Unplayed rare 1998 REM Up NM vinyl NM sleeve owned from new

	£		106
	$		140

Unplayed rare 1998 REM Up near mint vinyl near mint sleeve owned from new. Condition is "New" as I bought it but never played it.
I realise that these descriptions may sound like exaggeration but the first few records I've sold are starting to get feedback so you check for yourself. I'm not a record dealer - I realise in hindsight that I went from being an audiophile record listener to a record buyer in the late 80s and most of my collection from then got very little if any plays. These are the first albums I'm selling off before downsizing - when they've gone, they've gone.
I've taken photos of all sides of the sleeves and vinyl in high resolution - the reflections are of my camera and conservatory roof but hopefully you can see clearly the near mint  condition of the media.  The reason for the rating is that side 1 has a visible mark on the vinyl between tracks two and three that you can see on the photo at the 3 o'clock position. In addition side 3 has a similar mark at the 1 o'clock position that can also be seen on the photo. Goodness knows what the vinyl handlers at the German pressing plant were up to! I was concerned that this might be audible - thank goodness both are completely un-detrimental to the sound - no click, pop, crackle - nothing. But I've still rated it as Mint minus even though it was unplayed and actually plays perfectly.  
Using the Goldmine standard even though it's never been played other than to check the marks on the vinyl,  given my reasoning above I've conservatively rated it as Vinyl Side A: M- Side B: M-
The album sleeve has a small crease in the bottom right hand front corner that also can just be seen on the back bottom left hand side so I've rated as  Mint- because the rest is as new. The plain inner-sleeves are mint and the lyric insert is mint. I'm also selling and original first pressing of New Adventures in Hi-Fi in another listing. From a pet and smoke-free home.
Special packaging and delivery The record will be packaged in a Defendapack MusicMax TWISTS mailer and I will remove the vinyl from the inner sleeve though it will be protected by a plastic record bag. I will also use additional internal stiffeners in the mailing box and the sleeve and record will also be protected by a PVC sleeve. This has worked really well so far according to my buyers.
As a valuable item this will be dispatched with Royal Mail 1st Class special delivery before 1pm for the base Royal Mail price of £8.85. I make nothing on shipping and the packaging is done at my own cost.  You can also pick up for free from East Grinstead, West Sussex and I will also post worldwide using eBay's Global Shipping Programme. As Royal Mail will only pick up 5 packages a day from my home, I'm going to list up to 5 records at a time with the same auction end date so that you should (Royal Mail being compliant) be in receipt of the record two mornings later (if you are in the UK). That means auctions from Sunday to Thursday (as the Thursday-ending ones should be delivered Saturday morning) and potentially 25 records a week - though I doubt I can maintain that pace! For multiple purchases, I will combine postage where possible (there is a limit with Royal Mail weights but I'll do my best to save you money - for comparison; below a kilo Special Delivery Next Day before 1pm costs £8.85 and this will normally do about 3 albums. Between 1 and 2 Kilos it costs £11.05, which is up to about 6 albums). Please bear in mind that the Global Shipping Programme does not allow combining postage for some unfathomable reason. If you have any questions please let me know and I'll try to answer them.
A  little more about me: I'm also listing original pressings from the Cure, the Cranberries, Robbie Williams, the Prodigy, Morrissey, Ocean Colour Scene; Joe Strummer, Suede etc etc, so please check my other listings if you are interested in mint or near mint original vinyl from this era. These all comes from my personal record collection of over 1500 vinyl albums put together over 50 years. As I need to downsize I am starting to advertise around a 100 rarities starting with 90's vinyl, which I was still buying (but rarely playing!) while the world had moved to CDs. I have been an audiophile for as long as I could afford it and moved up from a Thorens TD150 record deck, via Linn Sondek and Pink Triangle to my current SME10, which I've been running with an SMEV arm and Koetsu Rosewood cartridge for over 20 years. If that means nothing to you, suffice to say I take extreme care of my vinyl to the extent that I invested in a Loricraft PRCII professional record cleaner nearly 20 years ago and all of my vinyl immediately goes into protective plastic sleeves. Almost all of my rock/pop collection has been bought from new and I will always make this clear on the listing.