To all future Blue Note test pressing winners, you'll have a collectors item; look!!

To the future lucky winners of the BLUE NOTE Music Matters test pressings, you will notice something unusual on your TPs in that instead of an RTI label they have a “Plastylite” label. Blue Note aficionados will recognize this as the pressing plant (long gone now) that used to press the Blue Note LPs. We wanted to tip our hat to the heritage of Blue Note by using the original Plastylite labels on our test pressings same as Blue Note used back in the day. Collectors of rare original pressing Blue Note LPs from the 50’s and 60s look in the dead wax at the end of the side for a mark that has come to be known as the "ear." This mark is actually a capital cursive "P" for "Plastylite”.

Below is a photo of one of the ART BLAKEY TP “Plastylite” labels (0n the bottom). I’ve also included a shot of an original Blue Note test pressing label as the top picture. Tina Brooks "Back to the Tracks", probably the rarest Blue Note test pressing. Never released at the time at all and only 25 copies known to exist.

 

Yes, "going the extra mile" is an understatement.

 

Interesting - and cool - story! Thanks!

 

You're welcome.

 

To make it even more special, the former Plastylite location in North Plainfield, New Jersey is now a bunch of condos.

 

Yes...just off of Rt. 22.