This is very interesting as I had aways taken his indications about DG on one side only to be true… Whereas my own experience was that after a certain point the presence of the DG seemed to be irrelevant as to the authenticity or not of an original first pressing.

One day when I have time, i would love to create a simple editable wiki where users can post any information about any album they can think of. I think it would be as simple as how jazzdisco.com catalogs sessions except instead of session info you have pressing info which is open for anyone to edit. One day… But for now, this site is invaluable, I just search and find, there is so much information here.

“For later titles, say Song for My Father or The Sidewinder, getting a dg copy is very, very satisfying from a collecting standpoint. It is preferable to the good old, garden variety modern NO DG with P copy.”

I have a relatively new interest in Blue Note originals and I just wanted to share an experience of mine. I recently acquired both stereo and mono pressings of Lee Morgan’s “The Sidewinder”. Both are New York USA labels with the “P” (I have Cohen’s book), and the mono is deep groove but the stereo is not. The stereo, however, weighs a solid 170 grams, while the mono is a wimpy 130. For me, the non-deep groove pressing is the more satisfying of the two (mono vs. stereo arguments aside), for the deep groove in my mind is usually a compliment to a thick, sturdy piece of wax.

In the Blue Note originals book, Cohen writes:

“After a certain point, it can never truly be known whether similar pressings for the same record, whose only difference is the presence or absence of a deep groove on one, both, or neither labels, is actually the original *first* pressing. But since collectors have a natural bias for any detail that suggests an early or original issue, the presence of a deep-groove has been treated in this guide as an indication of an original, but *only* an indication.”

The historic case of the copy of “Undercurrent” with a review stamp and no deep groove is the perfect evidence for the argument that deep grooves cannot indicate an original pressing after 4058. It makes sense that, as Cohen indicates in his book, the center of the stamper was insignificant and used without paying attention to whether or not it had a raised rim to create the deep-groove. It’s cool, but all sonic things equal, I’d rather have a sturdy piece of wax.

(Mattyman, you could certainly curate the official “Jazz Collector Archive” with all that great reference info you have saved over the years… Great work !)