Laminated vs unlaminated covers

[alucard]

I have recently bought or rebought a couple of vinyls mainly for the cover art. Among them the first two Greenslade (Warner UK)
and two Yes / Yes related , Tales and ABHW ( German edition) I noticed that both German covers were laminated and I had a couple of other German records that were laminated. The laminated are more brillant and you wipe out light stains but at a certain point the lamination tends to get off which looks not very good.
The unlaminated ones get dirtier if you are not careful but under the line they have my preference

[Campo di Marte]

Agreed. Laminated covers are shinier but many times bubble up or get peeled. Unlaminated covers, especially darker ones, tend to get rings and shows wear easily. Most American covers are unlaminated, and German ones laminated. I guess I prefer laminated of the 2.

[Trane]

Having my first 15 years of record buying in North am, I was relatively surprised to see in the European used record racks some well-known album in a very glossy plastic laminated cover, often in relatively bad condition, too.

Not only did I find the glossy covers fairly ugly, but it actually aged poorly in most cases.

[alucard]

Has anyone a grandmother receipe for cleaning record covers especially removing promo stickers or price tags ? I normally use a soft wet tissue with a bit of dish cleaner with the risk to rub off a part of the colour, but with clear covers there is often a lot of dirt that goes away and they look better.

[Trane]

ask most vendors how they do it... A lot of them use ethanol to soak up the label and the glue behind it and gently use fingernails

[Mister Triscuits]

Has anyone a grandmother receipe for cleaning record covers especially removing promo stickers or price tags ? I normally use a soft wet tissue with a bit of dish cleaner with the risk to rub off a part of the colour, but with clear covers there is often a lot of dirt that goes away and they look better.

Stickers usually come off with lighter fluid. I wet a cotton swab with the fluid and use that to saturate the sticker. Older and stickier stickers may need drops of fluid directly to the underside during the peeling process. Residue can be removed with a tissue and more lighter fluid.

ask most vendors how they do it... A lot of them use ethanol to soak up the label and the glue behind it and gently use fingernails

Do not use alcohol on non-laminated album covers--it can dissolve the ink on some types.

[spacefreak]

Has anyone a grandmother receipe for cleaning record covers especially removing promo stickers or price tags ?

Heat them up with a hairdryer and then carefully remove glue residuals with a tissue soaked in lighter fluid or cleaning benzine. Works like charm.

[alucard]

^^ thanx for the advices !