Question about mothers/stampers runout codes and reissues

periclimenes

periclimenes

Active Member
Hello. The code in the runout on my 1959 Kind of Blue stereo is

XSM 47326-1AA
XSM 47327-1AA

I was visiting a friend yesterday and saw he had a 1970s reissue of the record with runout codes

XSM 47326-1CL
XSM 47327-1ED

Am I correct in thinking that this means the 1970s reissue used lacquers that were made in the same run from the original master tapes as the 1959 release?

Bonus question: digging around on discogs, I found a release (Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue ) that has this code:

XSM-47324-1A-2HDK: DM 17

The 47324 was originally the code for the mono release, so that's a little strange. Does anyone know what the extra stuff on the end is (-2HDK: DM 17)?

Thanks for any insight you can provide!
 
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i don't know Columbia that well, but I suspect that the 47326-1 and 47327-1 are master tape numbers, and the lacquer info is contained just in the letters.
 
The 1970's is not from the same stampers as the first one, the first one was tube cut, there's a good chance that the 1970's is a later solid state cutting done when Columbia changed from Scully lathes and their older Westrex cutting heads over to the Neumann lathe and SX 68 or later cutting head.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
The 1970's is not from the same stampers as the first one, the first one was tube cut, there's a good chance that the 1970's is a later solid state cutting done when Columbia changed from Scully lathes and their older Westrex cutting heads over to the Neumann lathe and SX 68 or later cutting head.
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Thanks for the reply. Do you know when they switched lathes? Is it likely that the stampers used before that changeover were made from the original back of lacquers that produced the first pressings? Also, would Columbia have changed the matrix code if they cut a new set of lacquers?
 
Yes, each time new lacquers were cut, the matrix code changed. By 1971 or so, the old tube cut lacquers were pretty well gone. And the deadwax suffixes were way into the 2 letters. As your early example had run out the first suffixes, and began second letter added. This LP sold a lot of copies, one of Columbia's two biggest jazz sellers ever.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Yes, each time new lacquers were cut, the matrix code changed. By 1971 or so, the old tube cut lacquers were pretty well gone. And the deadwax suffixes were way into the 2 letters. As your early example had run out the first suffixes, and began second letter added. This LP sold a lot of copies, one of Columbia's two biggest jazz sellers ever.
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So, if I am understanding you correctly, the lacquers that generated the stampers with the matrix codes XSM 47326-1AA and XSM 47326-1CL were probably cut at basically the same time and the latter sat around for several years until they were used? And when Columbia ran out of that first batch of lacquers, they would have cut a new set of lacquers that would have had a matrix code other than XSM 47326-1**?
 
They were not cut at the same time. Each letter advancing was a different cut, cut at a later time, thusly a NEWER cut. 1A-1J the original cuttings in 1959. Kind Of Blue was a large seller for Columbia, never went out of print. Which is why there are so many letters after the master number as suffixes. That title went through a lot of mothers and stampers over so many years. When stampers and mothers got worn out, had mechanical damage, or failed Quality Control, new lacquers were cut and plated, and new mothers and stampers generated. Also, each pressing plant Columbia owned had to have a set of mothers and stampers to press records from. Each plant went through multiple sets of them with big selling back catalog titles like Kind Of Blue. Records which sold steadily over many years, went through many mothers and stampers and label variations. Records which didn't stay in print did well to go through one or two sets of metalwork in their short catalog life per pressing plant.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
They were not cut at the same time. Each letter advancing was a different cut, cut at a later time, thusly a NEWER cut. 1A-1J the original cuttings in 1959. Kind Of Blue was a large seller for Columbia, never went out of print. Which is why there are so many letters after the master number as suffixes. That title went through a lot of mothers and stampers over so many years. When stampers and mothers got worn out, had mechanical damage, or failed Quality Control, new lacquers were cut and plated, and new mothers and stampers generated. Also, each pressing plant Columbia owned had to have a set of mothers and stampers to press records from. Each plant went through multiple sets of them with big selling back catalog titles like Kind Of Blue. Records which sold steadily over many years, went through many mothers and stampers and label variations. Records which didn't stay in print did well to go through one or two sets of metalwork in their short catalog life per pressing plant.
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Ah. That makes more sense. So when they needed another lacquer cut, what is the source they used for that? An original mixdown of the masters? Where did the cutting of the new lacquers happen?
 
The tape generations increased as masters of that era got too worn to cut records. Columbia cut from original mixdown tapes for the early pressings, then used safety dubs. Practice changed around 1970. One reason why many remixes happened on large selling titles, masters deteriorated from excessive wear.
 
Yes, DesertTwang, I am interested the same. A NM copy of a 70s release of KoB goes for about 10% as much as the 1959 pressing. Of course, if you want mono, you have to bite the bullet and get an earlier pressing...
 
BassKulcha said:
Don't know if this post from the London Jazz Collector Blog would help, but I found it interesting:

Columbia Matrix Codes – case study: “Kind of Blue”
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Thanks for the link. I have really enjoyed the articles about KoB on that website. I have read on other sites (analog planet, I believe) that some of the information there (which came from the Steve Hoffman forums) is not entirely accurate, so I was looking to see if anyone here knew the specifics about the lacquering process at Columbia in 1959. Longshot, I know...
 
Well, you know how it is with some Mothers:

If you piss them off they will knock you down, stamp on your head, run you out of the building(with or without a code) and reissue you with another licking if you re-enter the building and keep pissing them off.
 
periclimenes said:
Thanks for the link. I have really enjoyed the articles about KoB on that website. I have read on other sites (analog planet, I believe) that some of the information there (which came from the Steve Hoffman forums) is not entirely accurate, so I was looking to see if anyone here knew the specifics about the lacquering process at Columbia in 1959. Longshot, I know...
Click to expand...

I don't know if this will be useful (if you've combed through LJC and Analog Planet, you may have already come across this video), but here is a 2013 video of Michael Fremer discussing runout codes on Columbia-pressed records. He says he's gotten the information from people who worked for Columbia/Sony or have "searched the vaults", though it may be prudent to take at face value (I haven't followed the discussions about his comments regarding LJC). What seems clear to me is that much of this information is difficult to nail down as many first-person narratives have been unfortunately lost to time...

Note: Earlier in the video he discusses the how to read the specific numbering on Columbia-pressed records for *other* labels. Again, not sure if it's helpful...

 
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