The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Sean,

Look forward to see the picture! If I get a suitable turntable for transferring the not-to-distant future, I'll have to post it here. So look for this disc here in a years time!

Paal.

Here you go!

In the third picture you can see the untrimmed and unfinished edge pretty well.

Hope this clears things up a bit!

Sean

Sean,

Interesting to see some good pictures of a Test Pressing!
Thanks a lot

Paal.

About 20 years ago I had a few DD test pressings that had un-ground edges, and stamped onto the brown sub-label surface was rubber-stamped in purplish-blue ink: 'TEST' (if I recall correctly).

Finally got the Test Pressing, so here are some pictures. I had some problems taking pictures the unfinished edge, but the picture included is the best I got...

Paal.

Well I certainly learned about test pressings from this thread. If I'd seen one at a shop I'd have dismissed it as a regular DD just missing it's label.

I wonder what the test pressings looked like during the etched label era? Did they paper the center so they could write with pencil or some other way?

Valecnik wrote:
I wonder what the test pressings looked like during the etched label era? Did they paper the center so they could write with pencil or some other way?

Bruce,

That's a very interesting question, although I'm not able to answer it. I've only seen pictures of Test Pressings with paper on them, but all of them are from the Paper Label era.
Maybe someone else on here is able to answer that?

Paal.

I'll have to say before I forget it. As Sean said, it seems to be much higher quality pressings. It's very quiet. Almost zero surface noise and almost no rumbling.

Paal.

Good question!

Paal, looks like you indeed have an original "test". Neat artifacts, aren't they? How does it sound? I've noticed that most of my test pressings seem to sound a bit better than standard pressings.

I've never seen an etched label disc marked as a test, nor have I ever seen one with an unfinished edge, but several tests I own are of things originally put out on etched label discs, although the material they're pressed on is way too nice for them to be from that era. The fog thickens!

Sean

**Edit**...Paal and I were posting at the same time! They do sound better!

Sean,

It does indeed sound better! Although I only bought this because it's a Test Pressing, it's a very nice tune!

Maybe they used up all the good material on Test Pressings and used the crappy material on the ones that were released when the labels were etched?

Paal.