No such thing as relatively clean flood water. What you will find, huge amount of grit got in there. No record cleaners on the market are designed to clean records that have fine grit caked on from being soaked in sludge. The problem is being covered with incredibly fine grit abrasive particles that will be hard if not impossible to clean off without scratching the vinyl in the process. If you have a few treasures it might be worth a try and who knows you might get lucky, might be only a ten minute multi-step process to do each one, and they might even come out fairly quiet. But odds are, complete loss.
500 albums in a basement flood--worth saving?
Hi--just had 6' high (relatively clean) water fill basement during recent hurricane/tropical storm. Lost everything down there including 500 albums: some late 60's rock, 70's & early 80's rock, some jazz and a few classical, most in pretty good shape prior to this. Couple of Original Master Recordings. No turntable at the moment. Insurance not covering. Question: is it worth peeling/discarding album covers, buying 500 new sleeves, buying record cleaning machine (lots of time & labor), or just toss the lot? Are they worth anything without the covers, just inner sleeves (what type are best, paper or plastic?)? What is average value? TIA.