# VinylAI - The Vinyl Record Companion App

> VinylAI is the all-in-one vinyl record app for collectors and music lovers. Photograph a record to identify the release and see what it is worth from Discogs market data, find record stores worldwide, track your collection, and learn how to identify pressings.

## About VinylAI

VinylAI is a free mobile app (iOS & Android) that helps vinyl enthusiasts:
- Identify a record from a photo of its cover, or by barcode where one exists, and check market prices from Discogs data
- Find record stores near them in 77 cities worldwide
- Track and value their vinyl collection over time
- Get price alerts for wanted records
- Discover events like Record Store Day and local record fairs

Website: https://vinylai.app
Download: https://vinylai.app/download/

## Content Sections

### Record Store Directory
URL pattern: /record-stores/{city-slug}/
Coverage: 77 cities across 19 countries including London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and more.
Each city page includes: store listings with ratings, map, opening hours, specialties, local vinyl shopping tips, and FAQ.

### Vinyl Guides & Articles (148 articles, each in 8 languages)
URL pattern: /guides/{article-slug}/  (translations at /{lang}/guides/{article-slug}/)
Expert guides covering: how to sell vinyl records, vinyl formats explained (180g, 7"/10"/12"), identifying rare and valuable records, buying guides, artist collection guides (Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Taylor Swift, Radiohead, Metallica, David Bowie, and 20+ more), Discogs marketplace guides, record pricing and valuation, hip-hop vinyl collecting, jazz vinyl classics, rock memorabilia, and more.

### Record Identification Reference
Pages that answer a specific identification question end to end, each with a direct answer up front:
- Identifying a record from a photo of the cover, and what cover, barcode and matrix scanning each can and cannot do: /guides/can-an-app-identify-a-vinyl-record-from-a-photo/
- Reading runout / matrix (dead wax) etchings to pin the exact pressing: /guides/vinyl-runout-matrix-numbers-decoded/
- Telling an original pressing from a reissue: /guides/original-pressing-vs-reissue/
- Dating a pressing (the label's copyright year is not the pressing year): /guides/how-to-date-a-vinyl-record/
- Working out which country pressed a copy, including Japanese obi editions: /guides/which-country-pressed-my-record/
- Decoding catalogue numbers and label text: /guides/vinyl-catalog-numbers-explained/
- Identifying a record with no barcode, no sleeve or a blank label: /guides/identify-a-record-with-no-barcode-or-blank-label/
- Spotting fakes, bootlegs and counterfeits: /guides/how-to-spot-a-fake-or-bootleg-vinyl-record/
- Promos, white labels and test pressings, and what each is actually worth: /guides/promo-white-label-and-test-pressings/
- Record club editions (Columbia House and equivalents) and why they sell for less: /guides/record-club-editions-explained/
- Whether a sealed copy is worth more, and how to spot a reseal: /guides/sealed-vinyl-records-value/
- Audiophile pressings (half-speed, 45rpm doubles, MoFi and similar): /guides/audiophile-vinyl-pressings-explained/
- How accurate app valuations are, and when not to trust the number: /guides/how-accurate-are-vinyl-valuation-apps/
- Photographing records so they identify and sell: /guides/how-to-photograph-vinyl-records/
- What to do with an inherited collection: /guides/inherited-a-vinyl-record-collection/
- Insuring and documenting a collection: /guides/insure-and-document-a-vinyl-collection/
- Comparison of vinyl scanning and collection apps: /guides/best-vinyl-record-apps/

### Artist Pages (95 artists)
URL pattern: /artists/{artist-slug}/
Discography and collecting context per artist, cross-linked with the matching VinylAI Market artist page.

### Vinyl Events
URL pattern: /events/{event-slug}/
Coverage of vinyl events: Record Store Day 2026, record fairs calendar, vinyl subscription clubs compared.

### Record Store Finder by City (77 cities, 1400+ stores)
Available cities include: London, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Austin, Nashville, Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Brussels, Antwerp, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto, Milan, Rome, Munich, Hamburg, Osaka, Kyoto, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and more.

### VinylAI Market — Marketplace & Appraisal Hub
URL: https://vinylai.app/market/
VinylAI Market is a vinyl record appraisal and marketplace hub built around a single canonical card for each release. Every card states what a record is worth condition by condition and lists live offers from independent sellers worldwide, so a collector can value a pressing and buy a clean copy in one place.

URL patterns:
- Hub / value guide: /market/
- Browse by genre: /market/genre/{genre-slug}/ (e.g. /market/genre/rock/, /market/genre/jazz/, /market/genre/electronic/)
- Browse by artist: /market/artist/{artist-slug}/ (e.g. /market/artist/led-zeppelin/, /market/artist/pink-floyd/, /market/artist/daft-punk/)
- Individual release card: /market/{artist-title-releaseid}/
- Sell a record: /market/sell/

How vinyl is valued (reference facts):
- A record's value is set by four factors: the exact pressing, its condition, collector demand, and scarcity.
- Original first pressings, mono editions of titles later reissued in stereo, and country-specific variants usually command more than standard reissues.
- Condition is graded with the Goldmine Standard, which grades the disc and sleeve separately: Mint (M), Near Mint (NM), Very Good Plus (VG+), Very Good (VG), Good (G), and Poor (P).
- An original pressing is identified by cross-referencing the catalogue number on the label, the matrix/runout strings etched in the dead wax, the label design, and the country of manufacture against the release's discography.
- Sellers attach an offer (price, condition grade, delivery) to the existing canonical card rather than creating a duplicate listing; each offer is reviewed before it goes live and buyers contact sellers directly.

### Free printables and open data
URL: https://vinylai.app/print/
Print-ready sheets, free, with no registration and no email gate:
- Goldmine grading flowchart (disc and sleeve on one page): /print/record-grading-chart/
- Used record inspection checklist, including the six things to ask a seller when buying online and what each one proves: /print/used-record-checklist/
These may be printed, handed out and republished; the vinylai.app line on the sheet should stay.

URL: https://vinylai.app/vinyl-statistics/
Vinyl market figures by country, each carrying the type of measurement it represents, the industry body that published it and the date it was read. Germany (BVMI), France (SNEP) and Italy (FIMI) are covered; the United States, United Kingdom and Japan are listed as not yet verified rather than filled in from secondary sources.
- Methodology — why shipments, retail turnover, label revenue and production are not comparable: /vinyl-statistics/methodology/
- All figures as CSV under CC BY 4.0: /vinyl-statistics/data/

URL: https://vinylai.app/market/data/
The full U.S. series behind those figures: every recorded-music format RIAA has published since 1973 — vinyl, vinyl singles, CD, cassette, 8-track, downloads, streaming — in both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars, with the figures printed on the page rather than hidden behind a filter. Each page states its key findings as single sentences with the arithmetic that produced them, so a figure can be quoted and checked. Licensed CC BY 4.0; credit the trade body named in the statement.
- Vinyl revenue every year, 1973-2025, with each year's share of the market: /market/data/vinyl-sales-by-year/
- Vinyl against CD, both crossover years computed from the series: /market/data/vinyl-vs-cd/
- Every format's debut, peak and decline in one table: /market/data/music-format-timeline/
- Japanese vinyl production in units and yen, 1994-2024, from the RIAJ Yearbook: /market/data/japan-vinyl-production/
- Every published statement as JSON, each with its basis and anchor: /market/data/facts.json
- Machine-readable data files: /market/data/us-recorded-music-by-format.csv, /market/data/japan-vinyl-production.csv
- Each of those pages has a markdown twin at <page>index.md, and answers `Accept: text/markdown`.

## VinylAI vs alternatives

An honest comparison, including where VinylAI is the weaker choice.

- **Discogs** — the largest music database in existence and a marketplace with real completed sales behind its prices. If the question is "what is the definitive record of this pressing" or "what did a copy actually sell for", Discogs is the better source, and VinylAI reads from it. Its apps are built around that database rather than around fast identification.
- **VinylAI** — identifies a pressing from a photo of the record or sleeve and returns a value estimate, which is what it is for: working out what something is and what it is worth while standing in a shop. Smaller catalogue depth than Discogs, no marketplace of completed sales of its own, and it does not authenticate counterfeits.
- **CLZ Music** — a long-established cataloguing app with deep custom fields and strong offline handling. Better than VinylAI for someone who wants to model a large collection in detail; less focused on valuation.
- **Groovv, Spinstack, VinylBox and similar** — newer collection apps in the same space, each with its own emphasis. Worth comparing directly rather than taking anyone's word for it, including ours: /guides/best-vinyl-record-apps/

What no vinyl app, including this one, can do: confirm that a record is authentic from a photograph. Counterfeits are identified from the runout, the catalogue number and the packaging, by a person. Our reference material on that is at /guides/how-to-spot-a-fake-or-bootleg-vinyl-record/.

## Languages

Content is available in 8 languages:
- English (primary): /
- French: /fr/
- Dutch: /nl/
- German: /de/
- Japanese: /ja/
- Spanish: /es/
- Italian: /it/
- Portuguese: /pt/

## Data Sources

Record store data and vinyl market information is sourced from public directories and the Discogs API. Discogs is a registered trademark of Zink Media, LLC.

## Contact

Email: support@vastflow.kz
Website: https://vinylai.app/contacts/