DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN US LP variations: A revision to Decoding Two- or Three-Letter Matrix Hand Etchings on the Early Pressings — "PPP" was NOT a code for Columbia Records' Pitman but for another New Jersey pressing plant!

The oldest American company for children's
music turned out to help Columbia's Pitman
plant for pressing Springsteen's fourth LP.
(image taken from Discogs) 

Early vinyl copies of Springsteen's original albums up to THE RIVER (Columbia PC2 36854), the fifth released in October 1980, were pressed at three record-pressing plants Columbia Records owned and located in Santa Maria, CA, Terre Haute, IN, and Pitman, NJ. However, DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (Columbia JC 35318), his fourth, was the exception due to the temporary suspension of production at the New Jersey factory caused by labor strikes between April 2 and May 17, 1978, when this long-awaited album was slated to be released in late May (cf., The album was slightly delayed to be released on June 2). As a result, several pressing plants of non-Columbia Records were subcontracted to the Pitman to prevent the inevitable shortage of album supply, mainly in the East Coast market.

As summarized before in this series (for example, see 5/23/2021 and 4/23/2022), those pressing plants counted five, back then owned or run by the following companies: 

• North American Music Industries (NAMI) in Scranton, PA (3/21/2017)
• MCA Records in Pinckneyville, IL (3/18/2017)
• MCA Records in Gloversville, NY (7/29/2017)
• Keel Manufacturing Corp. in Hauppauge, NY (6/30/2017 and 10/2/2017)
• Goldisc Recording Products, Inc., in Holbrook, NY (5/23/2021)
  

Until very recently, I thought this line-up was sufficient to represent all the subcontracted plants, but that was wrong. Last month, an American lady kindly provided quite interesting information on this topic in her comment (posted on 7/20/2022) to one of the series articles (3/21/2017), which was unheard of to me (and probably to you, too), revealing the sixth subcontracted pressing plant that got involved in the album production.

Now it's clear that the hand-etched PPP refers to Pitman-subcontracted
Peter Pan Records pressing. Shown is SIDE TWO of my personal copy 
with SIDE ONE/TWO matrix numbers 1AD 1AF TML-S/2AC TML-S.

As you read her comments posted to the article between July 20 and 21, this is a scoop ("When Columbia Records' plant in Pitman NJ was on strike in 1978, they subcontracted the bulk of pressing to Peter Pan Records of Newark pressing plant on Towbin Ave in Lakewood, NJ"). Her husband was the plant manager at "Pete." He owns the framed gold record "stampers" for Darkness on the Edge of Town. She even kindly sent me pictures of this one-of-a-kind collector’s item. Although I could not find any relevant information anywhere on the net, there is absolutely no doubt that New Jersey's Peter Pan Records, one of the largest and most successful children's specialty record labels in the U.S. (quoted from Wikipedia), had lent its hands to Columbia Records. So then, the question arises: What do the record labels and dead-wax matrix codes look like on the "Pete" pressings?

Vinyl discs from these unusual record plants are easily distinguished from each other, and also from those pressed at the three Columbia Records plants. That's because, repeatedly told here, each vinyl pressing usually carries a hand-inscribed code on the dead-wax matrix space, such as PN and PMI. As deciphered before (summarized on 5/23/2021), these two- or three-letter codes specify where it was manufactured, as shown below, with the common first P referring to the subcontract to the Pitman:

• PN = Pitman-subcontracted NAMI
• PMI = Pitman-subcontracted MCA Records, Illinois
• PMN = Pitman-subcontracted MCA Records, New York
  
• PK = Pitman-subcontracted Keel Manufacturing Corp.
• PV = Pitman-subcontracted Viewlex, Inc. (which owned Goldisc Recordings Products, Inc.)

In addition to the above, there was yet another hand-etched code, PPP, which was the most unclear about what pressing plant it specified. Previously, I assumed this triple-letter code for the Pitman based on some circumstantial evidence (11/19/2018 and 5/15/2021). However, because of the lack of definitive proof, I simultaneously raised a question against my hypothesis ("I cannot figure out why two different symbols, machine-stamped 'P' and hand-etched 'PPP,' were alternatively used to indicate the same pressing plant"; 5/15/2021).

Previously and erroneously assigned Pitman Pressing Variants One and Two (see 5/15/2021 and 4/23/2022) are now corrected here for Pitman and Lakewood pressings manufactured at Columbia Records and Peter Pan Records, respectively.

According to Discogs and a few other net sources, the pressing plant in New Jersey's Lakewood City was originally run by Audio Manufacturing Record Co. It was then taken over in the mid-1970s by Peter Pan Records, whose LP copies were hand-etched "PP" on the run-out space. Having known its involvement in pressing DARKNESS, I instantly decoded it as below, simply applying the logic explained above:

• PPP = Pitman-subcontracted Peter Pan Records

Originally and erroneously in this blog, the PPP-inscribed pressings were reported as "Pitman Pressing Variant Two" (see 4/23/2022), featuring the red Columbia labels where both Springsteen's name and album title are split into two separate lines. The label design is overall the same as that of the "genuine Pitman" pressings with a "P" dead-wax stamp (formerly referred to as "Pitman Pressing Variant One" on 4/23/2022). Still, the Pete- and Pitman-pressing labels are noticeably different and easily distinguished by the spacing between the album title and track list, as already pointed out (5/15/2021) and shown in the pictures immediately above.

Here from the previous version (5/23/2021), I have revised and updated the summary table for the relationship between pressing plants and dead-wax matrix information of the early U.S. vinyl pressings for DARKNESS LP. Note that this work is still in progress, and your feedback for revision, corrections, and updates is always welcome. Finally, I greatly appreciate the comments from that American lady, not only for providing invaluable information but also for letting me aware of my incorrect assumption to be fixed.