Records With History And Future

Collectors craft work

Written by

Willem Termote

on

Last modified by

Willem Termote

on

A week ago I got a bunch of used mailers delivered from a friend collector. He almost never sells so he doesn’t need all the mailers he gets from purchases. I was thankful and just finished a job that needed cutters, judgment of criteria and lots of used mailers. And photo camera and laptop to report it all.

sorting out the useful mailers

Sort out your mailers based on several criteria (1, 2 and 3).

first criterium

Is it the cardbox bent? Or banana shaped?

  1. yes, you have to throw away the record mailer in its entirety
  2. no, look at the following criteria (two and three)
photo of bent mailer for records
completely bent mailer

Second criterium

Do the biggest areas have piercing holes?

  1. Yes, means not to use them anymore also but can be recycled to stiffeners for either 12 inches mailers and 7 inches mailers
  2. No, you can get lucky to save some dollars by reusing them completely if the last criteria (three) is positive
photo of pierced mailer
piercing hole

third criterium

Are the record mailer’s corners still sharp?

  1. Yes, you turn them inside out and get unwritten, unstamped and unstickered new looking cardboard mailers.
  2. No means that the record-box is going to be recycled to create strong stiffeners for 7 inches as they are smaller and you can cut off the unsharp corners.

Making stiffeners from recycled LP mailers

Remove all tape and fold open the mailer. So that you can just lay an extra LP sleeve (that can be handled and eventually get small damage or just a spare you got somewhere) on the flat side and draw lines along the LP sleeve seams to get the measurement of the becoming stiffener. You can also offset those lines with 2 millimetres. So that the stiffener will become wider on all sides. And so creating an impact zone. When you completed that can start cutting out the stiffener with a cutter knife.

photo of drawing the reference lines
use a spare LP jacket or already existing stiffener
photo of reference lines
offset the reference lines
photo of cutting out the stiffeners
cut out with a metallic ruler or just something straight and long enough

You are done! And can now use then to stiffen your LP parcels and provide extra corner strength, fill up negative space and protect the LP’s from being cut when the receiver of the parcel opens it. Also if there something sharp sticking against or into the parcel, the stiffeners will take the hits and not the record.