Shady scams and other silly business ideas to take advantage of earnest new vinyl collectors

tis true, I actually spin one of them ("Keep their Heads Ringin'") often on Touchtunes when I....used to go out *sob*

what the fuck is this

https://better-records.com/

looks like they literally just buy up copies of Bob Seger records until they find a 'hot stamper' one which they then attempt to sell for $299, fucking amazing

I mean, hell, if they can sucker people into paying more than $200 for bargain bin staples, good for them I guess?

Hot Stampers sure sound better than other records, but do they have any real "collector" value?

Not really.

How much better will a Hot Stamper sound on my system?

That's a tough question, because it involves two things I can't know: how good your stereo is, and how good your critical listening skills are. Really, the only way to find out is to try a record or two and see if the sound quality justifies the price to you.

Gonna bet they lean really heavily on that "critical listening skills" one when people call bullshit on this.

Okay, I'm done quoting their FAQs but, wow, this is an impressive one.

I kinda want to get in on this scam

there’s an NYT article about the hot stamper guy I think

anyways that’s just like luxury goods, rich ppl collector shit, I don’t think there’s much crossover into normies getting taken..

belongs in snake oil thread imo

/threadcop

hot stamper sounds like urban dictionary sex jargon

I was gonna say bathroom slang, i.e. "I left a hot stamper in that guy's bathroom just before we left the party".

Gotta chase that "Tubey Magic," man.

Which I guess could also be an Urban Dictionary term.

guess I'll be relabeling all my beat-to-shit records on discogs with the enticing term "Cold Stampers". you don't even need to be an audiophile to tell the difference!

lol

"the hot stampers" sounds like a really shitty local blues rock band that won't stop playing.

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

Just took a hot stamper

pretty sure hot stamper nonsense got discussed here before. It's the bullshittiest of bullshit

Yeah, it might actually have over in the Snake Oil thread.

Did a search, and we've actually got Hot Stamper talk going back to 2008 (on the crazy eBay vinyl thread), with bit more happening on I Love Vinyl! and finally the discussion on the Snake Oil thread beginning in 2015.

The Hot Stampers thing is some hot BS, especially the pricing, but I legit found one in the wild once, looking to replace my copy of Fleetwood Mac’s s/t I discovered that my slightly damaged copy sounded HUGE and AMAZING compared to every better-condition copy (with other matrix numbers) I came across.

well then, to get this thread back on topic, I've discovered that one good substitute for VNYL is to get drunk or stoned and order a bunch of shit off discogs, with shipping times being all over the place you never know what's gonna show up at your door

lol...my Canada discogs orders showed up already, will be waiting for the Italy forever. I didn't wanna order from there cos I know the customs delays now but I just had to have Cannibal Corpse's The Bleeding on vinyl and didn't I

I was just thinking about the hot stampers website the other day, I'm oddly comforted to know that it's still around.

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

― henry s, Friday, September 25, 2020 2:07 PM (seven hours ago)

lol

here comes the hot stamper, murderer
I'm the critical listener, murderer

― henry s, Friday, September 25, 2020 12:07 PM

thread delivers!

basking in that tbh

They do offer refunds if you get the record and don't think it's worth the price tbh tbf

We’re sorry, our expert team has determined the record you returned to us is no longer a Hot Stamper

Yea they originally wouldn't take back my Duncan Sheik hotstamp even though i told them i don't suppose it's worth the price it's worth the price the price that I must pay.

They're thinking it over, anyway

that was so groan-worthy and yet, A+

lol
https://www.vinylmeplease.com/products/mariah-carey-daydream?variant=31239570751578

This is the first official vinyl reissue of Daydream, the vessel through which humanity received God's greatest gift to mankind: "Always Be My Baby." We have it on metallic gold vinyl.

i mean. . . they're not wrong. . . i guess?

me and another ilxor found a original vinyl copy of 'daydream' for two pounds(!) a couple of years back in a local secondhand store. think he ended up selling it for ~£150 or something? the man who ran the shop charged a fortune for any rock records but that one was just some pop garbage to him. weirdly he has now gone out of business

i say 'we' - he found the vinyl in the bargain bin and then one week later i went back and found the sleeve!

haha that's awesome, good teamwork!

it certainly was one sweet day

Haha, that was me, got some sweet bargain priced house and techno that day too.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/humminguru/humminguru-all-in-one-ultrasonic-vinyl-record-cleaner

I mean that looks cool to me?

yeah I have to confess I would like that

yeah I wouldn't pay $300 bucks for it but I might split the cost with a few other vinyl dorks I know

it’s a great price for what it does, I would love an 800 dollar vacuum cleaner

i have a vacuum cleaner and results are extremely variable.

what model/brand, stir?

10 minutes to clean one record is a dealbreaker imo - my SpinClean experience is labor-intensive but wayyy faster, and anyway i enjoy the meditation of hanging out for a while and listening to stuff whilst cleaning. but i dunno how this compares to other cleaning machines.

it is a Moth, sleeve. it was definitely worth purchasing as it made a huge number of unplayable records playable but a lot of times it would also make very little difference. Hard to predict what the outcome will be. Also, it is extremely loud and if doing a bulk session one would really need ear protection. Still glad i bought it and it has long since paid for itself.

thank you! never heard of that one.

all depends on what's on the record - they do really well removing dust, mold, and dirt, particularly stuff the traditional brushes just sort of push around. but they won't do much for the scratches. I've heard the wood glue technique can work wonders there but I've never tried it myself.

im a big wood glue fan but at the end of the day in my experience glue, vacuums, washing devices, etc, all seem to have roughly the same success rate when done right, its just a matter of whether the issue is foreign material in the grooves vs scratches or actual damage to the grooves, which cant be fixed