An older friend has decided to sell many of her old phonograph albums (33 1/3 RPM LPs), probably through eBay. She may sell some in small sets by the group or artist, but many of the albums will be sold individually.
What is a good way to package an album for shipping? She may use UPS or FedEx, for security and tracking reasons.
An underhanded plan would be to find a big seller of LP’s, someone with thousands of positive feedback, and ask them how they ship them, as if you were a prospective buyer.
There’s a mail order called Bags Unlimited that sells LP mailers in every size and configuration imaginable.
A cheaper solution might be to swing by your local mom & pop record store to see if they have any used mailers sitting around that they’d be willing to let you have cheap or less.
BTW, what kind of artists/genres are we talking about here? I’m kinda collector scum for certain things.
I’ll second the recommendation of Bags Unlimited, and add that LPs should always be shipped with at least one thickness of cardboard padding, placed with the corrugation perpendicular to that of the mailer for added rigidity. Either custom made pads (also available from Bags Unlimited) or 12.5" squares cut from old boxes will do.
If she’s using FedEx or UPS then she can get their large flat boxes to ship the LPs in. They’re free so she can get as many as she needs and cut them up to use as padding as well. I would place the LP between two sheets of cardboard (the afore mentioned cut up FedEx/UPS boxes) then wrap that in a layer or two of bubble wrap so that the entire bundle fits snugly within the FedEx/UPS shipping box.
You’re effectively double-boxing with this method and it should withstand anything short of getting run over/into by a forklift.
W-H
Reminds me of the old joke. A man was mailing some LPs and wrote on the package " Records do not bend " . The mailman wrote " yes they do " before forcing them into the mail box.