Test pressings

[Julianb]

Hi, got lots of these. Here's a few of them.

I assume they are real, got the correct deadwax readings and who would go to the trouble of 'faking' common and cheapish 45s?

Any ideas of value or how best to sell them?

TIA

Julian 

[Geeselad]

I've had a couple of acetates of soul classics before, I had a ' I'm your puppet' and been told there not worth much more than a standard issue. Nowadays though bit of clever speil and who knows? Bet Manship could get a pretty penny, some of them do look asthetically attractive and they certainly seem authentic. 

[Rick Cooper]

Hi Julian

About ten years ago I got what looked like a test pressing (white label with no info) of a Factory label EP. There are quite a lot of Factory Records collectors so I put it on eBay with a low starting price. I got no bids or watchers and only a couple of views, so it looked like test pressings aren't that sought after unless Factory did white labels in large numbers. The pressing plant would only do a few copies as a test , so they should be very rare. I'd think the only valuable ones would be of withdrawn singles such as Sex Pistols, Led Zeppelin, Darrell Banks.

These are a few I have , I don't think they would be worth much. To most people they are nothing more than a record without a proper label. 

 

[Cover-up]

Weirdly, many of your 45s look like they have acetate labels - so they shouldn't actually have any matrix stamps. The middles look a bit chewed up, they'd normally be pretty clean. Not sure if some are handmade labels glued onto regular releases? The ones with EMI at the top look like EMIDISC labels - I've never seen them with the word DISC missing. Can you post up photos without the company sleeves?

[Happy Feet]

Recently found one of these on a charity eBay site,  looked like it had been nailed to a wall at some point in its life,  and it was priced albeit reduced over £300. Great pity not a copy of "Landslide " 

This is not the above mentioned copy Lol

[Julianb]

1 hour ago, cover-up said:

Weirdly, many of your 45s look like they have acetate labels - so they shouldn't actually have any matrix stamps. The middles look a bit chewed up, they'd normally be pretty clean. Not sure if some are handmade labels glued onto regular releases? The ones with EMI at the top look like EMIDISC labels - I've never seen them with the word DISC missing. Can you post up photos without the company sleeves?

The emi discs?

[Cover-up]

21 minutes ago, Julianb said:

The emi discs?

Yes, but they don't say EMIDisc - they only say EMI at the top. I don't recall ever seeing this before - it's a bit strange looking to my eyes...

Edited January 13, 2021 by cover-up

[Julianb]

I'll have a sort through and post photos of all of them 

[Julianb]

Found 37 without 'disc' on them. I'll post up tomorrow + 20 Decca Group Test Pressings including a Jamo Thomas Acetate.

 

[The Tempest]

I have a Columbia test pressing of the Alice Clark Lp - found thirty years ago hanging on the back wall of a record shop in Harvard Boston - no sleeve notes / nothing - best $5.00 I’ve ever spent ! 

[Rick Cooper]

I'm with @cover-up here that most of the discs put up above are acetates aka EMI disc and not strictly test pressings, especially the ones that say acetate.

A test pressing is a pressing done from the stampers that will make the finished records that will go for sale to the public. They are done before all the discs are made so any faults are identified before a few thousand records are made. The possible faults are jumps, skips, wrong track or A/B reversal. There are a few well known discs that weren't checked properly , Gwen Owens and Cool Off and the Billy Harner What About The Music instrumental. The record will have exactly the same run out markings as the issue copies. Usually a test pressing will have a white label or as US Atlantic just have a label that is printed "Test Pressing" Every issued disc , even now, will have had a test pressing, although some may have had a finished label. The pressing for these could have been halted and that disc played straight away and the finished run then completed. My test pressings (above) were done in London and posted to us for checking. The proper labels weren't at the pressing plant until the final run went to press.

An acetate is cut on a lathe from the tape one at a time usually at a studio (e.g Virtue). They don't have numbers on the run out but if the record has had a number allocated it could go on the label info. The UK acetates of US records will have already been approved for issue so have a catalogue number. US acetates tend not to have any numbers as they might never get issued , again like the Virtue discs. They were done so a recording could be played to anyone almost straight after the session. The UK acetates were probably done to play to the label head, sales team, marketing, radio DJs or journalists. Acetates are no longer done as digital files have replaced them.

This is an acetate of Eddie Carlton -It Will Be Done- instrumental that I had done . The image here is one side that the engineer stopped after a few seconds and then started again. He then did another one which he put the stick- on label after he had typed the info on . The false start can just be seen as a few close grooves before a gap and then the rest of the recording. The test pressing is one of the ones I posted before, CRM 5001.

Anyway test pressing or acetate they are all just as interesting so let's see some more.

 

 

 

[Happy Feet]

Very interesting Rick,  the only acetates including the Tony Clark above that I was ever lucky enough to find, came from a collection of records previously owned by a Pye company rep. who sadly is no longer with us but so many acetates and promos and rare releases from associated labels.

[Chalky]

A test pressing will usually have the same run out details as the issue/promo

[Autumnstoned]

Here’s a few images of acetates and 45’s I took when I tracked down my late uncle’s band mate, Gary Freeman, from the early 60’s. When I visited him I took my Mac book and a portable disc player to record a 45 they made in 1965, a credible cover of James Brown’s - I’ll Go Crazy, as I’d lost the copy I had on a cassette tape. I was surprised when he produced the other 45’s.  

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Autumnstoned

[Cover-up]

19 minutes ago, Autumnstoned said:

Here’s a few images of acetates and 45’s I took when I tracked down my late uncle’s band mate, Gary Freeman, from the early 60’s. When I visited him I took my Mac book and a portable disc player to record a 45 they made in 1965, a fairly decent cover of James Brown’s - I’ll Go Crazy, as I’d lost the copy I had on a cassette tape. I was surprised when he produced the other 45’s.  

 

 

Wow, amazing finds - that EP looks really cool... The Moving Finger single is great!

Edited January 14, 2021 by cover-up

[Julianb]

As promised I attach the photos. All the records have the correct deadwax stampings.

I hear what you say about maybe labels being stuck on but my question would be 'why bother with cheap 45s?' surely if you're going to 'fake' something, you would do high value stuff?

Just my thoughts.

[Amsterdam Russ]

@Julian B One question - are these actual acetates, ie, a heavier than normal disc comprising a metal plate covered in lacquer, or are they standard 45s made of vinyl/styrene?

[Julianb]

Hi, these are normal 45 pressings with deadwax numbers.

[Amsterdam Russ]

11 minutes ago, Julianb said:

Hi, these are normal 45 pressings with deadwax numbers.

That seems odd. All the Emidiscs, Pye & Decca advance promo acetates are exactly that - acetates. Not sure why the discs you have - which carry the labels you'd find on acetates - should actually be standard 45s.

Is there any sign of the labels being stuck on top of other labels? Looking at the pics it doesn't appear to be the case, but I thought it worth asking. 

[Cover-up]

3 hours ago, Julianb said:

Hi, these are normal 45 pressings with deadwax numbers.

As mentioned previously, EMI Discs are acetates, there's no reason why they'd be on properly pressed singles, with matrix stamp numbers and serrated label stacking rings. And, as I mentioned before, they say "EMIDisc" at the top and yours just say "EMI" which I have never, ever seen before. Looks like somebody has just had a wee bit of fun and faked up some labels to make their collection a wee bit more exotic looking. Why would you do it to cheap records? If you did it to expensive records you'd actually be de-valuing them.

 

The strange world of northern soul!

[Geeselad]

4 hours ago, cover-up said:

As mentioned previously, EMI Discs are acetates, there's no reason why they'd be on properly pressed singles, with matrix stamp numbers and serrated label stacking rings. And, as I mentioned before, they say "EMIDisc" at the top and yours just say "EMI" which I have never, ever seen before. Looks like somebody has just had a wee bit of fun and faked up some labels to make their collection a wee bit more exotic looking. Why would you do it to cheap records? If you did it to expensive records you'd actually be de-valuing them.

 

The strange world of northern soul!

Not sure about that personally. If they did looks like they soaked off the old labels first then had the labels cut professionally. Lot of hard work and costly for a vanity project. 

[Happy Feet]

Could have been water damaged,  lots of flooding over the years, a lot of them no release dates either

[Cover-up]

4 hours ago, Geeselad said:

Not sure about that personally. If they did looks like they soaked off the old labels first then had the labels cut professionally. Lot of hard work and costly for a vanity project. 

But has anyone ever seen an "Emidisc" label which omits the word "disc" and just has "Emi" at the top (see attached image to see what they usually look like)? I'm ALMOST feeling bold enough to stick my neck out and suggest they don't actually exist, except on this batch of singles! It wouldn't be costly at all - I could print them out on my inkjet printer, cut them out with scissors and glue them with pritt-stick.

[Geeselad]

1 hour ago, cover-up said:

But has anyone ever seen an "Emidisc" label which omits the word "disc" and just has "Emi" at the top (see attached image to see what they usually look like)? I'm ALMOST feeling bold enough to stick my neck out and suggest they don't actually exist, except on this batch of singles! It wouldn't be costly at all - I could print them out on my inkjet printer, cut them out with scissors and glue them with pritt-stick.

Not and get that level of finish. That's my point, it looks like it's done at factory. You'd have to be a proper dab hand with those scissors, a Pele of pritt stick.

[Cover-up]

8 hours ago, Geeselad said:

a Pele of pritt stick.

[timthemod]

EMI never did acetates with just EMI on them like in those pictures, deffo fakes. Cover-up is correct methinks.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by timthemod

[Rick Cooper]

18 hours ago, Geeselad said:

Not and get that level of finish. That's my point, it looks like it's done at factory. You'd have to be a proper dab hand with those scissors, a Pele of pritt stick.

Scissors????

[Happy Feet]

The plot thickens if you look closely at the Supremes a rough edge to the label ?

[Julianb]

A few more for discussion.  I got all these in a job lot approx 20 years ago. Interestingly there was some paperwork from Keith Prose (the impresario) enclosed with them.

I think the  Jamo Thomas acetate is genuine.

 

[Chris O]

I found a stack of UK LP test pressings 30 odd years ago lots of major label jazz, half a dozen james brown and related LPs, william devaughn, phil upchurch  and various other 1970s releases and a 12" of skip mahoney  janice with a salsoul uk cat number seemingly never released.

[Geeselad]

39 minutes ago, Chris O said:

I found a stack of UK LP test pressings 30 odd years ago lots of major label jazz, half a dozen james brown and related LPs, william devaughn, phil upchurch  and various other 1970s releases and a 12" of skip mahoney  janice with a salsoul uk cat number seemingly never released.

The skip mahoney came out on underworld in the Uk, winder why they licensed it? Rather than release on uk salsoul? 

[Chris O]

1 minute ago, Geeselad said:

The skip mahoney came out on underworld in the Uk, winder why they licensed it? Rather than release on uk salsoul? 

I found this a decade or more before the underworld reissue. you could get the original usa salsoul 12 back then for £3 and the usa 45 would be only a few quid more. 

[Daddy Bones]

An interesting mixture! Rick Cooper gets it though.

An acetate / lacquer is a disc into which audio is engraved. They're a metal disc with a top lacquer layer applied, but soft enough to be cut into. The phrase "EMIdisc" is a peculiarly "soul scene" term that's become popular because so many bootlegs were cut into blank lacquers originating from the EMI facility in Hayes. Cutting houses have almost always used their own labels to identify lacquers cut by them; there were just few places to get them in Britain. You can tell what they are by picking one up. An old 7" should weigh less than 40 grams. A lacquer weight several times more.

Surviving lacquers of 7" size would have been for reference only and occasionally for promotional purposes. The ones cut to be used as masters for galvanics (electroplating process in making stampers for actual record manufacture) are virtually always destroyed in the plating process. Nowadays, pressing a 7" usually requires a 7" cut to be done on a larger lacquer; one lacquer for each side. Some facilities also cut audio to copper, which is recycled and thus the punter never sees these discs.

Most of the discs Julian has above (especially those with machine-cut run-out matrices or knurled label rims) are clearly actual vinyl (test) pressings, mostly with white labels with another identifying label stuck on. The Jamo Thomas is definitely a lacquer. Even without the Pye "acetate" label, you can see the odd age bloom on the disc itself.