Very interesting collection! What makes these even rarer is the fact that most of the off-center records were thrown away as unplayable. You have some true survivors.
years ago, I was "changing" records in jukeboxes, and you always played the records that were being put in. this happened a lot where labels were put on the singles backward( A and B sides). also label shifted records would be used as long as it did not pose a problem with the stylus hitting the end groove of the recording. records that were "pressed" off center were rejected and thrown out. records that were mislabeled completely, would have "NEW TITLE STRIPS" made
I had a copy of Convoy by C.W. McCall. Long Lonesome Road was on the flip side. The thing about this is the labels were reversed. In other words Convoy played on the Long Lonesome Road, and Long Lonesome Road played on the Convoy side. The record eventually broke.
We exchanged about 4 con funk shuns on mercury label and wax were both off. My dad wasnt paying attention in 78 especially if it wasnt one of his artist good video
3:15 sometimes some copies had on both sides the same content, was made for radio stations. So the operator possibly messed the radio edition. I remember, when a radio station messed A with B side, instead the Hitmix you could listen to the Karaoke version.
I have a lot of 78 rpm records with these errors, Labels on some are 3/4 off center, a few where the label creased before being pressed so part of the labels info is folded out of site, miss matched labels, same label on both sides, pressed without one of the labels, You name it! I LOVE finding these Records!
Roybo, that's great. I have found very few on 78's, and I have a ton of 78's. If you can, show pics. I wish I had enough label errors to do a video on 78 errors, but it would be very short. LP errors on labels are also something I am collecting, but the majority seem to be on 45's.
Sam, I just finished re-watching your label-pressing-errors video and thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking forward to your upcoming videos in 2019, as promised. Keep up the good work!
Thank you, Gary. If I could find the time, I think i could make 10 videos on different aspects of my collection and on collecting in general. Hoping to get at least 3 new ones done in 2019. Thanks for the encouragement, Sam
@@thisisadeadchannel9634 I'm really sorry about that, as I have a few up my sleeve, just need the time and the dedication to put other priorities aside. Financial stability helps, and that has not been my situation for a while, so I am for the time being unable to relax enough to do the videos. Hopefully this Spring and summer I will be able to make a few more. Thanks for the encouragement.
About the singles from Apple: In UK singles almost had small holes, so the mistake was to use the same layout for singles, that totally follow the RCA standard.
R.C.A. came out with the 45 rpm record in 1949, and "ALL" the other record companies had to pay royalties to R.C.A. I do not know how long that lasted. I do know that columbia records did their best to sabotage the 45 rpm record. over in the "U.K." the 45 rpm records never used the large hub as they did in the "U.S."
many moons ago at a swap meet , i paid $ 2 for an off center pressed copy of a pee wee crayton 45 on the vee jay label it took some careful centering with no spindle to get it to play right ,,, but well worth it great video
I continue to believe there are more label and pressing errors out there than people think. Almost every collector seems to have a few. That's a nice one, on Vee Jay.
That Columbia 45 has an injection molded label. The label is actually molded into the vinyl and then painted. This was done in Europe and the UK. They also have small spindle hole with the center area which could be punched out to make the larger hole. That could be why some of the info was cut off. It looks like the example that you showed had the center piece punched out.
I would love to know how they painted the labels, with the paint going only into the depressed lettering or design. Or the other way around - the info is molded in, then paint is applied with some kind of roller that leaves the indented areas dark? In any case, they are hard to read, so I am guessing that this method didn't last long. Thanks for the info
@@recordsam I assumed it’s done with some type of roller system. The lettering and such are embedded into the vinyl and the paint, or whatever they use, only covers the non-imprinted part. Sometimes the paint does get into the embedded lettering making it difficult to read.
I had a few records I bought cheap that were clearly test pressings to make sure the press was lined up correctly. On a couple of occasions, the label or record was off-center (though nowhere near as bad as your examples!) The labels used were just plain white paper with the song title either rubber-stamped or written on by hand.
Test pressings are always interesting, and in some cases, worth a lot - it depends on the artist or group, the orchestra or conductor, the speaker, the song, etc. Often these are acetates, made to test for sound quality, but when pressed in vinyl they are often unusual, one-sided, sometimes with handwritten notes on the recording. Good find.
@@recordsam - Oh, I agree about the test pressings part - for where pressing plants originated, so I could identify where when seeing a "regular" copy.
I was laughing so hard to the two last records that had the label misplaced. How is that possible?? You have one of the rarest record pressing mistakes, take good care of it! Good video, really enjoyed it.
maybe oversight in the pressing making quota with a asshole foreman breathing down your neck or lazy people who said f*** it and walked off the job. i've never seen a record label that far of center in my collection of 700+ 45's.
@@recordsam - A British man who once worked part-time in one of the pressing plants there, said that some copies of a soul single in the early 1970's were pressed with NO spindle hole whatsoever - which this worker attributed to deliberate sabotage, as the rogue employee was said to HATE soul music, especially the Motown variety.
@@wmbrown6 Interesting - there is also an artist who intentionally had a record pressed with no spindle hole, but I can't remember who it was at the moment.
Good presentation! I've got examples of most of these errors. The worst by far is an LP that has an extra label pressed smack in the middle of the grooves. It actually plays through, but sounds horrible. QC was really napping when that rolled by. :)
Wow, that is rare. It's a pretty sloppy employee who can mis-drill the center of a stack of Lp's in a jig that is set up to eliminate that possibility. Maybe one slipped.
The Dead Skunk is not a soul record and is not on the wrong label. That is a promo copy with stereo on one side and mono on the other side. It is a Top 40 american Pop record.
Well, you're wrong about that, sorry... MY copy of Columbia JZSP 157300 "Special Rush Service" "Radio Station Copy" Columbia 4-45726, Loudon wainwright III DEAD SKUNK (ALL that is on the label, both sides) is actually totally different music. It has a song called "Ebony Woman" on the stereo side, and "Yesterday I had the Blues" on the mono side. In the lost wax, it is stamped P.I.R. BE-ZS7 3525-3/ 3525-2B. The record that DOES have the Loudon Wainwright III "Dead Skunk" tune is on a Reprise label, a group called Hypnotics, tune called "Memories" and the JZSP 157299 is handwritten in the lost wax on that side, and stamped into the lost wax on the other side, is ZSS157300-1H, and that tune is called "Needless to Say" instead of what is on the label, whicg says Hypnotics tune called "Beware of the Stranger." It's a pretty screwed up pair of records!
@@recordsam - I was gonna say, Teddy Pendergrass sounds nothing like Loudon Wainwright III - who I don't think had backing vocalists on his records, didn't he? Now, what wrong pressing had "Yesterday I Had The Blues" (by Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes) labels, to make the cycle complete? The Hypnotics' single?
Nice Calfone you have there, it looks like one of the Stereo models with dual speakers that latch to the top. I have a 1978 Newcomb that's woodgrain with the yellow motorboard; it's the same model I saw in school in 1986.
Yes, it's the stereo model, with mike for dj ing, dances, etc. Speakers are separate, latch together. It's out go to turntable for the CT Record club, plays anything, 4 speeds, 33/78 needle, etc. a great workhorse.
Cliff Nobles recorded The Horse on One side with. Love Is Alright on the other side They were the same melody but one song had lyrics and the other was the instrumental. Very famous error. The Horse turned out to be the popular side even though it wasn’t meant to be. Seems a DJ played The Horse by mistake and it went viral.
The Beatles ones, that's interesting because in the UK and Australia we never had the large holes in the centre of 45s. So I guess the companies didn't realise that either
Well, the companies in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and the world did realize it, but RCA here in the USA wanted to set their product apart, in competition with the "new" Columbia microgroove 33 rpm - thence the large hole, playable at first only on their little 45 rpm players, or with adapters for the new record players that would play at 45 rpm. This was 1949. I say "new" technology only because the microgroove technology was already around, and had first been used by Bell Labs in the USA in 1926 (!) as soundtrack for a film. It wasnt until 1948 that commercial recordings at 33 1/3 rpm started to be produced.
While working at one of the used record stores here in Dayton, Ohio, I came across an LP of Dave Mason's "Let It Flow", even autographed by Mason, which I picked up for my wife, only to find that it was the wrong LP. Side A has the correct label, Columbia 34680, 1977, while Side B is labeled with Side 4 of "Frampton Comes Alive", A & M SP-3703, 1976, which is what is actually the record in the jacket, disc 2 of "FCA". Somebody at the plant must have been really stoned that day. Needless to say, I kept it for myself.
WOW!!! That's quite a special error. Indeed, I do think some of these are extremely rare - maybe even only one copy exists, in many cases. It doesn't make them worth a fortune, most of the time, but I think we all feel very fortunate to have found such a rarity. Thanks to all the potheads who worked in pressing plants - and no insult to those of you who still may - hahaha. Keep making those unique pressings... Thanks for telling us about that one.
@@recordsam - I have a 45 that's labeled "All Night Passion" by Alisha. Only it plays "To All The Girls I've Loved Before" by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias.
Here in the UK the default is for 45 singles to have the small centre hole. As I have a jukebox that requires the large centre hole, many records have to be 'dinked', that is, a tool is used to cut the large hole into the record. It is very common for that to result in loss of some of the label information. Some of the records shown in the early part of this video look like they have been 'dinked'.
Well, all the records in this video, as far as I know, were stock US copies, and so they were "dinked" en masse, but I think the errors had more to do with label placement than standard dinking. One of them may have slipped during the dinking.
@@recordsam OK. It is common for small hole labels not to take into account 'dinking', which has always surprised me, since the large hole is the original RCA format. Incidentally, I have one record where the A and B labels are on the wrong sides.
Thank you for that information, which makes sense given the way the center hole is roughly cut out ("dinked") and the information harder to read. Do you know how the injection moulded label process worked? Was the label info all part of the stamper, then?
I collected 45's from 1977-1989, had about 3,000 of them and only had 1 label error. It was Foreigner's 1988 hit I don't want to live without you, labels were switched.
That's a good statistic, and reveals how the plants actually did a pretty good job most of the time, and how rare these errors are, given the hundreds of millions of records and labels that were produced.
Wow that Bob Seger 45 must be the rarest labelling error I have ever seen, might be worth something. I have a couple of 45's in my collection where one side of the record has a label and the other side's label is not there, completely missing. It makes you wonder sometimes what the people in quality control were actually doing.
No double labels ,often the 45 you showed with the rough side is because it was a double label ,not Shure why but in my experience over 40 years buying vinyl it's usually this way when the double label has been removed.great video 👍
In that case, the label was too thin to be a double. I think the "roughness" comes from part of the back of the label peeling off because it didn't dry sufficiently in the kilns, and the random areas that stuck to the label behind it were pulled off, ruining that label, but allowing the label with the thinner paper parts to be pressed, which makes it look rough and randomly uneven. I have found this on a few LP and other 45 labels as well, with a single label that looks rough, but the vinyl underneath is smooth - so it can only be the paper that is "rough".
@@recordsam true ,And I've also seen the rough label underneath the bubbled top label being almost impossible to remove as it looks moulded into the vinyl 👍
Columbia Custom pressed records for Warner Bros. and Reprise Records in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I have an early pressing of George Harrison’s ‘This Song’ on a white Dark Horse Records label pressed by Capitol. It looks like a radio station copy, but it is a stock copy. It also has ‘This Song’ labels on both sides.
I have some 45's where the labels were die-cut so way off center that you could actually see the bleed from the other label either to the left or the right or top or bottom. These are instructive for me because they're an education as to how different printers and companies laid out things.
That is unusual. I believe most labels were printed on rectangular stock, sometimes on offset 4-color presses. The way they cut the sheets into circles is still a bit of a mystery, but I have seen the giant circle-shaped cutters go down through a very thick stack of stock like butter. Sometimes the pile would shift, or the very last few labels would not get completely cut.
@@recordsam - I actually have a few LP and 45 label sheets collected over the years, mostly Beatles-related and some Dylan (though that's not why I got 'em, of course). Depending on anticipated demand, regular labels were either printed '24 up' (19" x 25" paper for 45 labels, 23" x 29" for LP) or '54 up' (23" x 35" for the type of small 45 labels Capitol used from 1968 to 1986, 25" x 38" for most 45 labels, and 28" x 40" for LP labels), then cut up into '6 up' rectangular sheets to feed to printing presses where the label copy was overprinted. The paper label stock varied from company to company and all that, but I have gauged them to be: - 60 and 70 lb. Kromekote C1S (super-shiny cast-coated paper stock; but in some cases LP labels were printed on the uncoated side; 60 lb. also used for "heat seal" labels that were glued onto styrene 45's) - 55, 60, 70, 80 and 100 lb. C1S Litho (55, 60 and 70 also used for styrene labels; some labels like RCA from the 1970's on printed on the uncoated side) - 60, 70 and 80 lb. Gloss Coated (C2S) - 70 and 80 lb. Dull Coated - 70 and 80 lb. Matte Coated - 70 and 80 lb. Smooth (uncoated) - 70 and 80 lb. Offset (uncoated; caliper slightly thicker than Smooth)
@@wmbrown6 Thank you William. That's great info! I have found that the paper stock varied somewhat in quality as did the drying of the labels in the drying ovens. Some labels stuck together, some seem to have tears on the back side, which makes them look very rough in a slanting light? I don't really know the explanation for that, actually. Can you explain the terminology of "24 up" and "6 up" and so on? Thanks very much. Fascinating stuff. I once met a guy at a record show, who had analyzed the ink used at every pressing plant as well. He could identify the ink by looking at a label, and he had a huge notebook full of data he had amassed. I hope I run into him again. He was waaaay deep into the printing process, but at the time I didn't have as much interest as now.
@@recordsam - Like whether the ink was Pantone or Handschy / Hanco? '24 up' was usually laid out 4 x 6, '54 up' was 6 x 9 - and '6 up' was 2 x 3. Some had the 6 up labels laid out portrait style, others had it landscape. Did that guy investigate the bleeds and centers used for label sheets? I have most of the LP info, but 45 info is sketchy - usually 3.875" bleed for a 3.625" trim record (3.875" centers for Atlantic, 4.25" for vinyl 45 labels for Columbia and clients), 3.75" for 3.5" (Columbia styrene labels, set at 3.75" centers) and 3.5625" for 3.3125" (the Capitol standard from 1968-86). Plus at least in 1962, 45 labels on a sheet for clients of the Monarch pressing plant in L.A. was stepped 4" center-to-center. Wonder what was for clients of the Allied pressing plant in Los Angeles (whose 45 labels were styrene, and trimmed 3.5625"), for example, or for 1960's and '70's RCA plants (for LP sheets of which 4.15625" was the bleed for 4" trim, and centered such). And of course I wonder about the bleed and centering for 78 labels.
@@wmbrown6 Again, that is really helpful info. The guy who was a label nerd would walk up to your stand, pull out a record, look at it with a magnifying lens, and start pontificating, sort of like: "This was pressed at xyz plant in NJ in 1973, with abc ink and etc, etc..." I wish now I had taken him more seriously and gotten his contact info - he was a mine of trivia and info about labels, ink, plants and all of that. If I ever run into him again, I will get his contact info. In fact, I'll ask around to some of my friends who run record shows.
i havent come up with a label error as per say but i have come up with a 45 that was pressed a little off center where the audio sounds a little like a dying battery on a portable cassette walkman. wonder how this ever got past someone
It also might have been a single? If so, some singles had no grooves or music on the back side, and often had a label to indicate that. Lots of disco records like that.
Although badly pressed, that ELO single LOOKS lovely!!. You can almost see through it so it looks like a glass of over diluted,weak, blackberry juice!. I think we also had this single (STW) on purple wax over here in UK but our shade was much deeper.Then again it looks like your copy was pressed on Styrene rather than vinyl, something Columbia in the USA was notorious for doing. Styrene, apart from giving inferior reproduction, always has that translucent effect.I never realised though that they used styrene for coloured releases.Over here in UK styrene has never (to my knowledge) been used in record production.
Thank you, Steve. The ELO disc isn't styrene, just regular vinyl. I've found that styrene pressings are stiff and more prone to cracking, and that the labels adhere poorly. Not as quiet as pure vinyl, either.
I have some 45s that have the labels reversed on the record. I’ve got some with the labels off center, the writing off center, and the labels cut incorrectly where the top part of the logo is at the bottom of the label and the bottom part of the logo is at the top of the label. I also have an Atlantic 78 where one side has just a blank reddish orange label. No logo, no writing.
The 78 is pretty rare. Blank labels that somehow were never printed but still made it into the stacks are rare. I think that on the presses - maybe 2 color or 4 color offset presses - sometimes a sheet of paper would just stick to another one and go through the press without being inked, but still go through the circular cutter and leave however many labels there were to a sheet - I'm guessing about 30 - mixed in at random within the stacks to be dried in the drying ovens. If the person at the record making station didn't notice the blank labels - that's how you got one. Some probably were caught in quality control or by astute workers, so the few that got through are quite rare. I have a blank Apple 45 label and a few others.
I wonder how come customers didn't notice these serious mistakes (referring to the offcenter labeling, which even covers the grooves) before purchasing these copies. Another qustion would be whether or not dealers were willing to exchange these bad copies for good ones, or whether or not the customers would be refunded.
I have noticed them, but decided to keep the record instead of trying to trade it back, as have some of my friends. It's just too unusual, so we keep them.
Enjoyed your video. Have never seen you before. I have a 45 from Michael Jackson (Billie Jean) that was labeled backward. I also have a few others similar to what you have. I too find them fascinating. Happy collecting!
Thank you, Wanda. That sounds like a very cool and unique Michael Jackson 45, so congratulations on that find. I keep finding more, and more often now, Lp label errors - some day, another video maybe.
I have a few Jamaican records like the one at 10:10, my solution was to buy a bag of cheap plastic record adapters for the middle, carve the adapter’s middle hole in the direction of the error, then draw an “x” on the adapter where it should rest against the center spindle. (I hope I explained that ok!)
Very interesting video about record pressing mistakes on them 45's. I do have that ELO 45 with center hole out of wack colored vinyl u presented in the video. So much for quality control at the pressing plants allowing that to slip thru.
Great video Sam, technically the records at 8:00 and 9:40 have been pressed correctly but weren't trimmed (8:00) or dinked (9:40) properly, both these processes were done after pressing. Those of us who collect Jamaican vinyl like to seek out correctly pressed 45s for their rarity ;-)
Thank you, Rob - very informative correction. So a freshly pressed record could have been trimmed out of round and gotten very close on one side, and barely trimmed on the other? So it wasnt centered, someow? Must be fairly rare in major commercial plants. And dinking is the term for when a press cuts the big hole? I'd love to see video footage of that. So far, have only seen trimming. Thanks again - and best of luck with finding clean Jamaican 45s...
@@recordsam Hi Sam, check out the video of Capitol records getting pressed at the ARC plant in Scranton in the days of manual presses, you can see records being dinked on a massive flywheel press. I just took another look at this video and they actually dink out tri-centres (like Decca 45s in the UK in the 50s) not full holes, I didn't know you guys did that...!
There is a Canadian pressing of David Lee Roth's Just Like Paradise with a Cher song on the flip side. easiest way to find it is to look at the dead wax, and look at how, i think the 7's and 1's got reversed. because that sure wasn't The Bottom Line by DLR on the flip side. Also, a long time ago. i remember seeing ZZ Top's Legs with a huge chunk of not cut off vinyl on the edge. silly me giving it to an employee working. because i have never seen another record like that in my life.
Something similar happened to an early CD release of Madonna's album "Like A Prayer". Even though the CD said "Like A Prayer" on it, the album on the CD was actually Simply Red's "Men and Women"! Apparently this has happened on quite a few other CDs too.
xav I have a CD like that that’s a Sam & Dave CD masquerading as a Tom Jones CD. I’ve googled many times trying to find record of another one and never have.
does anything like odd labels add value to the record because of the way it was made and as well as if the artists are collectable already i really enjoy your channel and look forward to more videos have a very happy and healthy and prosperous new year be safe and careful out there with the virus
Hi - only in a few cases does a mis-pressed label add value to the record. Usually it only adds a few dollars value and it's just an oddball mistake. If there is very desirable music, say a Beatles tune, on one side, and the label is something completely different, that could have higher value, or if the name is mis-spelled, as in an early Beatles 45 that was spelled "BEATTLES" with two T's, that one is very valuable. There are other replies on this question down below, and check out a few of my other videos on how to find more interesting records. Thanks - I'm hoping to do more videos this year.
Interesting. Why? I guess the printing of the label info was on top of the printed Apple sheet stock. I'm surprised you were able to erase it though, without damage to the Apple image.
This story does not refer to 45's: back in the early 80's a friend of mine bought a copy of Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut". To his surprise, when he got home, side B consisted of 6 Julio Iglesias songs. More shocking still is te fact that the dealers refused neither to exchange this copy nor refund the money.
Hi Wickus - it depends. Usually, there is no real increase in value, as errors are just more of a chance thing. Mis-prints of the name of the group, however, can have great value - the classic example would be an early Beatles 45 on the VeeJay label, I think, that is printed "BEATTLES" with two t's, and there are other such examples where the song that was pressed is wrong, and is a rare version. But in general, label pressing errors don't seem to affect the value of a record too much. They are rare, but don't add much value I'm afraid.
Record man Thanks for the reply. I see. Some LP's, especially have "side 2" on both sides, thus having the same label on both sides with the same songs and everything but the record is pressed fine. A couple of songs I have had been turned into jukebox singles where they aren't supposed to, thus completely cutting of the song title and even the artist. Some of those you have are really bizarre! I couldn't believe that one where the label is completely on the grooves and goes off the single. I wonder how it even escaped the factory haha
Is it possible that some of the labels that had their info cut off around the hole were printed for the UK market (with standard LP sized hole) or they are UK 45's that have been dinked to use in a jukebox? Also I was once told the cause of rough faded labels on one or both sides is if they had not been baked long enough in the label oven.
I think there are more label errors out there than we think. Both top and bottom stampers had to be correct, and both top and bottom labels, that were already pressed into the vinyl pucks, which had to be put in the press with the correct side up. There was ony visual inspection in smaller pressing plants, so lots of pressing errors related to what was on what side were probaby missed.
Wow, that's a very long side for a 45, probably close to a record. I think one of the longest sides was a Dylan tune that they had to break up on two sides, which people didn't like. I think the limit without distortion close to the center is aboiut 6 minutes for a microgroove 45.
Another error I have goes longer than that. Like the Brothers Johnson song, I didn't believe the label but this time it is correct. Only problem is the grooves themselves are not centred, giving it a terrible sound. That's where the error comes in. Anyway, it's Lynyrd Skynrd with Freebird running at 9:08. Yes, it does run at 45rpm. No idea how they managed to get all that audio into seven inches. By the way its a re-issue on the Old Gold label from 1984.
John Tempest wow! That’s the longest I’ve ever heard on a 7” 45. Is the bass shallow? You’ve got me wanting to hunt that down now. Are you sure it’s the grooves that are not centered as opposed to the hole? I used to have several in the ‘80s that had uncentered holes, and got quite good at laying them centered on my turntables without a spindle. They sounded great played that way. Got some funny looks while DJing with them.
It's a UK pressing so has the small hole in the centre. I gave it a spin and it doesn't sound as bad as I remember it. Vinyl in the mid 80's tended to be very thin and that's one of those examples. look at www.45cat.com/record/og9421 and you can see it.
When song titles or record numbers, or even label names are obliterated by the centre spindle hole, it's because the details were printed too close to, or over where the spindle hole is meant to be, owing to sloppy printing practices by the companies printing the labels. The trick is to print the information out toward the edge of the label, not in close to the spindle hole.
I just got in the mail a Dance With Mr. Domino/ Nothing New 45 by Fats Domino, and when I played it, the labels were each on the wrong side of the record. It seems like this might happen often, but of my thousands of 45's, this is the only one I know of in my collection.
Yes, it did happen, usually when they were changing over to the next stamper probably, or if a label was on the wrong pile, top or bottom, that sort of thing. They are pretty rare.
So are these worth anything to collectors ? I have a 45 by The Lemon Pipers "Green Tambourine" and on the B side the title is "No Help From Me". But it plays Green Tambourine on both sides.
Sorry, but probably only to a hardcore, completist collector of that group or genre. In general, only a few label errors are valuable to collectors - errors like "The Beattles" spelled with two T's, that sort of thing. Pressing errors related to the songs and sides, pretty much the same thing - of value to a very specific collector only.
Yes, it makes one wonder if they used to do drug screening for record plant employees - I'm guessing not much. It was probably a noisy, boring job, too...so the attention to detail wandered.
I have The Beatles White Album. 3 sides can be listened to without any problems. The 4th side, the record was cut so badly you can not enjoy the music recorded on it.
Record Man I'm sure you have this error but just in case, Bob Dylan on Columbia Label put out "Positively 4th Street" I believe in 1966...i purchased this 45 from the local WT. Grant company who sold 45's. Bringing the record home I was so upset cause another song was playing instead of 4th Street!! I took the 45 back and wanted an exchange , they exchanged it and STILL this unknown song was actually playing. Don't recall how many times i kept bringing the 45 back for an exchange, to finally get the correct tune!! I believe "Pledging My Time" was on the "B" side.
Tunz909 I have a Tom Jones CD that is actually a Sam & Dave CD. I finally managed to figure out exactly what Sam & Dave CD it is by finding its runout number on Discogs.
You should have kept a mis-pressed copy, in this case! The earliest releases of that 45 were mis-pressed and had "Can you Please Crawl out Your Window" on the A-side, instead of "Positively 4th Street." The B-side was "From a Buick 6" as it was printed on the picture sleeve. In the case of that particular label error/mis-pressing, the error copies are worth a lot more than the corrected copym about $100 more. Go back to the store (haha) - maybe they still have some of those copies you returned... you wish!
@@recordsam Yea, well as a 14 year old i hardly had the foresight to KNOW what we all know now about collectables!!LOL...yes but thanks for reminding me of what the "A" side was I do remember that title now!! Yes B side from a Buick 6!! But I'm going to check my 45's and maybe i do have that mislabeled 45 along with the corrected one!! Happy to find your channel records are a passion for me..in fact in my retirement I'm trying to secure employment as a part time oldies DJ on an oldies station in my neck of the woods!!!
@@recordsam - Such "wrong" copies were generally pressed in Terre Haute and Santa Maria. I have one of the earliest Pitman copies with the "right" song on the A side. But then, Dylan was in that "phase" where often the lyrics and song titles didn't match. Those with the "wrong" song, as I observed, were cut on an early 1960's Scully 601 lathe (earliest known use at Columbia studios 1961) with a 2 pitch lead-out groove; "right" copies were cut on an ancient Scully 501 which lasted up to the summer of 1966 when they moved their main editing, mastering and lacquer cutting facilities from 799 Seventh Avenue to 49 East 52nd Street. But the version of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window" erroneously ish'd on that record was not the same recording as was "properly" put out as his very next single.
Bought a beautiful restored original 1949 or 1950 RCA EY-2 45 Record Changer last year from a seller on eBay. Of course, even though I'm a CD collector with all my favorite music (Philles and Motown) on CDs remastered from the master tapes, I had to buy a bunch of Near Mint 45s to play on my new toy! It would be an understatement to say that, between the record changer and a few hundred new 45s, I've spent a small fortune on eBay, but I don't care. I love it, and I'm glad I have something I enjoy to show for it. For the most part, I've had good luck with records not being pressed incorrectly nor off-center which would have driven me crazy. Only a few weeks ago, however, I ordered an expensive NM copy of a very early Supremes Motown 45 -- "Your Heart Belongs To Me". Unfortunately, although the A-side and B-side play the correct music, the B-side label -- ("He's) Seventeen" -- is incorrectly stamped on both sides of the record which drives me nuts! What's worse, the copy the seller sent me is NOT the same copy pictured in the eBay ad which inspired me to buy it, as that photo showed the correct label copy for "Your Heart Belongs To Me". It makes me cringe every time I look at it. I had no idea that some collectors such as yourself enjoy collecting such errors. Maybe I won't feel quite so upset now. I'll think of you instead! I really enjoyed your video and look forward to checking out your other videos as well!
Thank you, Gary! That's a keeper, for sure. I enjoy collecting the errors as much as the standard stock stuff. It's always amazing to me how many things can go wrong in a factory, and how many oddball recordings with the wrong music or label actually get out to the public. I hope to be making some new videos in the new year.
@@recordsam Yes, Sir! And you can really crank 'em, too! It's amazing how much volume these newly-restored old 3-tube players have! They're like mini-powerhouses!
I actually had the copy of the Prince "Purple Rain" 45 rpm you presented in this video. I do not know what happened to it, but, I cannot find it. I remember buying it at Harbor Records in Charleston, SC when I was a kid. Purple vinyl, etc. I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I could have lost it. I've been looking for it for years.
@@recordsam not gonna happen....I've had more than a few records stolen from me...including The Police" first album and a couple of others. I forgive them, for they know not what they did.
We have the Prince Purple Rain 45 that you showed. Nice presentation; some of those were really messed up. We also have a few one-sided 45s---no grooves on one side, and the label says play other side, and they have small holes like an LP. They were cheap---like 79 cents. One is Down Under by Men at Work, and the other is Sara by Starship.
Those are unusual too, probably promos of some kind or British pressings, OR they are actually pressed to play at 33 rpm, which was a short-lived fashion with a few labels. They pressed 7 inch discs that played at 33, and they had the small hole - some were for jukebox use, some for the general market. Some of those 7" discs are rare and collectible, it depends on the artist.
The one by Men At Work was a series that CBS Records had started, where you could buy only the hit for half the cost of a then current single. I have a couple myself.
I had a 1971 Decca record The Who,s Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy. Where the label one side one was torn off on one side ruining the last seconds of the song,The Seeker.
I got a 45 of three dog night that has the label with the song “one” labeled as chest fever and chest fever labeled as the song one. They had the labels reversed.
I have a label error 45 you'd get a kick out of. RCA 5094-7-R (taken from the good side) "The Judds" "Don't be cruel" with the error sides song "The Sweetest Gift"...The error side has 2 labels: the bottom is nearly centered, but the one on top of it is badly off-center to the point that it intrudes into the last ~1/8" of the audio track. The two labels line up so the RCA "nipper" dog on the bottom label is listening to a victrola horn that seems to be emanating from the butt of the nipper on the top label! BTW: I think you are mixing up "dead wax" the normally* silent inner runout groove used to trip record changers**, and "lost wax" which is a metal casting process in which a wax replica of the part you wish to make is packed in sand or clay or similar and molten metal is poured onto the wax vaporizing it and allowing the metal to take the wax's place in the packed sand. *There are cases, most notably a Beatles single (the name escapes me right now), where the entire runout groove had audio recorded in it. **Like the RCA RP-168 phono mechanism that launched with the 45RPM format.
Hi Tom - that sounds like a really funny treasure, and I wish I could see a picture of it. That's one for the museum of errors if there ever is one - maybe someone will create a virtual one. For the terms "dead wax" and "lost wax" I've heard both in use, but maybe "dead wax" is more common. I do know the lost wax process, and I used to cast in bronze ages ago in art school. In any case, it's a relic as terminology goes, and I don't think hard wax was ever in use for flat, lateral or even vertical groove records. I think hard wax hasn't been in use since the early days of the Edison cylinder. Someone could do a long youtube video just on the dead wax, there are so many interesting things that have been engraved in there over the years, and all kinds of funky tricks played on the listener. It's fascinating little bit of real estate for the engineer to mess around with, and they have put all sorts of messages in there in addition to matrix numbers - and there are plenty of errors in there too! Thanks for the comment.
Although not 45,but I have a Cameo record from I think maybe 1925, or a short time later the title is "Gone", the same label is on both sides,however,the songs are different,just thought I would mention it
Thank you, Daniel. Yes, even then they made mistakes with labels, but not as many as with the mass production of 45's and Lp's, I believe. I have found very few errors on my 78's.
But my British Parlophone Beatles 45's (yellow logo on black paper, knockout center still in) are printed labels, clearly pressed as paper onto the discs. Curious. I'll have to look at more French and British discs.
I have a Columbia 45-RPM set (album) of 4 records from the early 1950's I'll See You in my Dreams by Doris Day. One side of one of the records is labeled "Ain't We Got Fun" but it plays as "My Buddy" (which is also on another record in the set. So the set has 2 X My Buddy and no Ain't We Got Fun.
I guess Quality Control was on vacation during the pressing of these. Some are OK but those last few were the record is unplayable would have been embarrassing if I was in charge of production and found that big of a mistake.
Yes, those last few examples were exceptional. Records were obviously not visually inspected as they once were, at least according to some of the film footage of the fifties documentaries on record production.
I had a few albums in which 2 labels were stuck on one side. The outer label was wrinkled. I had to cut the wrinkled label out with an Xacto knife. Revealing the smooth label underneath.
Yes, that's one of the more common pressing errors, two labels on one side and the top one wrinkled. With care, the bottom one can be revealed cleanly, but not always.
@@recordsam - That's one way I found out about the type of papers used for center labels. How the colors are distributed are another, if 4-color. For example, from about 1973 until the end in late 1975, Apple LP and 45 label backdrops were printed by different companies, all of which had a different look to them: - East Coast: Keystone Printed Specialties Co., Inc., Scranton, PA (the more normal-looking of the bunch, relatively speaking; used on Winchester, VA pressings) - Midwest: Artco Press, Inc., Terre Haute, IN (used on Jacksonville pressings; too much black on the 45 labels if you saw any singles pressed by them in the last year of Apple's existence) - West Coast: Stoughton Printing Co., City of Industry, CA (used on Los Angeles pressings; those labels didn't have much blue in the ink, or if they used it it was too light to count, and was far more yellowish)
@@wmbrown6 I've heard of those three pressing plants, and I think there were many more, indeed. My father used to run a 4-color offset Heidelberg press, but his company never printed labels or slicks or anything for record companies. I used to work there sometimes in the summer, and I noticed that reams of paper could vary in quality quite a bit, with slightly different color paper in whole sections, within the ream. Also, if the reams were not "fluffed" well (worked at the sides, stamped up an down, almost shuffled) sheets could stick together, and errors would come into a book, or whatever was being printed.
@@recordsam - Oh there were more all right, this is just a snapshot sample of which companies printed labels for the "in-DUST-ry" (as Dick Clark would pronounce it). Bert-Co was another label blank printer.
7:19 Polygram in the U.K.(as Phonogram in those far off early 1970s days) would emboss the details into the vinyl, then add a thin layer of coloured paint or ink to the surface of the label area. They were successful, but CBS stuffed up by forgetting to apply the coloured paint or ink.
@@recordsam Those that were hard to read missed the thin layer of paint or ink that was applied. The paint or ink layer had to be applied so that it did not sink into where the embossedlettering of label details were(title, composer credits, catalogue number, matrix number, publishing credits, etc.).
I once had a record like that where the silver paint had actually dripped into the groove area. It was very thin though, so the record was still playable.
@@Tomsonic41 Sloppy printing! The silver, blue or red ink(usual colours) were meant to be lightly applied as all the printed info was embossed into the surface in the label area and the paint or ink was not meant to flow into the lettering. Could've been worse though. I once had an American-issue copy of Oscar Toney Jr.'s "For Your Precious Love"/"Ain't That True Love" on the Bell label from 1967. I made the mistake of using a spray-can of record cleaner on the record, accidentally going across the label area and.... you guessed it.... the label was smudged. The old Bell/Amy/Mala Group used to print their labels directly onto the vinyl until about 1969.
That's an error I don't think I've seen - having the speed printed wrong on the label. But I didn't cover 12" discs - I am preparing to do a video on those, and 12" singles might be in there.
As someone who works at a record factory that Bob Seger one had me laughing so hard. I see that happen at times and we throw those out. QC didn’t really exist back in the day
@@recordsam well we don't press 45s here so I'm not sure how that works but we do dink failed records to get the labels out so we can grind up what's left and reuse it. I wish I knew how 45s were pressed these days, I've only seen pictures of how they did it back in the day
@@patrickglass6266 OK Patrick, thanks. Still looking for a good video of the whole 45 labeling/pressing and then dinking sequence. Too bad you guys throw out the wacky ones! I'd keep them if it was allowed. Lots of laughs...
I have a Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit 45 that has a blank label. It does have the RCA logo, but nothing else. The other side has a good label of Sombody to Love. Will sell it if somebody is interested.
These label errors show just how sloppy and incompetent American record companies can be by allowing their product to be processed by outside organisations(pressing plants) instead of doing their own pressing and distribution. In Britain, the odd label mistake may occur(A side put on B side of disc and vice-versa) but NOTHING so drastic or UTTERLY INCOMPETENT as off-centre labels or discs with off-centred spindle holes!
Yes, we're not known for competence in some areas of manufacturing, although in general, quality and consistency has to be quite high. I have a feeling that many of these errors occured during the sleepy night shifts... which is also when a lot of bootleg material was pressed, one-off colored discs, and so on.
What do you mean by "lost wax"? The British have been pressing their records with the label info pressed directly into the vinyl of the label area for decades. There's nothing at all strange about having each side given a different name. We did our first album with side 1 being called, "Side Fuck You" and the other being called "Side Pay Me!" another of our records had Side Uptown and Side Downtown. My neighbor has an old 20th Fox single (Dickie Goodman's "Senate Hearing" if I remember correctly) that has the lame label design on each side but one has a silver ring around the outer edge and the other side has a gold ring. Seems to me he's got another single that has two completely different label designs on the same record, too. Sort of like having the yellow Bang label on one side and the blue Bang label on the other. In fact, I just got a strange one last week! Its by Dora Hall and ot has the Reinbeau label on one side and the Penmore (I think) label on the other. I also have a break-in from the `70's where both labels are gold but the label on one side says it's on Poly-T records and the flip side say it's on Leerick records! I've also got a few singles where one side is at 45 and the other is 33. At least one that plays normally on one side and the other plays from the inside out. I don't have one, but I've heard of a record that plays normal half way in but the other half of that side ha to be played from the inside out and they just meet at the dead groove in the middle of the side. Then there's one that plays inside out on one side and has two concentric grooves on the other. About 30 years ago, Rhino re-issued the Henny Youngman album so that it had 8 concentric grooves on each side. There's a Prince 12' single that has a huge label on each side (at least 5", if not 7").
The case I am talking about is when there is only one label per side, but it seems very rough underneath on one side, but smooth underneath on the other side. I think it has to do with the vinyl pellets or with a label not being dry, or even rough paper stock when it was printed. It's not much of an "error" at all, just a mystery to me.
Check out my other recent series on how to find better records under "Record Finding advice" or ru-vid.com?search_query=record+finding+advice+-+don%27t+miss+these
The most common error I have in my 45 collection is when the record is pressed off balance and the arm moves from left to right when I play it. The record moves normal but the grooves are off balance
Hi Chris. I think that's what is called a "dinking error" - if the record center hole is even very slightly out of center, the needle will not stay straight, but move side to side, as that is what the off-center grooves are forcing it to do. It can still play and even sound mostly ok if the center is not too far off. Fortunately, this error was rare.
@@recordsam yeah I have a very large 45 collection. And I have a good bit of 45s thats like that. It really doesn't affect the play that bad, but it is noticeable
You made a mistake when you said Loudon Wainwright III is a soul singer! Also, regarding that odd Columbia label: It seems that Columbia used the same plant that Bell/Amy/Mala used in the 60s and early 70s.
Hi Platterjockey - if you listen again, you will see that I don't say that Loudon Wainwright is a soul singer, but that the music on the record with the Wainwright label IS soul music, and not Wainwright, but by someone I have not yet been able to identify. Definitely not Wainwright, nor the song on the label, because I did find the record with that music and label, and it;s very different. If it is true that Columbia used the same plant that Bell/Amy/Mala used, that would be quite a shock. They had their own plants, and I think they only experimented with that pressing-label technique for a little while. Someone else commented that this technology or way of doing labels was more common in Great Britain. It goes all the way back to Berliner and Edison, to do the pressing of the grooves and the label/matrix info all at once, with no paper label.
@@recordsam - Probably was Pitman, and with the same tools and dies as used on Bestway pressings with "painted on" labels as up to 1971. Up to the closure of the Bridgeport, CT plant in 1964, commercial and promo 45's from Pitman were all vinyl; most styrene 45's pressed on the East Coast came from Bridgeport until then. On 7" 33⅓ RPM styrene pressings from the earliest months of Pitman turning them out in '64, their die cut center holes were 0.281" rather than the customary 0.344" for styrene 7" 'ers issued in that format. (Styrene 45's usually had no hole cut out of the label, given how such records would be 'dinked'.) Obviously, if it was an experiment, it didn't turn out too well. But Britain didn't adopt their technique in that vein until 1971-72. France had it as early as 1968.
That's one of the most common errors, apparently. It's just human error at the pressing station, either putting the wrong stampers on top and bottom (much less likely), or putting the paper labels on in the wrong order.
