GRADING & ABBREVIATIONS

Gradings of Second-hand Records

I try to strictly follow the guidelines given by the British magazine 'Record Collector'. I myself is a record collector, and know the agony when buying a record that has been stated as 'Excelent', only to find out it is very far from it.

M	Mint	As good as new, perhaps played once or twice.
EX	Excelent	Played a few times, but not so you can hear it.
VG	Very Good
G	Good
P	Poor
B	Bad
-	Not appliable	E.G. for a record without sleeve there can be no grading on the sleeve.

In addition to that I also some times use a '+' or a '-' to further explain.

ABBREVIATIONS


3"	Especially in the early days of CD there were 3" CD-singles. these are still made in Japan. Beware that on some CD-players you may need an adapter. See your CD-players manual.

5"	The standard size of a CD.

7"	The format of a standard vinyl single. Not playable in a CD-player.

10"	The format of a some limited edition vinyl singles. Not playable in a CD-player.

12"	The format of a vinyl LP and also maxi single. Not playable in a CD-player.

Cass	Cassette, both album and single.

C/C	Clear cover box (for CDs), without any printed material. Often found with promos.

C/S	Custom sleeve, plain black sleeve, or with company logos etc, mainly a hole for the label.

Demo	Demonstration copy (testpress), mainly having a label from the factory without (or handwritten) titles.

MD	MiniDisc, a special kind of disc, looks like a small diskette.

P	Produced by, also P by.

P/S	Picture sleeve, the opposite to C/S.

Poster sleeve	The record comes in a folded poster.

Promo	Promotional record, given away to DJ's, reviewers and others in the media, often in a special sleeve, can also contain mixes otherwise unavailable.

Promo stamp	Basicly as above, but in a regular sleeve with a special 'Promotional Copy...' stamp on it.

W	W = Written by, also W by. The composer or lyricist.

W/L	White label, special form of promo with printed, stickered, stamped or handwritten labels (or lacking text all together), also on demos. Very common on 12" promos.

WOC	Wiriting on cover, mainly a number, like "123". The grading is made as if there were no WOC.

WOL	Wiriting on label, mainly a number, like "123". The grading is made as if there were no WOL.

W&P	Written and produced by.

*	Cut out, there is a hole in the sleeve, nothing wrong with the record, just marked this way by record companies so that they won't get back sale out stuff. The grading is made as if there were no cut out hole.

CONTACTS

Robert Velén, Orkestergatan 29, SE-421 39 Västra Frölunda, Sweden
Fax +46-31 794 9476, e-mail robert@velen.com

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