Rare 2003 Muse Absolution M- 2x vinyl M- gatefold sleeve M inners owned from new

	£		80
	$		106

Grail 2003 original EastWest ? 5050466-8555-1-0 pressing of  Muse Absolution - I can see plenty of the re-release copies on eBay but none of the original release.  The vinyl is near mint as I played a maximum of two or three times. It is unmarked and you would swear it was unplayed if I hadn't told you. The sleeve would be mint it it wasn't for annoying hairline splits on the top seams from vinyl movement in transit. It's not serious but still vexing when the rest of the sleeve is immaculate. The record has not been played for the last 18 years and has been owned by me from new.  Hardly any of my records from this this era were sealed. I usually 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.
I realise that these descriptions may sound like exaggeration but the first few records I've sold are starting to get feedback so you check for yourself - I believe in pointing out all defects I can detect. I'm not a record dealer - I realise in hindsight that I went from being an audiophile record listener to a record buyer in the late 80s and most of my collection from then got very little if any plays. These are the first albums I'm selling off before downsizing and I've currently listed and sold about 35 of the 60 or so 'holy grail' albums from this era - when they've gone, they've gone.  It's one of two Muse albums I have for sale:  Origin of Symmetry (2001) and Absolution (2003) both are in outstanding condition. My shame (in buying and not playing) is your gain, so to speak. 
I've taken photos of all sides of the sleeves and vinyl in high resolution - the reflections are of my camera and conservatory roof but hopefully you can see clearly the nearly mint condition of the media. 
Using the Goldmine standard I've rated the vinyl as:
Vinyl Side A: Mint - Side B: Mint - Side C: M- Side D: M-

The album sleeve is  near mint, the inner-sleeves are both mint.   You would go an awful long way to buy a better copy. There are currently copies of this quality for sale on another well know discography site for £300 and £430   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. 

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 his will be dispatched with Royal Mail 1st Class special delivery before 1pm for the base Royal Mail price of £8.85.

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

 You can also pick up for free from East Grinstead, West Sussex and I will also post worldwide using eBay's Global Shipping Programme.

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, Paul McCartney, 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 50years. 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 TD150record 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.