By Crossave · Updated: August 2026

Grading used vinyl: the Goldmine scale

Buying a used record from abroad means trusting the seller's description, with no chance to play it first. The Goldmine scale is the standard almost every serious seller uses to describe condition — knowing it helps you understand what you are actually buying behind an abbreviation like "VG+".

The main grades, best to worst

Mint (M): perfect in every respect, never played, often still sealed — in practice genuinely rare, since even a sealed copy can carry small factory flaws. Near Mint (NM): near perfect, with at most one minimal defect (slight wear to the sleeve, a faint ring mark around the spindle hole) but never creases, tears, scratches or surface noise on playback. Very Good Plus (VG+): the usual description is "almost Near Mint apart from a couple of details" — small signs of wear that do not spoil the listening.

Very Good (VG): more obvious wear from regular use, with light scratches audible on playback but not drowning the music. Good (G): significant wear, compromised sound, background noise likely. Below Good come Fair and Poor, generally fit only as a collection or display piece rather than for enjoyable listening.

Two separate grades: the disc and the sleeve

A detail often missed by people starting out: the grade of the DISC and that of the SLEEVE are two different things, and a serious listing states them separately with two abbreviations ("VG+/NM", for instance) — because the two wear differently, and a record can play perfectly inside a battered sleeve, or the other way round. Be careful, though: the ORDER of the two grades is not a fixed standard shared by all sellers — some put the sleeve first, others the disc. If a listing does not say which grade refers to what, it is always worth asking before buying, especially for a rare pressing such as a Record Store Day exclusive, where the sleeve is part of the value just as much as the record.