DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Holbrook pressing (manufactured by Goldisc Recording Products, Inc.) and an Update to Decoding Two- or Three-Letter Matrix Hand Etchings on the Early Pressings

NOTE: Vinyl discs reported here with the hand-etched matrix code "PPP" was found not to be pressed at the Pitman factory. Please check the updated information in the blog entry from 8/20/2022.

Left, the Billboard magazine (Issue 05/27/1978) article reporting the
labor issues at the CBS pressing plant in Pitman, New Jersey, settled
on May 17, 1978 (Note that Billboard has released the magazine
issues into the public domains Google Books and Internet Archive).
Right, six dead-wax codes unique to the early vinyl copies of 
DARKNESS pressed in the U.S. (All images taken from my collection).
Each code, except for PPP, specifies a non-Columbia Records' plant
that pressed a given disc.

PN, PMI, PMN, PK, and PPP reported previously, and here PV — Having been interested in deciphering these dead-wax hand-etched codes associated with the U.S. early pressings of DARKNESS LP,  I may finally be able to take a break for this subject by posting about the remaining last probable one. The above six dead-wax codes were uncommon for vinyl pressings made by Columbia Records since the code-specified pressing plants normally had not worked under the company's operation, except for PPP, which denotes Columbia's Pitman, New Jersey pressing plant (see 11/19/2018 and 05/15/2021). The unusual pressing plants that joined in the album production, due to Pitman's labor issues, included those back then run or owned by North American Music Industries (NAMI) in Scranton, Pennsylvania (coded for by PN), Keel Manufacturing Corp. in Hauppauge, New York (PK), and MCA Records in Pinckneyville, Illinois (PMI), and Gloversville, New York (PMN).

The Side One matrix numbers of a Holbrook press have an error crossed out and corrected. The Columbia logo on the label rim is blacked out on my copy due to trademark issues in some countries, including Japan (see 06/09/2016).

Without examining dead-wax inscriptions, these unusual pressings are roughly distinguished from Columbia's standard discs (pressed at Santa Maria and Terre Haute, in this case) by checking letter fonts and pressing/stamper rings on the record labels (BTW, I will summarize these aspects of the U.S. DARKNESS discs soon). However, vinyl copies bearing the PV code are quite difficult to distinguish by this measure from other discs pressed at Santa Maria, Terre Haute (see 12/30/2017), and Keel plants (see 06/30/2017 and 10/02/2017). The PV hand-etching always occurs on the run-out space with another inscription, GOL, referring to Goldisc Recording Products, Inc., Holbrook, Long Island, New York. So, two Long Island-based plants (another being Keel) played a part in compensating for the album supply. 

The hand-etched "GOL" company signature on
the dead-wax space appears on the opposite
side of the label from the matrix numbers
(shown is that of Side Two).

Side One:  PAL-  PBL-35318-1AC  PV   TML-S          GOL
Side Two:           PBL-35318-2J    PV   TML-M         GOL
       (oblique, hand-etched; straight, stamped)

What PV exactly encodes is not clear. Assuming that the common first letter P means Pitman as the other codes, I guess that the following V stands for Viewlex, Inc., which owned Goldisc until early 1979 (source: Discogs; Note that DARKNESS is released early June 1978). Thus far, I cannot come up with any other idea to explain this code.

Considering the above and the last post (05/15/2021), the table below updates the previously summarized relationship between dead-wax inscriptions, pressing plants, and plant owners (11/19/2018).

Note that this summary was based on the vinyl copies in my possession. So, perhaps there are more entries, especially to matrix number suffixes (but I don't think more pressing plants to be added). For example, I'm still unable to dig out Santa Maria's -A1/-A2 pressings, although reportedly, such copies exist according to the relevant entry on the Discogs website informing "First stampers for this record are -1A/-2A. This alone should determine pressing time frame" (for example, check here).

Seriously, I suspect that this Discogs description is wrong and consider no such regular copies circulating, as I explained in the comments to the post on 11/19/2018. To quote my remarks here:

According to Dave Marsh's BORN TO RUN book (Chapter 15), SIDE 2 of the LP, once completed mastering, had to be remastered immediately before the release of the album because the first track, The Promised Land, was remixed to put Miami Steve's guitar solo back in. So, I guess SIDE 2, before subjected to remastering, would carry the matrix suffix 2A.

In short, my point is that the earliest matrix number most probably ends with -1A/-2B (which I own), but not -1A/-2A (which I haven't seen by far), for the vinyl pressings circulating and available to the market.

Finally, as always, this is a work in progress. If you have any revisions, corrections or additions, please let me know.

DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: Pitman pressing — Early edition

NOTE: One of the two vinyl discs reported here, with the hand-etched matrix code "PPP," was found not to have been pressed at the Pitman factory. Please check the updated information in the blog entry from 8/20/2022.

Two label variants for the early Pitman pressings mainly differ in the spacing between the album title and tracklist, with slightly different production credits [left, P-stamp version; right, triple-P (PPP) hand-etching version; see the main text for details]. However, both print Springsteen's name and album title into two separate lines, which is basically a unique feature of the early Pitman discs (although I once saw a copy of the Terre Haute pressing with the narrow "18 mm-spacing" label). Note that only the album title is split with the late pressings (see the label image on 03/04/2018).
CORRECTION: The label on the right is of vinyl copies pressed at another plant in New Jersey (see 8/20/2022).

As reported in a series of blog posts under the above subject, a unique aspect of the U.S. vinyl release of DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (Columbia JC 35318) is that several pressing plants of non-Columbia Records participated in producing the early pressings*, the situation otherwise scarcely seen in pressing other Springsteen's original albums, except for the CBS Special Products edition of THE RIVER (see 09/10/2014 and 12/23/2017). This particular case resulted from the temporal closure of the Pitman factory in New Jersey, one of the three major pressing plants that supplied the company's products to the East Coast markets, due to the labor disputes and strikes in Spring of 1978. The fact is reflected by unusual dead-wax symbols, markings, and hand-etchings, such as PN, PMI, PMN, or PK, each of which encodes a pressing plant where a given vinyl disc is manufactured. The details of these plant-specific codes have been summarized in the blog posts on 11/17/2018 and 11/19/2018.
*In brief, the early pressings are characterized as follows: (1) The rear sleeve features the large track listing and black font credits on the upper and lower of the left corners, respectively; (2) the inner sleeve is made of thick paper with higher resolution images; (3) the main matrix numbers are hand-etched PAL-35318 and PBL-35318 on Sides One and Two, respectively; and (4) each side of a vinyl disc has a machine stamp TML-M or TLM-S (The Mastering Lab - Master or Slave lathe).

Typical examples of three dead-wax markings for the Pitman-
pressed DARKNESS U.S. LP. From left to right: P stamp, and
triple and single P hand-etchings. See the main text for details.

Soon after the settlement of the labor issues (i.e., the strike ended May 17), the Pitman plant was back to operation and joined in pressing the DARKNESS LP from the end of May or early June that year. In a previous post (11/19/2018), I came to a conclusion that such vinyl copies pressed at this Garden-State plant are identifiable by PPP, a dead-wax triple-P hand-etching. However, this was drawn only from circumstantial evidence. Moreover, there are no known examples of the triple-letter code used for other albums by Springsteen and probably also by other artists under the Columbia label (not available online as far as I searched through Google). So, I tried to obtain definitive proof for the presumed Pitman's code on his fourth official album.

Having re-examined the dead-wax inscriptions, I took note of the crossed-out letter 1AD, followed by an additionally inscribed code 1AF or 1AG, which is the matrix number suffix found on Side One of the presumed Pitman pressings I own (For an example image, see 11/19/2018).

Three different suffixes, -1AD, -1AF, and -1AG, are
found on Side One matrix numbers of the early
Pitman pressings. Note that -1AD was once inscribed
but crossed out on -1AF and -1AG discs.

Side One:   PAL-35318-1AD 1AF       TML-S     PPP
Side Two:   PBL-35318-2AB   　       PPP      TML-M

Side One:   PAL-35318-1AD 1AF       TML-S     PPP
Side Two:   PBL-35318-2AC   　       PPP      TML-S

Side One:   PAL-35318-1AD 1AG                  TML-M
Side Two:   PBL-35318-2AB  　        PPP      TML-M

        (oblique, hand-etched; straight, stamped)

My idea was simple, expecting the existence of unmodified 1AD pressings that might support my presumption or provide a clue to solving the identity of these PPP-inscribed vinyl discs. So, I tried to find out  such copies.

From my experience, it was (and still is) the Santa Maria pressing that I came across more often than any other pressings when hunting early U.S. exports of the DARKNESS LP here in the Far East (So, this Californian pressing represents the most abundant in my DARKNESS U.S. LP collection). The highest hit probability was probably because this pressing plant played the predominant role in the early phase (Spring 1978) of the album production while the Pitman was inoperative transiently. The relatively close geography of the West Coast to Japan would also explain this, considering the export distance and cost. Anyway, I managed to get a copy with the non-crossed-out 1AD-suffix code and looked into the dead-wax markings and inscriptions. At first glance, I could not recognize any special or unique characters there, including PPP. However, close examination led me to find out a "P" machine-stamp on both sides, just like the test pressing and white-label promotional release of BORN TO RUN U.S. LP (see 05/21/2017), confirming the vinyl copy of the Pitman origin.

Side One:   P 　PAL-35318-1AD     TML-M
Side Two:   P 　PBL-35318-2AA     TML-S

Both Sides One (right) and Two (left) dead-wax areas of the -1AD/-2AA pressing (with the "narrow" spacing labels; see the top image) are stamped with P denoting the Pitman pressing. I usually use naked eyes for visual inspection of the dead-wax markings. In this case, however, the pressing-plant-specific stamp was pressed so faint that I needed the help of modern technology (i.e., USB microscope) to confirm its existence.

Based on the above observations, I conclude that all the vinyl pressings with 1AD, 1AF, or 1AG on Side One, and 1AA, 1AB, or 1AC on Side Two, came from the Pitman plant. However, I cannot figure out why two different symbols, machine-stamped "P" and hand-etched "PPP," were alternatively used to indicate the same pressing plant. Maybe, the Pitman temporarily changed the pressing-plant-specific symbol for this particular album, from the standard single-letter stamp to the triple-letter hand-etching, to conform to the style (PN, PMI, PMN, and PK) of the other plants that made up for the album shortage?  Indeed, as mentioned above, I have not seen the triple-letter code used for any other albums by Springsteen or other Columbia label's artists. I also notice that the two variants show a few but notable differences in both Sides One and Two record labels, especially the spacing between the album title and tracklist (see the image on the top for Side One). So, these "early" Pitman editions can be further divided into two kinds regarding label design and dead-wax plant-specific marking. And as a final note, a "P" hand-etching found on some vinyl copies of DARKNESS denotes the late Pitman pressing (An example is shown on 03/04/2018). 
 

→ See here for the updated information.

 

Collecting log: a plain white test pressing for TUNNEL OF LOVE U.K. limited edition picture-disc LP (Part 2 of 2)

It was January 2003 when I got what was advertised as a "test" pressing for the picture-disc edition of this album at $29.00 from an eBay seller in Bethpage, New York (disc's images shown previously in the following posts on 03/01/2015 and 01/01/2020). It came in a plain white sleeve but not in a clear plastic bag used for the regular picture disc. This pressing is indistinguishable from my copy of the commercial version in almost all aspects but the plain white appearance.

The commercially available picture disc (upper) and its plain-white test pressing (lower) share the same dead-wax inscriptions and stamps on each playing side (left, Side One; right, Side Two).

The width of each track and dead-wax area is the same as that of the official release, and both have a black rim around the disc edge. Crucially, all the dead-wax matrix inscriptions (Side One, hand-etched; Side Two, mostly machine-stamped) are identical for each side between the two discs, indicating that the "test" pressing was made from the same stampers that pressed the standard picture disc (at least my copy). Thus, there's no logical reason to suspect this "test" record to be a fake or counterfeited product.

     Side One:  AL-40999-#-1B     G7     MASTERDISK-DMM     C     01+460270+6+#A
     Side Two:  LI-B-III     DMM A C-01-460 270-20-B
            (oblique, hand-etched; straight; stamped; #, scratched out)

There is a DMM hand-etching or machine-stamp on each side, meaning that this album is mastered by direct metal mastering.
 

Even though the matrix inscriptions are identical, the two picture records exhibit different patterning of stamper rings. Although not precisely measured, the commercial disc has two inner circles with about 32- and 63-mm diameters, whereas the smaller one is only visible on the test pressing (Side One is shown).

Still, there is one noticeable difference in the center circle space, where a paper label is normally glued on a conventional LP. Whether a regular or picture disc, a vinyl record usually has one or two circles stamped on that region, called pressing rings or stamper rings, which are left when stampers press the vinyl blob or biscuit. The number and size (diameter) of such circles often differ depending on the die, the part of the pressing machine that holds a pair of stampers. As you can see from the image immediately above, the commercial picture disc has two clear stamper rings with 32- and 63-mm diameters. On the other hand, a single 32-mm ring is only visible on the "test" pressing. A simple interpretation of this inconsistency is that the commercial and "test" pressings in my possession were NOT pressed by the same machine (unless the die was exchanged; I don't know the details of pressing machines, though). Then, were these discs manufactured at the same pressing plant?

The U.K. test pressing for THE RIVER, released in 1980, has two
  stamper rings on each plain-white label of the double discs. This  
is also the same for the NEBRASKA test disc (see the post on
09/28/2016, though not pictured clearly).

In the 1970s, the CBS U.K. pressing plant was located in Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire County, South East, England, and moved in 1980 to the new plant in Aylesbury in the same county. A great blog, vinyldiscovery, written by an American record collector, surveyed and listed the summary of the relationship between record manufacturers and stamper ring in the latest post (04/13/2021; a must-read if interested in the topic). According to this extensive list, vinyl discs pressed at the Aston Clinton plant had two stamper rings (with 32- and 63-mm diameters) on each record label (for example, BORN TO RUN LP; see the post on 09/26/2020). Although the Aylesbury plant gets no mention in the list, it is very likely that the Aston Clinton facilities, including the pressing machine creating such a double ring, were transferred to and reinstalled for operation at the newly launched Aylesbury factory. 

In fact, the same double-stamper ring commonly occurred on the labels of the original U.K. pressings of Springsteen's albums released in the 1980s (the label images of THE RIVER, NEBRASKA, and BORN IN THE U.S.A. are shown in the previous posts on 01/01/2020, 09/28/2016, and 09/29/2019, respectively). Although I don't own the conventional U.K. pressing of the TUNNEL LP, the same ring profile was easily confirmed on the label images available online. So, I guess that these studio-recording albums, including the commercial TUNNEL picture disc, were manufactured at the Aylesbury plant. Still, it remains unknown where the "test" pressing originated, based on the stamper ring.

— Back to Part 1.