Quote:
Originally Posted by Raime
I get there's hundreds of pressings, but aren't there catalog numbers that will help narrow it down? I'm sure there's dedicated groups online that also help with that as well. For years of heard tales of mean, clueless people coming into stores looking to get rid of their Beatles records thinking they're worth a lot. Then again, I'm not a Beatles fan.
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Cat#'s are associated with the country of release for a particular label. For example, Dark Side of the Moon Cat# is SMAS-11163 for the US pressing on Harvest. That number alone however spans decades of reissues and represses. You have so many variants with these albums from Pink Floyd or the Beatles that using a Cat# alone yields you pretty much nothing. Pressing plant info which is found in the matrix numbers, coupled with Cover and Label changes throughout the years of reissuing the album is used to determine what "pressing" you have.
Sometimes the difference between an album made in 1968 and an album made in 1973, five years later, is an extra number or letter in the deadwax or an added address on the back corner of a sleeve.
I have researched THOUSANDS of Beatles records over the years and still consider myself a novice at recognizing what is what by eye. You could honestly have a full scale college course of information on identifying Beatles records.
Records are not like books which have unique ISBN numbers. Records are f*cking stupid. Sh*t, even barcodes are unchanged from reissue to reissue.