DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Gloversville pressing (Pressing Plant owned by MCA Records)

The U.S.-pressed DARKNESS LP (Columbia JC 35318) variation continues. First introduced here in this blog, early copies of this vinyl album have more varieties than those of the other albums, in terms of the location of the pressing plant where the record was manufactured. The cause of this variation was due to the labor strike that took

Unfortunately, the signature (⧈-G-⧈) of MCA Records'
pressing plant in Gloversville is stamped so weak that it is
not clearly visible on the dead wax of my copy (shown 
is the stamp on Side 2, as indicated by hand-etched "2").
Check the Discogs website for the clearer images.

place in Spring 1978 at the Pitman pressing plant of NJ, the then major factory to manufacture and distributie Columbia Records' products mainly for the East Coast market. This compelled the plant to stop its operation temporarily and so, several unusual pressing plants (to Springsteen's records) had compensated for the album production, although the two other major Columbia's plants located in Santa Maria CA, and Terre Haute IN, were most probably unaffected and operating. Here on this post, I show the fourth example of such early DARKNESS copies, not originating from any of the three major Columbia Records' plants, but pressed at MCA Records' Gloversville plant of NY, according to the dead wax matrix information on the vinyl disc.
 

Vinyl discs from this plant are characterized by the unique dead-wax stamp, ⧈-G-⧈. As told previously, MCA Records back then owned another pressing plant in Pinckneyville, IL, where this album was also pressed and stamped uniquely with another distinct matrix character, ◈-P-◈. Obviously, the stamped single letters, "G" and "P", identify the location of each pressing plant, Gloversville and Pinckneyville, respectively. What can be read on the dead wax area of my Gloversville copy are as follows (hand-etched, oblique; stamped, straight):

• Side 1:  ⧈-G-⧈    1          PAL-35318-1J    PMN           TML-M     
• Side 2:  ⧈-G-⧈    2          PBL-35318-2Q    PMN           TML-M

Apart from the pressing plant-specific stamp, another unique code in the matrix inscription is a hand-written three-letter code "PMN" on the Gloversville pressing while my Pinckneyville copy carries "PMI" instead. Although pure speculation, the first two common letters PM could refer to Pitman and the last letter (N or I) of each could specify NY or IL, the State where each pressing plant was located. Just guessing.

Compared to a Santa Maria pressing (left), both Pinckneyville (center) and Gloversville (right) discs have the same-sized, smaller indent ring on the record labels which seems to be common to MCR Records pressings (slightly less than 1 inch in diameter; the size of the circular ring on the Santa Maria disc is 2.5 inch long). As for label printing, the same standard font is used on both Santa Maria and Gloversville discs whereas the font on the Pinckneyville labels is apparently different as noted on the previous relevant post.
 

Up to this point, by examining my collection, I have confirmed that the following companies lent a hand to the Columbia Records in 1978 for pressing early copies of the DARKNESS album:

• North American Music Industries (NAMI), Scranton, PA
• MCA Records,  Pinckneyville, IL
• MCA Records, Gloversville, NY
• Keel Manufacturing Corp., Hauppauge, NY

There may still be missing plant(s) that have participated early in pressing this LP. In fact, I have some DARKNESS copies that are yet to be identified confidently as to where they were pressed (although they seem to originate from Pitman).

Both Gloversville (left) and Pinckneyville (right) pressings come in
the large-font (tracklist)/black-lettering (album credits) sleeves,
with gold promo stamp on the latter.

One note on my Gloversville copy that may be worth mentioning is its weight. It is a thick vinyl weighing 138 g, and is the heaviest among the collection of my U.S. DARKNESS pressings, with the exception of the promotion-only picture disc edition. Just for comparison, I picked up one copy each originating from different pressing plants and measured the weight individually. The results are as follows: Pinckneyville, 112 g; Hauppauge, 110 g; Scranton, 120 g; Santa Maria, 106 g; Terre Haute, 110 g (a white label promo); Pitman, 119 g (a later pressing coming in a sleeve with a barcode); and picture disc, 162 g. The half-speed mastered LP (Columbia HC 45318) was excluded because I have only one copy that is still sealed.