Grail unplayed Mint triple vinyl 1st press 2004 Prodigy Always Outnumbered ... 

	£		140
	$		186

Another one of my holy grail vinyl albums - an unplayed Mint first 2004  pressing of the Prodigy's Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned. A sumptuous production of triple vinyl in trifold sleeve owned by me from new. Condition is "New" as it has never been played but it 17 years old. Hardly any of my records from this era were sealed. I bought from an independent record shop in East Grinstead (thankyou Jingles and RIP) - not from HMV, Virgin etc for whom shrink wrapping was a thing to stop the great unwashed from taking records out the covers but who by this stage were selling hardly any (any?) vinyl. When I say unplayed, I mean unplayed.    Sometimes even new records have hairline marks on the vinyl where they have been slid into the paper sleeves - I can see no marks on these at all. This is a completely over-the-top design and production and is luxuriously decadent - a triple 180g vinyl set housed in an amazing trifold sleeve with three themed record sleeves. It must have cost a tremendous amount to manufacture. In truth I was never a fan of the Prodigy but bought the album because of the design (weird, I know!). I never played this - in fact when I came to look at the vinyl I realised this was one record that I hadn't even opened to put into protective pvc bags (which I've now done to protect in transit).  This, like an embarrassing amount of vinyl I purchased in the 90s, has sat on my record shelving for nearly 20 years - but at least it has been preserved for someone who might appreciate it more. I've taken photos of all sides of the sleeves and vinyl in high resolution - the reflections are of my camera but hopefully you can see clearly the  mint condition of the media - I can see no flaw on the vinyl. The cheapest mint copies are going for over £200 but I'm starting bidding at just £120 and hoping the price goes up -  so you may get lucky and pick up a bargain. The only better copy could possibly be a sealed one but this never was as it was bought from my local independent record shop as noted above. In addition, a sealed copy could always be hiding scuffed records and split inner sleeves (as has happened to me in the past).. Using the Goldmine standard I follow the principle that no vinyl is mint if it has ever been played and this qualifies. Vinyl Side A:  Mint Side B:  Mint Side C:  Mint Side D:  Mint Side E:  Mint Side F:  Mint
Album sleeve is mint on all sides. There is the tiniest scuff in the middle of the bottom edge but I think this would still count as mint.
From a pet and smoke-free home.
A respectful note about offers

I've done my research on pricing. Of course a record is only worth what someone is prepared to pay but records are collectable and original pressings are like first editions of books - people are prepared to pay more for them than re-issues. I set the starting price based below the typical selling prices on eBay and another well know discography seller. I allow offers for those purchasers who are really keen to get a much sort after copy, don't want to wait 10 days to the end of the auction and don't want to risk being 'sniped' in the last seconds of bidding. I set the offer level close to typical selling price for records of a similar grade (which for most of my 'Holy Grail' albums is near the maximum. Please don't make offers below the starting price or ask for combined prices for multiple records that attempt a similar thing. They will be automatically rejected without me knowing it and, if this happens three times, you cannot make an offer for rest of the time of the auction (this is eBay's rule not mine). 

Special packaging and delivery

The record will be packaged in a Defendapack MusicMax TWISTS mailer. For plain inner sleeves I will leave the vinyl in the inner sleeve. For printed sleeves, I take the vinyl out though it is still protected by its plastic record bag. I will also use additional internal stiffeners and supplementary bubble wrap for the open edges and four corners in the mailing box and the sleeve and record will also be protected by a PVC sleeve. This has worked really well so far according to my buyers.

As a valuable item this will be dispatched with Royal Mail 1st Class special delivery before 1pm. With packaging it weighs a whopping 1068g so will actually cost £11.05 to post but eBay in their wisdom will only let me charge £9.50. You can also pick up for free from East Grinstead, West Sussex and I will also post worldwide using eBay's Global Shipping Programme.

I make nothing on shipping and the packaging is done at my own cost.

 As Royal Mail will only pick up 5 packages a day from my home, I'm going to list up to 5 records at a time with the same auction end date so that you should (Royal Mail being compliant) be in receipt of the record two mornings later (if you are in the UK). That means auctions from Sunday to Thursday (as the Thursday-ending ones should be delivered Saturday morning) and potentially 25 records a week - though I doubt I can maintain that pace!

For multiple purchases, I will combine postage where possible (there is a limit with Royal Mail weights but I'll do my best to save you money - for comparison; below a kilo Special Delivery Next Day before 1pm costs £8.85 and this will normally do about 2 to 3 single albums albums. Between 1 and 2 Kilos it costs £11.05, which is up to about 6 single albums). Please bear in mind that the Global Shipping Programme does not allow combining postage for some unfathomable reason.

Some people prefer to use onward shipping companies based in the UK and I know I've had items forwarded to China and Eastern Europe from UK-based addresses. I'm not sure if there is a similar solution for USA and Canada.

If you have any questions please let me know and I'll try to answer them.

A  little more about me:

I'm also listing original pressings from the Robbie Williams, the Prodigy, Morrissey, Stereophonics; Joe Strummer, Radiohead etc etc, so please check my other listings if you are interested in mint or near mint original vinyl from this era.

These all comes from my personal record collection of over 1500 vinyl albums put together over 50 years. As I need to downsize I am starting to advertise around a 100 rarities starting with 90's vinyl, which I was still buying (but rarely playing!) while the world had moved to CDs. I have Jingles independent record shop in East Grinstead to thank for this as they continued to stock an albeit limited number of vinyl records and I felt obliged (as a vinyl aficionado) to keep buying them even though they were by artists I wouldn't normally consider (eg the Prodigy, Massive Attack etc). Un/fortunately this meant that a fair amount of these records never got played but just sat on my record shelf for 20 years.

I have been an audiophile for as long as I could afford it and moved up from a Thorens TD150 record deck, via Linn Sondek and Pink Triangle to my current SME10, which I've been running with an SMEV arm and Koetsu Rosewood cartridge for over 20 years. If that means nothing to you, suffice to say I take extreme care of my vinyl to the extent that I invested in a Loricraft PRCII professional record cleaner nearly 20 years ago and all of my vinyl immediately goes into protective plastic sleeves. Almost all of my rock/pop collection has been bought from new and I will always make this clear on the listing.