Best Outer Sleeves for LPs

i like the resealable japanese type. you don't slide the cover in and out of the sleeve each time you want to play an lp, so cover wear is kept to a minimum. they also do a pretty good job of sealing dust away from the cover and lp. ymmv, but I'd give them a shot.

I use the BagsUnlimited.com POLYPROPYLENE 12" sleeve with the 1-1/2" RESEAL Flap. Product number SPPLP1234R is 12-3/4 x 12-3/4, which is slightly loose on normal albums and just big enough for heavy gatefold lp's. Very reasonably priced if you buy 500 or more.

Bags Unlimited SLP3.

http://www.bagsunlimited.com/cart/browse.asp?subcat=11

Keep in mind that the aging and yellowing of record jackets are a function of effects of light and humidity over time, not so much the absence of a plastic sleeve. The plastic sleeve principally serves to protect from wear (rubbing, scuffing, etc) and to keep out dust and other contaminants.

Sleeves with a foldover resealable flap will provide the best dust and contaminant protection, but the trade-off is a bit more trouble extracting and replacing the LP if one also actively plays the vinyl in one's collection.

I've found all of the current "crystal clear polypropylene" outer sleeves offered by Sleeve City to be excellent sleeves. For my purposes, I've come to prefer the "Ultimate" 2.5mm sleeves in both regular and box set sizes. Unlike other polypropylene sleeves sold elsewhere, these really seem to not cloud with age but do stay completely clear, giving a very nice appearance and allowing one to more easily read the spines of the records on the shelves.

Here's the link to the outer sleeves offered by Sleeve City:
http://www.sleevetown.com/lp-sleeves-outer.shtml
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Exactly correct, Elizabeth: 2.5 "mil" not "mm." Thanks!

My experience with the 5 mil sleeves is a bit different than Elizabeth's. I liked the heft and that they could stand on their own, but I found that same heft made them more challenging for me to insert LPs easily. And I found the hard edges at the spine of the LP to be sharp and uncomfortable when searching through the shelves for a particular LP. I found the 2.5 mil sleeves to more easily flex to accomodate insertion of the LP and more "finger friendly" when shifting aside the LPs on the shelves.

The nice thing about Sleeve City? They will send you samples of other products with any order. Just click on the "Get a sample" link in the product description. Then choose what works best for you.
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This is another vote for Sleeve City Ultimate Outer 5.0 mil sleeves - a great product from a great company. I also recommend their Mobile Fidelity Master inner Sleeves.

Second on the SLP3 from bagsunlimited. Very durable and not had one split at the seam.

Hey Elizabeth, glad to see that you caught your error! ;-)

Being a civil engineer and a land surveyor, units are very important in my line of work. We need to keep track of them as we are constantly switching from feet and inches to decimal feet to metric. However, our favorite units of measurements are for velocity, where we love to measure speed in terms of Furlongs per fortnight. ;-)

And yeah, I agree with you that we should cast the Metric system into the ninth circle of hell! (It does nothing but make my life miserable whenever I have to use it.)

You know, i bought thousands of inner and outer sleeves from Sleeve City and found in the middle of the run there would be piles of outer sleeves that were too snug,then they would go back to the regular size.I got tired of making stacks of defective sleeves and returning them. I have gone with the least expensive outer sleeves from Square Deal.Their basic inner poly sleeves are fine too.From my experience in using lots of different sleeves over the years,it is a personal preference or even "vanity" issue on how you want your records to look.As long as the cover and record are protected.
Yes,forget about those resealable flap sleeves.I just know someone will post here that they have custom covers made with monograms to protect their Mantovani lp's. Everybody does hate Mantovani right? Is there someone brave enough out there to stand up for elevator music?

...I vote for "cubits" as a base-line unit of measure.

start with a batch from the princeton record exchange, then take it from there.

Hey Ghosthouse,

Interesting that you mentioned using cubits as a unit of measure. We tried that a few years back, but the funny thing was that no matter what type of structure we designed, be it a house, a store, or an office building, they always ending up looking like an Ark.
Weird, huh?! ;-)

By the way, to the topic at hand, I use the same 2.5 mil clear plastic bags that Rushton uses. These don't have the flap on top, but given that my records are put in sideways, and that they are in a record rack, there is very little chance that any dust can work its way into the record sleeve itself,so a flap just seems to be pointless in my case.

I use the Japanese mylar resealable http://www.elusivedisc.com/prodinfo.asp?number=JPNOUTERLP. I've used them for many, many years (20+) and there's never been a size or quality issue. Plus, they remain crystal clear.

More expensive perhaps, but worth it-at least to me.

Hey Kurt_tank - happy someone picked up on my lame attempt at humor!