Anybody happen to know what is 28-5 followed by date in runout of many Elektra vinyl LP's in mid 1960's ? Its obviously a pressing plant or mastering facility. Found on some smaller labels like Lyrichord and Monitor Records as well, but many Elektra - Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
It's very possible it could be All Disc of Roselle, NJ. They were amongst the plants that handled the megasuccessful The First Family album by Vaughn Meader for Cadence - and prior to the plant being taken over in 1966 by Liberty Records, their label typesetting was heavy on Trade Gothic Bold Condensed in various sizes (as I saw on a few Monitor pressings on Discogs). All Disc, like most indie pressing plants of the period, had a 2.75" diameter pressing ring during that period, plus (on that plant's early '60's pressings) a smaller ring closer to the spindle hole. Of course, checking deadwax hints is as much of paramount importance as such factors as I described to put two and two together. I think by the later 1960's or early '70's they switched to Presswell, if the dimensions of the pressing rings and the label type are of any indication. It wouldn't exactly surprise me, if Elektra in the mid-'60's used All Disc as well as Abbey Record Mfg. and Allentown Record Co. for their LP pressings. As for who would have mastered the bulk of Elektra lacquers in that period, if The Doors' Strange Days back cover is of any indication, it would have been Madison Sound Studios in New York.
As soon as I get images of the label and matrices uploaded I will leave a link for you to inspect if you like. I really appreciate it. You've given me hope, and something to go on. I spent many hours researching every way imaginable and was getting nowhere. Thank you W.B.!!! I owe you.
One other thing: I saw a copy of The Doors' Waiting For The Sun LP with an 'ALD' code written by the mastering engineer to indicate which plant the lacquer was to go to. If that isn't All Disc, then what else would it be . . . ?
I have a CS&N Couch with an odd W along with aB (Al Brown) marks Side 1 = ST-A-691575-C MO-RE AT ∆13395 (7) aB W Side 2 - ST-A-691576-C MO-RE AT ∆13395-X (7) aB W MR Circle stamp The W is etched and elongated Any ideas on what that is for?
I have the following Essex LP from 1955: Rock with Bill Haley and the Comets, Essex ESLP 202 The label looks the the orange one here: http://www.bsnpubs.com/philadelphia/essex/essex.html The matrix info is Side 1: ELP 202A B P Side 2: ELP 202B-2 B P The matrix info is etched. B is machine stamped and the P looks like it was etched but very neatly drawn. Both letters look much like they do in the last sentence. The B and P are are sideways relative to the matrix number and are a couple inches on either side of it. Any idea who pressed this? It weighs 210 grams and is very thick. No raised edge on the run-in.
Sho' ain't. Ironically, though, the country Mathis recorded for Mercury in the '50's via its partnership with Starday, a decade before the pop guy recorded for the label. Not too unlike the legendary British instrumental group The Shadows having to rename itself (they were originally The Drifters) - then in the early 1960's signed in the U.S. to the same label (Atlantic) that the aforementioned R&B vocal quintet recorded for.
It was indeed Mercury Richmond in this case. RCA pressing operations in 1966 were so overflowing (and their custom division so busy they had to turn down new custom clients, and even some Columbia jobs) that they subcontracted to other plants to handle the spillover that their own plants couldn't handle. Mercury Richmond was specifically cited in a Dec. 10, 1966 Billboard article as being one of the plants to which RCA subcontracted. I think the Mercury Richmond plant still had the RCA-style deep groove at the time, if not transitioning to a 2.75" ring. Incidentally, Mercury Richmond also pressed a few Columbia LP's (including Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry) in 1969. By then they had switched over to 2.75" pressing ring.
Thanks W.B. I figured it was a subcontract job to Mercury Richmond. I'm always curious as to how many presses each company had. RCA had 3 factories, Capitol at some point had 4.. Columbia had 3.. and all of them had trouble with demand. I guess all had major hit artists on their hands with huge hit LPs and just couldn't meet demand for those plus all of the other small change stuff they had going. Plus they got contracts from other majors like the Warner group.
And if it wasn't a matter of huge demand, there were cases when one or more of the plants owned by the major labels were on strike (i.e. Columbia's Bridgeport, CT plant in late 1951-early 1952, Capitol's Scranton plant for ten weeks in fall 1959 which explains why so many Capitol LP pressings of the period were pressed by RCA Indianapolis, RCA's Rockaway, NJ plant in 1967, and Columbia's Pitman, NJ plant in 1978 which saw all sorts of subcontractings of CBS product to plants like PRC or Monarch or MCA's Gloversville, NY and Pinckneyville, IL plants).
Below is an extended discussion about an unusual first pressing of Julie Is Her Name Liberty LRP 3006. Unlike the Capitol typical pressings with matrix LRP 3006 and D or N stampers, this variant also has V5713 in the deadwax, sometimes with a prefix number B14988/9 for S1 and S2. It is very heavy and perhaps has a different vinyl formulation. There is a link to the discogs posted item in the 4th quote. The member Arkoffs also had a quirk where one side had a deep groove and the other side No groove. It is quite likely a West Coast pressing.
It was definitely a West Coast plant, probably one of the more obscure ones, given that Liberty was just starting out at the time. The label fonts on the back cover look like that part of the cover was printed by Bert-Co of Los Angeles - which also handled the label copy as seen on that Discogs link. Meanwhile, a revision is at hand - namely for the pressing plant assigned a '30' code on PolyGram sublabels (and possibly even '61' on K-Tel LP's). It had been presumed, since 'PP' was written within the deadwax of 45's with the '30' code, that it would have signified Plastic Products of Memphis which, nonetheless, closed in 1976, three years before PolyGram's numbering system for pressing plants and tape duplicators was first instituted. This then narrows the possibilities down to two plants: Peerless Plastic Molding, and Newark, NJ-based Peter Pan Industries (ex Synthetic Plastics). Take a look at this Jam 45 on Polydor from 1979: http://www.45cat.com/record/pd14553 and compare it with this Peter Pan 45 pressed around the same time: http://www.45cat.com/record/f1230us The key is the sloped area as we get closer to the spindle hole. Also, PPI pressed LP's for Arista beginning in the mid-to-late 1970's. Any experts out there to see if I'm on to something here? And F.T.R., here's a few of the '61' K-Tels: http://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/nu9410 http://www.45worlds.com/vinyl/album/nu9500
Thank you WB. Then the V5713 is not known specifically it seems. Was the discogs poster correct in thinking that this heavy disk was produced from 7" record vinyl or is that nonsense? So you think that the non groove side was a pressing defect also?
The copy of Julie is Her Name I posted the label pics of (the one with the deep groove on one side, non-deep groove on the other) has a cover printed by somewhere smaller than Bert-Co. Unfortunately I can't remember off the top of my head the name. Will check when I get home.
Ok. The name of the printing plant for the odd copy of Julie is Her Name is Alfred S. Johnson Inc. Which leads to this bio: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~npmelton/lajo5.htm
W.B. I have a question about a PRC pressing. It's my copy of Joni Mitchell - Mingus (1979). The labels and deadwax etching list PRC-W. Is that designation also the PRC plant in Compton, with the W referencing West? Thanks.
I have a copy of Rumours with : BSK-1-3010 SUN-P F2 M 4 In the Deadwax. Trying to find some more info on this one...
I've been making a list of modern record pressing initials, and how to tell where new vinyl was pressed. Hopefully none of the info is too redundant, but at the very least it could be nice to have a concise list. Most every new album I buy is from one of these nine plants. I've checked all the other pressing plants, and the info all holds true from my experience. It'd be nice to check if people with a bigger library of albums from QRP to see if the info holds true. #s are numbers, Xs are letters. Occasionally plants that usually stamp their deadwax will actually etch it, and vice versa. GZ Vinyl: ######X#/X (Stamped) Will often also have WWW.GZVINYL.COM in deadwax, also stamped. There’s a place called Pirates Press. They don’t press records, they just source it to GZ Vinyl, though it will have Pirates Press stamped in the deadwax. United: ⓤ (Hand Etched) [that’s a U with a circle around it, in case the type script doesn’t show properly] Rainbo: S-####### (Hand Etched) Optimal: XX#####-## X# (hand etched) Optimal is tricky to perfectly pin down, since the format isn't always uniform. I’ve seen Optimal pressings with #X###### #X#, not really fitting the exact mold of it. Also the deadwax is often a shallow cut, and can be hard to read. Someone who has the job of writing Deadwax at Optimal has terrible handwriting. Some of the albums I can’t tell if it’s a “g” or a “9”, or a “1” or a “7”, and in one particularly bad case, if it was an “F” or a “7” with a dash through it. A couple of examples: Let it Be Naked Side One is 5g54380 1A1 Sgt. Pepper’s Mono Side One is BD14108-01 A2 RE:Call 1 Side One from the 2015 “Five Years” Bowie box is BF00583-01-A1 Pallas: P.USA (Stamped) and/or -#####- (Stamped) [P.USA will only show up on pallas pressings for US releases] Record Industry: ##### #X (Can be Stamped OR hand etched) the hand etching looks less like an etching and more like a blunt scrape, with dots (it looks weird, and is hard to photograph). Also if it says “made in Holland”, by virtue of Record Industry being the only Dutch pressing plant. RTI: #####.#(#) (Hand Etched, but the rare stamped version has been known to exist) I’ve seen some albums have an RTI code and another plant’s code as well. Judging from Steve Hoffman’s post about the 2003 Dark Side of the Moon being plated at RTI and pressed in Europe, my best guess is that’s what’s up when there’s two plant codes: PLATED at RTI, and PRESSED elsewhere when there’s two present. [I sure can’t imagine a company plating at Rainbo and pressing at RTI] MPO: MPO (hand etched) QRP: This one takes more detective work. There isn’t an obvious tell, except occasionally a stamp saying QRP really only seen on the Analogue Production albums, or the custom QRP inner sleeve. The deadwax is usually just left blank. From what I’ve seen of all my LPs I can confirm are pressed at QRP, the LP labels themselves have a tell. In the very center of the label, there is a raised circle (about the size of the large hole for a 7 inch 45 record). The inner circle is ALWAYS smooth, and the outside of that label is ALWAYS textured in a circular pattern. This picture should show what I mean. This holds true for every album I know was pressed at QRP (which is probably <20 total). Even the recent repress of the Steve Hoffman CCR albums by Analogue Productions, pressed QRP (originally pressed by RTI, still having the RTI code) shows the smooth inner-textured outer labels. This is what I’ve seen up to now, no telling if that will stay true, or if QRP will change that tell with their new fleet of presses.
Don't hold me to it, but the label typesetting may be from a Los Angeles firm called Acro Press. A 1954 Billboard ad from Fabor / Abbott Records mentioned them as printing their center labels. Fidelatone also pressed 10" LP's for A&M and IRS in the 1978-80 period, and may have been the "FT" (if not Research Craft) on 1974 pressings of Atlantic / Atco and sublabel LP product that wasn't handled on the Coast by Monarch. An affiliated plant, on the same grounds as Fidelatone, was P.W. Record Mfg. (no connection to New Jersey-based Presswell).
Oh great, now I've found one. An Atlantic subsidiary label with the legendary VSRP pressing plant code. (Yes, four letters.) This has been asked several times on this forum and always gets crickets, but what the heck … has anyone figured out who VSRP is? The pressing has no distinguishing features that I can detect. I'd suspect Goldisc if VSRP had a G in it …
