"For Military Sale Only" Records?

I found a Mint copy of Aerosmith's "Rocks" on vinyl at a rummage sale - and the back cover has a gold stamp that says "For Military Sale Only". Looks very much like a "Promotional Copy-Not For Sale" stamp with type inside a rectangle. What does this mean as far as the vinyl pressing - value, etc? The matrix on the record is: P AL 34165-1AD / P BL 34165-1AD.

 

Off the head, my guess is that it was sold on military bases. I wouldn't think there are any differences, but I may be wrong.

 

There were quite a few LPs actually produced for the military in the old days. I have a neat Johnny Cash LP from the Country Style USA Radio Shows series (1958). I hope to be getting a Louvin Brothers soon.

 

Radio shows are one thing, but the original poster was talking about an album that is also available at stores.

 

Have a couple of these myself, also on Columbia. "For sale to military exchanges outside USA"

 

Columbia had a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to supply them with recordings at a lower than normal wholesale cost. To prevent any hording and dumping to the civilian retail market, they marked the jackets with the disclaimer. I believe Capitol also may have had a similar deal...maybe other labels. We bid on, and were awarded a contract to supply wholesale records to Defense General Supply Center, for ultimate sale in PXs all over the world. They never ordered any Columbia or Capitol product from us. In fact 90% of their orders through us were for independent labels.

The stampings also prevented any of these records from being returned to the manufacturer as full wholesale price items.

 

Well, that's a new one. I wonder if there were any containing "military exclusive" content.

 

This stamp is from the back cover of a Pink Floyd "Military" LP:

 

They were sold to the PX at a reduced price - kept them from leaking into mainstream stores.

 

funny that you posted that Wilkie. That was the first thing I thought of when I read the thread title. I remember someone going on about how good the military version of The Wall sounded prehaps it was just an ebay add. Have you compared this one, is it any better than others?

 

There is no direct correlation between military stamped jackets and sound quality. These recordings came from the same pressing machines as the copies that went into regular distribution. Putting the discs into a gold-stamped jacket can't change the sound already on the records.

Of course as with all vinyl pressings, every one is slightly different from the next, so naturally there will be some differences among the copies that ended up in stamped jackets, just like the ones that went into standard jackets. This has absolutely nothing to do with the gold stamps though. As far as someone bragging that their military issue sounds great. Sure it can happen. You can also have a crappy sounding military issue. Neither is caused by the gold stamps, or any imagined secret military pressing plant.

To me these things were just something else to avoid accepting in returns from record shops. Once we took them back we were stuck, as we couldn't return them to the manufacturers. Since most of our distribution was in the Mid-Atlantic area, and there are many military bases here, it was quite common for these to show up in returns, and occasionally slip past us. Oops, sorry boss.

 

I remember seeing "Military Base Only" pressings of ABRAXAS & PEARL that had unique labels--Sort of like the "360",but different.Never seen them again...