestingly, no matter how trashed a Bollywood album is, they're always devoid of dirty fingermarks. Either Indian families had extremely clean hands, or else they at least knew enough about vinyl to not put their fingers on it.
(5) DODGY DEALINGS ? This is one I've never worked out what the story is. With a lot of the better end of easy listening albums from the late 1960s /early 70s, a lot of records I've picked up in that genre will be in more or less Mint condition, apart from one very straight thin scratch right across the first track on Side One (& ending abruptly right at the end of the track)
Apparently, back in those days, record shops would often deliberately damage stock they couldn't sell, then return it to the supplier for a refund. Given that I've come across so many albums from that era that have that same precise scratch on the first track, I wonder if it is a result of record shops deliberately damaging albums ?
(6) WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE TO THIS ? Like the previous entry, this one also is an enigma. There are some records that are in such bad condition, that you are left wondering what the owner could possibly have done to have got it like that. Even if I'd spent 6 months daily throwing it like a frisbee for my dog to fetch, it wouldn't have ended up as trashed.
The ne plus ultra of this came with a bunch of 1970s singles (Mungo Jerry etc) that I picked up dirt cheap from a charity shop. They smelled a bit funny, & on cleaning them I noticed that a thick brown substance was coming off onto the cleaning cloth. I did genuinely wonder if somebody had once had a shit on these records, and then rubbed it deep into the vinyl surface.
(7) THE 1970S PARTY GOER. This applies mainly to 7" singles from the early 1970s (& interestingly, primarily reggae hits from the early 1970s). Worried that they records they brought to a party might get muddled up with other people's records, the owner wrote their name on the label (in the same universal 'girly' handwriting).
The name on the label is always 'Sharon' or 'Stacey', leading me to conclude that either Sharon or Stacey were very common girl's names back then, or else there was one Sharon / Stacey who owned millions of records (& multiple copies of each single).
Sadly, because these records were brought to parties, they're often trashed, as I imagine people jumped up & down, making the records jump, and / or records were quickly & clumsily pulled off in order to put on the next one.
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