wrong pressings

[owner2]

I've just bought Kate Rusby's new cd and discovered on playing it that it's a wrong pressing-it's actually ' Ibiza-the history of chillout '. So how common are wrong pressings? do people return them or hold on to them in case they become valuable? why do they happen and has anyone ever got a more incongruous one than my example?Several questions I know but feel free to answer any of them.

[shybearuk]

I got one once. I was buying the CD single of a Tasmin Archer song, I think it was Lords of the New Church. When I got it home and played it, it was some Cliff Richard song. Returned it and got another copy. Same thing. Third time, the same. Eventually, the shop ordered a new batch. At the time I didn;t even think about holding onto it. Shame really. COuld've been worth something... Probably not though, eh?

[sft42]

Ok questions answered in order...rarity of mis-pressings....not that rare really but most get caught (or at least should do) by quality control...when you consider that every monday around 200-250 singles are released you get an idea of the volume going through producing plants so mistakes are bound to be made........Most people return them as they want the record that they wanted to buy in the first place and this is what sometimes lends to the rarity value of a mis-labeled record (though it of course depends on the artists involved)....it's mostly just avid record collectors and people who might like the new record they have discovered that will hold onto it......As for why it happens it used to be simply because someone had forgot to clear out of the machine the labels that were stuck onto the centre of the 7" of vinyl....these days I suspect it someone not hitting the proper keys on a computer and a batch is churned out with a new song and an old label (or vice versa)....As for notable ones I have had loads in my time as I used to DJ and was forever getting wrong 'uns but I can't seem to recall anybody famous or anything that charted big being like this...might be worth a hoak through the old record collection just to see though eh?

[Lennon]

Basically, when a CD is pressed, a 'stamper' is put into a machine which has the info/songs and each CD is pressed into that stamper to make an exact copy. So if a whole batch is wrong, usually its because someone has put the wrong stamper in, or has forgotten to change the last stamper over from the previous job. When you get the odd one or two that are wrong, its usually during printing. When a CD is about to be printed, they test the 'onbody' (which is the pattern/design colours) on scrap discs left over from the previous job to make sure they get the colour codes right and it matches the spec. Sometimes these scrap test discs don't get removed properly and some are left in there - as they have the correct onbody, they can be mistaken for the correct CD. Hope that makes sense and helps a lot.

[BadBob]

I purchased Kajagoogoo's greatest hits and it was actually some Jazz CD. Lucky escape some might say

[Greedyfly]

I work in a music store and it isn't very very rare - we often get batch faults wheter it'd be worth anything im not sure. I know that 'big/major' artistes such as Sinatra, Metallica etc... Would probably be worth keeping hold of.

[Nelli]

I once bought Sam Browns -STOP and it played Black - Wonderful Life!!!! (it was the late eighties!!!)

[Lennon]

Forgot to add that the worse one I heard of was a Ministry of Sound double album which had one correct CD and one CD of .....wait for it....The Tweenies!! Classic! :)