[very technical] Beatles UK first press: are we so sure that everything is clear?

I don't need to unlearn anything. I'm just applying common sense to the numbers.

It was record manufacturing. EMI didn't have some extra super duper double top secret process for making stampers last multiple times longer than other plants. Could they make one last 5,000 records? I suppose. But why would they when they didn't need to?

There is no way the UK mono version of Sgt Pepper has sold anywhere near 2 million+ copies since 1967. Total UK sales (stereo & mono) in 1967 and early 68 were almost certainly well shy of a million copies. My educated guess given listed US sales figures of 2.5 million and the sales of numbered UK White Albums -- I'd say 700,000 would be a liberal guess. Of that, roughly half were mono pressings. The number of mono pressings sold after the 1st half of 68 had to be a small fraction of that number (it fell off the UK charts by June 68 -- plus try to find a 69-71 pressing of Sgt Pepper). But let's be generous and say they sold 400,000 mono copies in the UK before the mono LP went out of print in 1970-71. Then let's add in the copies pressed from the -1/-1 lacquers in the handful of other countries -- so generously maybe another 50,000. Then add in the '82 reissues -- so another 10,000.

So -- let's do the math -- by my count, that's 460,000 -- and I think those numbers are being a little generous. So if you have at least 414 stampers from the -1 lacquers (using your MGM stamper info) and, say, you press 1000 LPs from each stamper, that would be enough for at least 414,000 LPs. Pretty close to my estimate.

Why would EMI bother to press 5,000 records from a stamper (and let quality suffer) when can press enough copies at 1000 or 1500 records per stamper? To save money on mother and stamper production? Maybe for a smaller act, but it makes no sense for The Beatles.

You can do the same math on the other Beatles LPs. If they had made 5,000 records from each stamper, there would have been no need to ever make more than one lacquer (short of damage to the metal part).

 

Yes I know this. But at 5,000 per stamper, the numbers don't make sense. They would have produced 5 times more records than they did.

I wonder if the video is the source for the Spizer book?

 

Just find me some more one boxes with no spindle marks......anybody! And a dead quiet 2-1 Abbey Road

 

Sorry - I thought you may have been a new to all this nonsense . Obviously you are not.

The numbers Frank uses comes from the Beatles Collecting Forum in the UK where several members counted all Sgt Peppers ever sold on eBay for many many years (still do ) and from those observations the largest numbers in each category were ascertained and compared against numbers sold. IWTHYH was also used as a comparison with mothers and stampers compared to sales figures. Originally the numbers per stamper were also believed to be low but the figure was adjusted upwards to get to that 5,000 mark.

 

Indeed, Roy Mathews is credited in the Acknowledgments section of the Spizer/Daniels book.

 

One thing you're assuming in arriving at your best guesstimates is that all metal mothers and all stampers were used, it doesn't take into account damaged or faulty parts, or any glitches when assigning stamper numbers.
I've posted photos to the forum of the EMI QC listening rooms where the staff are shown auditioning metal mothers for faults and no doubt a fair percentage would have been rejected, same goes for stampers and pressed vinyl.
The reject rate for EMI classical vinyl back in the day was documented at 20%, which to me is a staggeringly high figure.

10,000 is the figure for the 1982 mono box sets alone, it doesn't take into account the albums sold individually from mid 1981 onwards.

As to the technical reason why they could press up to 5,000 per stamper, we can only speculate.
Was it to do with the excellence of their plating or was the EMI 1400 series press in a league its own when it came to producing higher numbers?

However, I have no reason at all to dispute the figures Roy has quoted, the man was on the EMI board of directors, and is nobody's fool.

And for the record (sad little pun intended) the MGM stamper I referred to is from a -2/-1 Abbey Road.

 

Do you have a list of those mother and stamper numbers that you could post?

 

Ive already started to look for the thread but cant find it as yet - it was a couple of years ago now - Ill keep looking though. The search function there isn't very functional.

 

In fact, to believe that EMI always pressed 5000 records per stamper, I do not think it is very responsive to reality: maybe sometimes it happened, but I do not think that this fact should be taken as a rule always applied.

Of course, if we can know more or less exactly how many copies (mono and/or stereo) were sold, this fact can be of help keeping in mind that the number of stampers that were used for the mono version is about 500 in total (for the stereo version, honestly now I do not remember).

However, it makes me happy to see that this thread continues to fascinate many collectors around the world: after all, it is a very specific topic and technical too, and it certainly may not affect all.

 

Oh OK - so that means there shouldnt be say a 2 G?

 

Why not, wouldn't that indicate that the 2nd mother plated what was assigned as the first stamper?

 

If there had already been a series of stampers from the 1 mother.

Even so, this is the first Ive heard of it being cumulative - where did you get that info from?

 

The first stamper can not be generated by the second mother, unless the first mother was immediately discarded because it was defective. In the case of "Sgt Pepper", we all know that there are copies that have 1G on both sides.

 

Would be interesting to hear what actual pressings they used as "reference" for the coming mono box. There seems to differences and also Rubber Soul and Revolver were withdrawn and re-released, and the re-releases never did sound as good as they probably could.

 

I'm going to say common sense. If it wasn't, by the time they got to the 400+ stamper of mother 7 (like the side 2 of my Sgt Pepper), there would have been over 15 million copies pressed. Since my copy is a first (or at worst second) issue, there's no way 15 million copies were out there in 1968-69.

 

We talked about this specific topic previously in this thread: the number of the stampers is cumulative. (for example: there are stereo copies that have 3 TGG: do you think that it's possible that the 3rd mother could generate 911 stampers??).

The numbers of the mothers followed a completely different logic: we do not know exactly what logic is.

 

In general, the 1 mother wouldn't necessarily have been the first cab off the rank when it came to plating stampers.
Consider that a higher numbered mother could be in the plating bath before it, but obviously that doesn't apply for the mono Sgt Peppers as we know there are 1G/1G mother/stamper combinations.

Here's a couple of pics of the EMI plating machinery with 5 stations per unit.
The Hayes matrix department had row upon row of these machines plating simultaneously, they didn't just use one mother at a time and then move to the next one in sequential order.

I've read it in few places, but it's even mentioned in a thread you started at the Beatles Collecting site -
"For Pepper, it seems that stampers were consecutively numbered, irrespective of mother. In servi's statistics, not a single stamper number was found with two different mother numbers"

 

About the mono version of "Sgt. Pepper", we can find about 500 stampers; about the stereo version, we can read about 900 stampers stamped in the trail-off:

5000x500= 2500000 mono records
5000x900= 4500000 stereo version
total: 7 million records sold; I would say that is a bit too much even for the Beatles .....

 

Yes it does but Aurelian is specifically talking about SP not EMI mothers/stampers in general. The thread we need to find is the one mentioned that has Servis statistics in it.

 

for what its worth i think 5000 is on the high side but i think its a decent guide figure for how long a stamper would last, in reality they may have discarded it before they got to 5000 just to be on the safe side

However there the truth is not always logical, and many stampers may be discarded due to quality control and they would have prepped stampers for anticipated demand for mono peppers thats why it is harder to find 1G mono than a 1G stereo, its like looking for a needle in a haystack but the stereo haystack was much smaller than the mono so the needle is easier to find in stereo.

finally in case it isn't clear the -1 is the matrix which effectively is the father, the mother is the number in the runout usually 9 o'clock and the stamper letter as we all know is usually 3 o'clock....

ps i apologise if this sounds a stupid question do we know how many stampers were usually made from each mother as opposed to discs pressed from each stamper ( the estimated 5000 figure )...in other words how high did they go, surely there are no DDD's for example they must have stopped long before that and must have had stop point in mind before moving to the next mother like for example LMD or something....??

 

About the stereo version, I have seen copies with a stamper number higher than 900: probably, once reached to 999, the numbering system started again with the famous "over-numbered mothers": that mothers obtained by plating stampers; as I understand it, the so-called "over-numbered mothers" are more frequent in copies without the "SOLD IN U.K. SUBJECT TO RESALE PRICE CONDITIONS, SEE PRICE LISTS" statement.
Regarding the number of the mothers, I personally had never seen stereo copies with mother number higher than 11.
The things that I just said, relate my experience as collector, but it is only the result of my observation and it does not purport to be the absolute truth.

Then: in the message number #28 of this thread, the user Easy-E claimed that at Hayes they plated approximately 50 stampers per mother.

 

It is correct to say that the number -1 is the number of the lacquer, too: the lacquer, being on its own composed of extremely fragile material, is almost always damaged during the process of creating the first father becoming unusable for any future purpose: so, the number of the father corresponds to the number of the lacquer, too.

 

Hi Stefano,
Here what I have, just an example of "over-numbered mothers" I think, but with the "SOLD IN U.K. SUBJECT TO RESALE PRICE CONDITIONS, SEE PRICE LISTS" statement.
Deadwax info.
SIDE 1. XEX 637-1 (6 o'clock), 4 (9 o'clock), GGG (3 o'clock), KT (raised on label).
SIDE 2. XEX 638-1 (6 o'clock), 3/5 (9 o'clock: number 3 is up the 5), HM (3 o'clock).
3
5 ....like this.

It is a mono copy.

 

Well I didn't actually claim anything - you posed a question that members of the UK Beatles forum addressed and that answer in post #28 is their considered opinion.

Ben - in that post #28 is the link to UK thread where there is the stamper figures table.

 

For me, at this point if someone told me that in 1967 at Hayes landed the aliens, I certainly believe it.