Aerosmith Rocks SACD surfaces

Who would simply throw away a CD that didn't play? Why wouldn't these people return the CD to the store where they bought it?

 

Okay, the store handling returns would have likely trashed it when a customer complained it wouldn't play.

 

More likely, but I still think it's unlikely that lots of these "Rocks" SACDs got sold and then returned.

Even if the hypothetical 100 you mention were sold, I think we'd have more of them in known circulation than we do...

 

I think the fact that there are three means there are likely a few more out there, but clearly they are not going to start popping up in large numbers. Hopefully the warning sticker on the front plus the other warning that was likely included inside would have clued people in that the disc was not defective, if they had tried playing it in a regular CD player. And hopefully back then record store employees were a bit more informed what a single layer SACD was. SACD was more of a thing back then, and record stores were still doing decent business, so I'm thinking there was more training on this than there would be today (wishful thinking perhaps).

Anyways, I think the fact that 2 of the 3 discs were found in Cali means there is probably a good chance the third disc (found in KC) originated in Cali as well and was purchased by someone who brought it to KC. I would not be surprised if a handful of these got out in California and that's it. I believe if these hit other markets (other U.S. cities and especially international cities too) then there would be more than three known copies by now. But I guess it's possible that these hit record stores and were pulled in the blink of an eye and there just wasn't enough time for a lot of copies to be purchased.