But does anyone throw away the THX sticker that is on the shrink wrap side. I peel off the sticker and place it on the cover.

That will devalue the cover. Think of OBI's like collecting stamps. They are just little pieces of paper but look at how much they can be worth. If I was buying a high value disc I would rather have a split in the jacket than a missing OBI as the cover can look rather bland without the OBI which is often factored into the overall design and may help to even conceal any cover damage.

I would rather not have any tares in the cover or spine but its not always ideal to get a used one that hasn't been beaten around, but its like that say, "I'd rather open it up than leaving it sealed".

Besides a blind man can see the Obi is part of the artwork packing.

As for the spine how long would it last with repeated opening and closing a gate-fold cover its made up of a layer for the cover and the printing on top right?

If I keep single covers in their sleeves they should last.

also what about those box sets with the thin paper to hold the lid on?
they don't last long.

Holy crap, this is a joke, right?

i used to save the stickers off of LPs back in the day, i didn't stick them to the cover
but i did stick them to a piece of paper and put them inside the sleeve.

so you might want to do that rather than stick them on the cover.

I used to tear the plastic shrink wrap around the sticker so that the sticker is no longer sticky, and just toss it in the jacket like a liner note.

Also did that with any other advertising stickers and/or Dolby Digital stickers.

Why would I joke about it. I'll take a picture of few I might have picture already somewhere?

The stickers peel of just as easily off the jacket cover if you wanted to then they are off the plastic shrink wrapping.

I would do that as well if the original factory wrap is worn and I don't wish to retain the wrap but do want any stickers originally included. Some of these stickers provide information that may not be printed anywhere else so can be quite unique. By way of example even an original shop price sticker for say a Hong Kong release which never mentions price on the jacket contains valuable information detailing where the item was sold (e.g. HMV) and for how much originally (e.g. 300 Hong Kong Dollars). Another sticker on an outer wrap mentioned that the original person buying the item was entitled to contact the artist to receive a free gift.

I never retain the original wrap. 99% of the shrinkwrap used for LDs in the US are crap (no better than SaranWrap!) and overly tight so they tend to warp the jacket corners.

Now the wrap for Japanese and HK discs? Those are almost as good as the outer liners you have to buy separately!

If I can get the sticker off the shrink wrap without tearing it, I will affix it to the outside of the sleeve I put the covers into. I use jacket protectors on all my discs, so putting the THX sticker on them (or the AC3 sticker) helps retain the original look without damaging the actual jacket.

My experience is that the ring style is most likely to still be present. The style that fold on the left side are a pain, because trying to pull the jacket out of a protective outer sleeve without damaing the Obi is difficult in these cases. I prefer it when the Obi strip is still in place.

STAY AWESOME!