Music CD/Vinyl 1st Press/Limited Press & etc

[davifus]

I been lately collecting more Music CD & Vinyl but I lack the knowledge in releases and how to identify such things with "catalog #". I'm not even sure If I use that to identify anything related to 1st press. I did a fair amount of research for any topic related to this but they are all very narrowed into something or very vague.

I need knowledge from people who collect CDs & Vinyl.

How to identify If it's first press? Does the # rep. anything towards it or does it say it somewhere specifically?

>1st press - Is it true that quality of the music will drop to a certain extent after 1st press? or did the Cd creating software/industry gotten so much better that it's almost identical? I heard some people saying nowadays its harder to tell the difference but it really matters to the company producing the CD. Is it Worth spending few extra $ for 1st Print? As a collector in general it's tempting to get the best of everything when it's cheap rather than lately when it will kick up in price.
>Limited Press

As a collector I like my things nice. does a protective casing exist for digipaks/compact cases? Like the protective plastic for retro games?

[maximo310]

Most of the time when I collect CD's, I find there is not really a difference between the 1st press and regular press, since the music is usually identical during press runs besides a mini preorder extra depending on some CD's.( Only difference being sometimes companies made mistakes on the 1st press for the music). First presses for CD's are pretty hard to discern from regular presses, although looking up the catalog number and date of the CD production is a good way to find the 1st print, since catalog # can be different for each print release of the same CD. If you can find 1st press CD's for a reasonable price, I'd say go for it, but if the price difference between a 1st and regular press is alot, then I wouldn't worry too much about it. That's all I know about cd collecting at the moment.

[Warmsignal]

To me as long as it's the official CD, it doesn't matter.

I know they make DVD resealable baggies, and I think they might do it also for CDs, but not any hard cases that I know of.

[exonerator]

If you go on http://www.discogs.com/ you can find out all the release information about disc and vinyl albums. Let's take one of my all-time favorite albums for example, In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 by Coheed and Cambria.



It sorts by year ascending. So as we can see, EVR87 is the code for the first pressing of it (whether CD or vinyl), done by Equal Vision Records (their main label at the time). The ones that say B-Unique I'm not sure about (and weren't aware about), but the Columbia ones were because they were signed with Columbia as well. There was a vinyl pressing of black (400 pressed), orange/white (400 pressed), clear (300 pressed), and blue/grey (300 pressed) records at the time. They command CRAZY prices ($500+!!!) online, so earlier this year, they re-released it on vinyl, and 88843099221 is the re-release code (and as you can see, it's in my wantlist!) So basically, to figure out the first pressing, go on discogs, go to a main release page for an album, and go to the first release in your region, and that's the first pressing for all intents and purposes. Beyond that, we're talking test pressing and shellac territories, and that's far beyond me.

[santabateman]

Yeah Discogs will tell you pretty much anything when it comes to vinyl, The inner numbers/letters will tell you what pressing it is etc etc. Best site for vinly when it comes to cataloging etc etc