DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Decoding two- or three-letter matrix hand etchings on the early pressings (Part 1 of 2)

Pressing plant-specific matrix hand etchings as found on the early vinyl copies of DARKNESS released in the United States. For the details, refer to the main text.

As I first introduced here March in the last year, there is a small unusual variety of the early U.S. pressings of his fourth album, as to where they were pressed. These variants occurred because, when the LP was ready for production, the Pitman pressing plant, one of the three major plants used by Columbia Records back then, was not available for the operation due to continued labor issues that first happened on the 2nd of April 1978, according to Billboard Magazine. Thus far, I have confirmed that at least four vinyl manufacturing plants, excluding the other two major Columbia-related plants in Santa Maria and Terre Haute, made up for the shortfall in vinyl pressing at the early phase of the album release. The said four plants were owned by the following companies that had probably never been involved in Springsteen's album production before:

• North American Music Industries (NAMI), Scranton, PA
• MCA Records, Pinckneyville, IL
• MCA Records, Gloversville, NY
• Keel Manufacturing Corp., Hauppauge, NY (posts 1 and 2)

Most probably, these plants contributed only to the early pressing but were not utilized when the album was repressed, for I have never seen any relevant copies without TML dead-wax stamps (a signature of the early pressings; see this post for more info) or housed in the later LP sleeves*.

*To my understanding and as mentioned here previously, with the exception of Half-Speed Mastered and recent Remastered reissues, there exist three kinds of different sleeves for the US DARKNESS LP with variations on the rear: 
      #1, large track listing/black font credits without barcodes;
      #2, small track listing/white font credits without barcodes; and
      #3, small track listing/white font credits with barcodes.

Upper, left to right: #1 sleeve, white label promo Terre Haute pressing; #2
sleeve, regular Terre Haute pressing; #3 sleeve, regular Pitman (?) pressing;
and the Japanese white label promo first pressing (Obi is removed to indicate
the absence of barcodes). Lower: thick (left) and thin (right) inner sleeves.

These issues are also distinguished by some differences found in the accompanying inner sleeve and lyric insert. For example, the inner sleeve is grouped into two variations which are made of thick and thin papers with standard and poor quality images, respectively. Generally, #1 and #2 come with the thick inner sleeve whereas the thin version is mostly associated with #3. Although I am not sure, #1 was probably out slightly earlier than #2 because I have never seen white label promo copies that came in the #2 sleeve. The Japanese first pressing and all the subsequent vinyl issues there feature the small track listing, indicating that the #2 sleeve probably appeared on the U.S. market less than one month following the #1 version (Note that the first Japanese pressing is released one month behind the original U.S. release; see this post). So, here I refer to both #2 and #3 as "later LP sleeves" even though I know some collectors claim that #1 and #2 appeared simultaneously (i.e. they were printed by different printers). Post your comments if you have different views and information on the U.S. rear sleeve variation.

As I already explained in a series of the previous posts, each of these unusual vinyl discs has a unique symbol that is stamped on the run-off groove area, such as that denoting the Union Jack (i.e. Keel pressings) or a stylized U.S. Capitol building (i.e. NAMI pressings). Each symbol is specific to one of the four pressing plants and thus signifies where a vinyl copy originated from. In addition, such vinyl copies carry a unique, hand-written, two- or three-letter matrix code that is also specific to a pressing plant, as listed below (and shown in the above pictures).

• PN for NAMI, Scranton, PA
• PMI for MCA Records, Pinckneyville, IL
• PMN for MCA Records, Gloversville, NY
• PK for Keel Manufacturing Corp., Hauppauge, NY (posts 1 and 2)

So, what do these simple short codes mean?  It is a matter of fun for me to crack these matrix inscriptions, even if my interpretations may often be found incorrect. First, all the codes begin with "P", for which I assume "Pitman" since I cannot come up with any other commonalities, that are indicated by this single letter, among these pressing plants except the fact that they have served as substitutes for that New Jersey plant. The second letter in each code (N, M or K) probably refers to the initial of company name (i.e. N for NAMI, M for MCA, and K for Keel). The third letter in PMI or PMN distinguishes the location of the two plants back then owned by MCA Records (i.e. I for Illinois or N for New York). To summarize:

• PN = Pitman + NAMI
• PMI = Pitman + MCA + IL
• PMN = Pitman + MCA + NY
• PK = Pitman + Keel

While I am still not certain with regard to the first letter "P", I think this interpretation sounds logically good. There is, however, yet another three-letter code which I cannot figure out thus far. The code is found on the dead wax space of not very early, but not later repressed copies (coming in #1 sleeve), based on the matrix number suffixes. 
— To be continued.