Why aren't vinyl pressings DATED?

When you buy a book, hardcover or paperback, you can always easily identify the pressing and the year in which it was pressed. With vinyl LP's, we have to go through all this voodoo with cryptic information in the deadwax. Why is that? Why can't pressings just have proper dates on the label?

I'm just asking....

 

Not to sound like a 5 year old, but why is that?

 

Or care, for that matter. Most people just want the music, but for those who seek optimum or preferred quality, the information is there.

 

I'll throw in a "me too"...what purpose does it serve for the general public not to be able to read them?

 

OH! Now this is news to me (although I'm sure there's a thread in the archives which touches on this).

 

That would make it too easy

Seriously, most buyers don't care when a record was made. It's not like they have a shelf life or anything. The obsessive can use their ears and their eyes to buy the best.

It was problems with unmatched sides that got me looking in the first place. IIRC it was a later issue of Elvis Costello's Armed Forces with side 2 being a real quiet disappointment.. this was only about a year after release.

 

Not to hijack the thread (and I'm sure this has been discussed MANY times) but I thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I started reading the messages in the deadwax! Some interesting writing going on there...some indecipherable, but cool nonetheless!!

 

I was looking at my Dunhill-ABC "Captured Live At The Forum" (Three Dog Night) album last night---in the deadwax is the date 10-11-70 on both sides. That's the first time I have ever seen a date there.

 

Actually, I date all my vinyl pressings. Make it easier for anyone to pick them up when I'll be gone. I like the fact that the books are dated too. Makes it easier to pick the first edition, which is usually better printed (some reissues are scans from the original pages !!!! including the pics !!!)

 

Off the top of my head, The Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" has dates in the dead wax... these dates are used to identify which pressings have the alternate Wild Horses and Brown Sugar.

 

I'm not home now to check, but IIRC early pressings of the Stones' "Get Yer Ya Yas Out" also have dates in the deadwax.

 

A number of the late 60s/early 70s DGG LPs had month and year stamped intro the matrix. Which was nice, because they rarely had c or p dates on the covers or labels.

 

It's a conspiracy by "The Man".

 

You just have to get to know the interplay of label variations, the cover & inner sleeve variations, the matrices, even the look & heft of the vinyl. There's a lot of overlapping aspects since good titles remained in print. Sometimes the stampers were used over a period of time too. It sure makes it more fun for collecting I think. If anyone could read the record it'd be harder to find the good deals. I'm feel like a kid in a candy store even in the best used vinyl places.

 

Generally, those dates are there because they're not the first issues. It's so that DGG knew when the recording was published. That's the date the disc was first issued, not the date the pressing was done. I think it was some sort of copyright mechanism.

Nearly all european sourced discs have dates on them, a P or C date (sometimes both). USA discs generally have neither. The most useful dates are the 'unofficial' ones, generally on the back of the cover (month/year of printing) and sometimes inscribed in the wax (more prevalent in 60s/70s contract pressings for labels like Audio Fidelity and the Londons.)

 

They are dated. Everybody listens to CDs now instead. Perfect sound forever, dontcha know