“Fred’s point is that for collectors when there is an older or original technology or version that would be preferable, even in the case of a “tie”. A perfect example is his sale last week on eBay of a copy of Undercurrent by Kenny Drew, BLP 4059. It is always an interesting title since it does not exist with the dg on both sides (apart from a Plastylite test pressing I guess, but I mean a real copy with actual Blue Note blue & white labels on it).

Fred of course lists the DG-one side as the original. But he is consistent –in his auction he did not call his copy an original because it had no dg at all, even though it had the Plastylite P stamped in the vinyl runoff. I looked at his copy in the store before he sent it off to the winner (who paid some weird amount like $1200) and it had “REVIEW COPY” stamped on the label on Side B, as well as on the back of the jacket.

In my research that “REVIEW COPY” stamp would be just the evidence I was looking for to prove that this copy of 4059 was indeed a first pressing original. It would support my theory that when the new technology was introduced it was applied to new releases, with the older repressings getting second class citizen (or more accurately random, anything will do) treatment. So I would argue that the NO DG with P copies of 4059 are the originals and the dg-1 side copies are random second pressings. Of course, the no P copies are reissues dating from 1966 or 1967, 5 or 6 years after the record was released.

But I see Fred’s point. 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. That is his point-of-view and he is honest enough to even go by it when he is selling something.

Larry”

*Thanks again for all your input on this one Larry ! Greatly appreciated as always.

Plating
The plater coats each acetate with a thin layer of silver which is then electro-plated with nickel. When this plate is separated from the acetate, the metal that was facing the disk now has protruding ridges where the grooves were. This plate is called the father or master plate. The acetate disk usually gets destroyed in this process.

The father plate is oxidized, and plated again. The resulting plate, when separated from the father, becomes a metal duplicate of the acetate, with grooves again. This plate is called the mother plate and can be played on a turntable to check for errors in mastering or plating. Like acetates, mothers and fathers also come in one-sided pairs.

In a two step process, the father plate is converted into a stamper, and the mother is shelved for future use. In a three step process, the mother is oxidized and plated to make stamper plates. One father can produce 10 mothers, and one mother can produce 10 stampers. *One stamper can produce about 1000 vinyl records. Therefore, a two step process can produce a maximum of about 11,000 records before a remastering has to be done, and a three step process can produce up to about 100,000 vinyl records before remastering.

(The plating section was written almost 100% by Paul W. Brekus, master engineer at Aardvark Record Mastering in Denver, CO. Please see Aardvark for Paul’s excellent “The Record Making Process” summary.)

*Maybe the 1000 per stamper has improved since the Blue Notes were made and it could have been a lesser count for the Blue Notes