There are several paradigm shifts involved in this dual-pocket approach. This means-and here is the true genius-you seal in the jacket with the flap and tape strip system, and the actual record itself slides into the back, into its own dedicated pocket that isn’t sealed. It turns out that this sleeve is equipped with two pockets-one at each end on opposite sides. Rob then suggested I watch the YouTube video on the VSS website to see how these things worked. This didn’t really sit that well with me, as I don’t like having to open and close a flap when I want to decant a record from its sleeve, especially when there’s some sort of adhesive involved. While I was down with the idea of a truly clear sleeve, I noted that one end of the VSS sleeve had a piece of removable tape and a flap with which to seal the end. Which is sort of appropriate, as garbage bags are also made from polyethylene. In an instant, it made my old polyethylene sleeves feel like something that had been extracted from a landfill. In essence, outer sleeves are a pain in the ass that I’ve accepted as part of life with records because that’s just the way it is.Īs I handled the VSS sleeve that Rob handed me, I got the smoldering sensation that I was experiencing a paradigm shift in my relationship to physical LP media. Or, if they’re the right size, which generally means they’re a bit too big, you probably ignore how the sleeve bunches up when you try to slide the record onto the shelf. When I say that, I mean that you likely ignore the cloudy, scuffed-up plastic, and you don’t worry too much about the poor fit-if you get a bad batch they’re too tight, which sucks. If you’re like me, you probably don’t even see the outer sleeves that cover your records. Most new records are shrink-wrapped these days, and when you get a new record home, you likely throw out the shrink wrap and slip the record into a polyethylene outer sleeve. It didn’t take long for me to see what was getting Rob so worked up. The next day Rob dropped off a couple of sleeves from Vinyl Storage Solutions, which is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, right here in Canada. His description sounded somewhat interesting, but really, how excited could I get over record sleeves? Rob saw my eyes start to glaze over as he was detailing the concept, so he promised to walk a couple of samples over to me so I could see for myself what was getting him so enthused. So, I ran into Rob on the street one Friday-a whole bunch of my neighbors like to meet after work on Fridays for beer o’clock-and he mentioned that he’s discovered a new, better, cool solution for outer sleeves. And, every once in a while, someone builds a better mousetrap. But the world keeps turning, and crafty entrepreneurs find niches that nobody’s really considered before. We hadn’t really talked about outer sleeves because, well, the default polyethylene 50-for-ten-bucks solution was all I’d ever considered, and there’s nothing noteworthy about those. A while back, he asked my opinion about inner sleeves, and I directed him toward my favorites, the Mobile Fidelity rice paper sleeves I’ve used for years.
I’ve cascaded my Spin-Clean record washing system over to Rob, and he’s having great fun cleaning all his old LPs. He’s always been a music guy, but over the past few years, the vinyl resurgence has really energized his love of physical media, and he’s enthusiastic and happy to chat about the format-both about LPs and the means by which to store, clean, and play them.
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