Last updated: July 7, 2023
This overview is primarily about vinyl pressing plants in the ’50s and ’60s which were significant players in the manufacture of jazz records. Beatles, Northern Soul, Rock and other genres are amply covered by other collecting authorities.
Runout Stamps/ etchings and centre labels
Some US pressing plants have clear unambiguous stamps. Others can be identified only through a combination of runout detail and proprietary fonts on centre labels, linked to various makes of typesetting machines used by their local print supplier.
Other Reference Sources
FIPRESS (defunct)
The original FiPres.com collection is no longer available on-line, preserved here, and offers a good number of non-alphanumeric symbols. Well-intentioned, it is not quite as forensic as I would like, but it provides a quick visual starting point for major pressing plants. Other sources are required for mastering/cutting engineers.
DISCOGS FORUM Common Runout Groove Etchings
Master List of Runout Information – Version 6
Best source for engineers. Technically detailed, exhaustive – 40 pages in alphabetic sequence of etching, includes many obscure etchings not listed elsewhere. Coverage largely rock and pop engineers, jazz in amongst them, some photographic links.
CHRISTMACHINE
Largely textual descriptions but contains occasional links to photographic samples held on photo-hosting sites
http://www.christmachine.com/tag/dead-wax/
LJC: REAL WORLD PHOTOGRAPHIC EXAMPLES
Mostly my own LPs, macros, click on to enlarge to full screen, no rubbish blurred ebay snaps.
Abbey Manufacturing Co. Inc., 1 Central Avenue, E Newark, New Jersey
Long-term pressing plant for Prestige Records and some other labels. AB hand-etched usually at or near 12 o’clock position, sometimes near or under the label edge
The AB appears initially as a pressed or drilled stamp, but later is found as hand-etched initials. Other forensic characteristics of early Abbey pressings is deep groove, and a small circular pressing ring around the spindle hole mostly though not always on Side Two.
Abbey Mfg central pressing ring, one side only, usually Side B but occasionally Side A, perhaps 10%.
All Disk, Roselle, New Jersey
Independent New Jersey plant until purchased by Liberty Records in mid-1966. As noted in Billboard announcements, All Disc had twenty press capacity at the time of acquisition, and new owner Liberty commissioned an additional four presses later in 1966. All Disc had no formal signs or symbols to distinguish its pressings, so identification is confirmed through label type-setting.
All Disc repressed a significant proportion of Blue Note reissues using Van Gelder master originated fresh metal stampers without the Plastylite stamp. Vinyl weight was similar to Plastylite, at around 160gm.
Paper labels were supplied to both original Blue Note Plastylite and Liberty All Disc Records by the same printer, Keystone Printed Specialties, Scranton PA., who long held Blue Note label templates, and offered continuity in quality paper and inks. The labels have artist and album title set in Intertype Vogue Bold. (“Side 1” in proper upper and lower case, 1 straight vertical no serif) and well-formed ® registration mark – the ink didn’t bleed into adjoining paper fibres, and was given sufficient drying time – quality!
Keystone-printed label. Title, artist and catalogue number set in Intertype Vogue. (Overlay text added for font comparison.) Note title-specific text ink color is cyan-leaning and differs from the blank template azure blue.
Keystone labels distinguish East Coast Liberty pressings from those manufactured on the West Coast, printed by Bert-Co and pressed by Research Craft LA. Liberty Blue Note back-catalogue reissues were remastered locally from copy tape, mostly not from Van Gelder master. New titles were mostly Van Gelder masters both East and West Coast. Bert-Co labels are all one colour ink, as the corporate template and album detail were printed in one pass.
Bell Sound, New York
Bell Sound was an unusual end-to-end complete service, from studio recording, to mastering and pressing. Often includes “sf” engineer Sam Feldman initials.
Bell Sound; sf – engineer Sam Feldman
In its 1968 Bell Sound Report in Billboard, Bell Sound proudly boasted to be the first fully-transistorised studio. Oh dear…
Bestway, NJ
Bestway Products, 1125 Globe Ave., Mountainside, New Jersey.
Founded 1945 by Al Massler, Stamp is easily identified, as it says “Bestway”.
WB says: used paper labels from Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Progressive Label Co., manufacturer of die cut label specialities that operated in Brooklyn, New York from the 1920s until the 1980s
Capitol Records
Major player who had plants located east and west coast with different markings.
Scranton, PA – the anvil symbol.
In use 1949 to 1963. Note: for ten weeks, late June until early September 1959, Capitol’s Scranton plant was on strike and Capitol pressings farmed out to other plants.
After 1963 the anvil was replaced by a union symbol, International Association of Machinists
Los Angeles – the star symbol
The pressing stamp resembles a star [for Hollywood] which evolved from a five pointed star (☆) to a six pointed star (✲) and circa 1965 began appearing as a basic asterisk.
Capitol also prepared metal for other plants, who undertook the actual pressing, such as RCA Hollywood, so it is possible to find different organisation’s markings on the same record.
COLUMBIA
Complex national operation of up to five plants at any one time, finally reducing down to three:
Columbia Bridgeport Conn. 1473 Barnum Avenue, Bridgeport, CT 06610 Founded in 1934 active until 1964, replaced by Pitman.
Hollywood Alden Drive, replaced by Santa Maria
WB: It was in late March, 1964, that Columbia shut down its Bridgeport plant, transferring all East Coast pressing activities to their newer Pitman, NJ plant that first went into operation in May 1961, closed in March 1981;
The label typesetting associated with Bridgeport would also go to Pitman, though on Columbia, Epic and subsidiary releases, the Linotype fonts would not really reappear on a regular basis until summer 1965. The Pitman plant ceased manufacturing vinyl in 1986-87
Bridgeport and later Pitman used paper labels with Artist, Title and Track names set in Linotype Erbar LT Bold Condensed – shown below is a 1959 KoB promo (with Erbar Light Condensed for comparison). This font set distinguishes Bridgeport/Pitman pressings from those at other Columbia Plants, where other fonts were in use.
WB: “Many have erroneously cited the code “CT” as signifying the Bridgeport plant when, in fact, it was a code for Columbia’s Terre Haute, IN plant (as was ‘CTH’). Back when Columbia was pressing records in Bridgeport, the common abbreviation for the state was ‘Conn.’; ‘CT’ was not used as a state abbreviation until starting in the later 1970’s;
Thereafter, all East Coast pressing was transferred to Pitman, NJ which began some pressing late 1960 and became more fully operational by May 1961. A Billboard article from September of 1963 noted that Columbia was phasing out pressing operations in Bridgeport. Given when the plant finally closed, this wind-down took six months.
At about the same time Bridgeport ended pressing operations, they also shut down a West Coast plant in Hollywood, CA (on Alden Drive) after a newer plant in Santa Maria, CA (which opened some time in late 1963 and would close in 1981) reached 100% online status in terms of pressing.
Thus, for a time in the late 1963/early ’64 period, Columbia operated five plants across the country”.
The old Columbia Hollywood Alden Drive plant signature is a hand-etched letter H
Pressings at Terre Haute commonly have a letter “T” hand etched or stamped in the run-out, and in some cases a mother code (A B and C have been seen) and here a stamper count five-bar gate identifier.
Santa Maria plant pressings reportedly carry a letter S in the run out.
Though the subject is contentious, Columbia cut multiple lacquers “simultaneously” – some say “on the same day”, and distributed multiple copies of these lacquers to plants nationally, who used them to manufacture metal parts locally (Customatrix Division). This system ensured equal quality pressings between manufacturing locations, hence it is not especially important which plant pressed a Columbia recording.
The presence of Columbia pressing plant etchings is inconsistent. Around half the Columbia records in my collection have no visible plant indicator, merely the matrix code, and some an etched five-bar gate style stamper count. Columbia’s system for managing matrix code allocation across multiple sites is a subject in its own right (see Kind of Blue Case Study).
H.V. Waddell, Burbank California Hand etch “W”
Vinyl pressing plant founded by Horace V. Waddell and located in Burbank, California, began operations in 1953, and closed in the mid-80s. The “W” is written in line with the matrix code, not to be confused with the sideways “W” three dots above one below that was used by Audiodisk on their blank acetates.
A plant associated with MGM and Verve, Waddell were also used among others to press some of United Artists Blue Note special replica series between 1972-3. The distinctive “double ring” outer pressing die marks are found on many Waddell pressings in these two years.
Two outer pressing rings, unique to HV Waddell 1972/3
Keel Mfg., Hauppage, Long Island
Believed to be the source of serrated pressings, though the evidence is circumstantial, and based on only one Discogs entry.
Keel was associated with the mass merchandising Pickwick International, but had a large number of presses and some spare capacity used to advantage in the pressing boom of the mid to late ’60s.
MGM Record Manufacturing Division, Bloomfield, New Jersey
Several different runout stamps are credited to MGM Bloomfield, possibly each at a different period of time:
1 The Ankh – early 60s
Contract pressing for Atlantic, 1960s. MGM’s signature is that Rune-like symbol, ghostly spirit rising, or if you prefer, ice-cream cone with sign bar. It is often associated with the hand-etched letter “M”, which also might be “W” signature used by H,V, Waddell, Burbank California, or the W with dots above and below, signature of a blank acetate supplied by Audiodisk.
2. The “Fat Z or lazy S” – mid to later 60s Seen here on a Riverside pressing from 1967-8
WB: MGM labels typeset by a New York City printer, Pace Press, Inc., which had a relationship to the MGM film studio dating to the 1930’s Their printing labels for MGM began with the startup of the record label in early 1947, and lasted a year past the closure of the label’s Bloomfield, NJ plant .
Plastylite Corporation, 333 North Drive, North Plainfield, New Jersey
Blue Note pressings (and some other labels) up until 1966.
The Plastylite ear symbol was applied via stampers i.e. they do not appear on the acetate or other intermediate metal parts. Stampers were manufactured from a mother in small batches, and the ear position is closely similar on stampers of that batch. Periodically, to press more vinyl copies, fresh stampers were manufactured, which featured the ear stamp applied in a different position, again, similarly but not identically positioned on each stamper of the batch.
The ear stamp was applied purposively – it never landed accidentally on the Van Gelder stamp or catalogue matrix code, which were a feature of the original acetate. The ear appears in a number of different positions on pressings of each title, which reflect the chronology of vinyl production from the original pressing to the various repressings over the decade of Blue Note ownership up to 1966.
Every Blue Note title pressed and repressed by Plastylite will have a fixed number of ear-position variations. These observations are the result of a crowd-sourced empirical study of BLP 1539 (n=40) by LondonJazzCollector June 2023
Paper centre labels were printed by Keystone Printed Specialties, Scranton PA, typeset on Intertype line-casting machines, artist and album titles set in Intertype Vogue Bold.
Some variations of the Vogue font set use a conventional “W” and not the double overlapping V illustrated above. The font is most easily identified by the elongated horizontal in the letter “G”, and the “1” has no serif, just a simple vertical.
Plastylite was still functioning for some years later but never really recovered from the loss of the Blue Note relationship, fate unknown.
Presswell, Ancora NJ
Vinyl manufacturing plant, Ancora New Jersey, founded 1958, closed in the 1990s.
Presswell Records Manufacturing Company
Whitehorse Pike & Ehrke Rd.
Ancora (Winslow TWP), NJ 08095
USA
Above – Atlantic contract pressing. Known to have made metal parts for Research Craft and Monarch Record Mfg. Co..
Info and photo’s courtesy of Discogs
One of a number of plants pressing for Atlantic in the Late ’60s and early ’70s. Atlantic’s business model, unlike some other majors, did not include owning their own pressing plants, but sourced manufacture through various third parties.
Research Craft, L.A.
This west coast plant had no formal run-out stamp or etching, but for a period of time probably early’60s, had Gruve-guard thin/thick rim type registered patent references in the run-out.
A Research Craft pressing of Blue Note can best be identified by the font sets used to print the labels. Research Craft paper labels were sourced from Hollywood giant Bert Co., who used Linotype line-casting machines, with artist and album titles set mostly in only capitals from Linotype Spartan Medium, readily identifiable by its serif-capped number “1” and “SIDE” in capitals. (note, later in the 60s some font design changes changed the Bert-Co number 1 to no serif)
Purchased by Liberty in 1965, it was responsible for west coast pressing of Blue Note back catalogue reissues, which they remastered from copy tape, not using Van Gelder original metal. As always, with a few exceptions. Liberty Blue Note new titles however were generally pressed by Research Craft with Van Gelder metal. With the passing of time Liberty operations became increasingly focused on the West Coast, using other engineers and studios.
Shelley Products – Huntington Station Long Island, NY
Shelley Products (active from 1947-85) founded by Clark Galehouse. “One of the top independent record manufacturing plants on the Eastern Seaboard, servicing a wide variety of nationally-known labels including ABC-Paramount, Atlantic, Imperial-Liberty, London and United Artists, and used by the majors as an overspill at periods of peak demand.”
Work in progress….if you can add any more real-world examples, email me. Updates from time to time, as new evidence comes to light.
LJC – June 2023
LondonJazzCollector 