Educate Me About Demos/Not for Sale/Etc.

Logos

Logos

Roving Vinyl Grabber
For example, just "Not For Sale: Demonstration."

Or (More elaborately) "Lent for promotional use only. Any sale or unauthorized transfer is prohibited and void. Subject to return upon demand of owner. Acceptance of this record constitutes agreement to the above."

Can someone give me a little background? Were things like this sent to radio stations or other people? Did they actually have to return them? Are they on the market illegally?

Were these part of a normal run of records or were they sometimes premium production? Are they worth more than the normal copies?

What's the story.......and the rest of the story?
 
Register to hide this ad
In most cases, radio station promos were first pressings. In a few instances, stations were sent "test pressings". Those sometimes had slightly different mastering than regular production copies. They were actual tests of the stamper and production process. Sometimes plain white labels were affixed with handwritten artist/title info. Some "promotional use only" albums were sent to stations in bulk (usually 25 at a time) to be used as giveaways in station contests or as a tie-in to a tour appearance. Promos come in a wide variety of forms...stamped or imprinted with the ominous warning, drilled corners w/no warning, cut corners with no warning, etc. They range in rarity from "hen's teeth" to relatively common, with test pressings being the least common. In 45s, the rarest of the rare is an actual acetate used to set up the mastering cutter. These sometime found their way to "favored" radio stations well in advance of regular test pressings or promo copies. All-in-all a very interesting subset in the world of record collecting.
 
^^what he said.

they were, and still are sent to reviewers, and public places that play music, especially colleges and universities.
My GF worked at a cafe in a local college, while she studied there, and they constantly received promo CDs. sometimes they came in large boxes of 50+ discs.
their radio station, that doesn't have a spot on the FM or AM dials also got lots of promos as well.

A lot of these promos ended up in radio station employee, record company employee, and store employee's collections as well.
A buddy of mine is the buyer for several HMV music stores in our region, and he gets lots of promos, sent to him at the store.
another buddie's cousin works for EMI Canada, and she brings home ton's of promo items as well.

A lot of them get sent out with "promo copy blah blah blah" stamped on them, or a hole drilled, edge of the jewel case melted, or a corner cut off.
I have a few promo CDs that are very simplified versions of the item, lacking final cover art, often just marked with the label, band, and tracks.
this stamping was intended by the record companies to try and maintain ownership of them, but have never actually recalled any.
they were basically hand outs to try and get them played, to drum up interest, and hopefully get better sales.

some promo copies are special edition pressings, sometimes colored vinyl, or numbered.

I have a promo of "the stranglers:black and white" which is a numbered color pressing, which has a higher value of the actual release version.
but, those cases are few and far between.

the best thing about promo copies is that they are more than likely to be first pressings.
 
Last edited:
treserious said:
some promo copies are special edition pressings, sometimes colored vinyl, or numbered.
Click to expand...

Or sometimes on better vinyl - several of the Dire Straits promos were run off on Quiex II vinyl, and they command a rather hefty premium over the regular versions of those discs. Heavier, quieter and first off the stampers...nice combination.

As far as the legality goes - I've never heard of that warning being enforced, and radio stations give them away in promotions with impunity. Sometimes I think the labels encourage stations to do that in order to get the discs out there. The warning seems to be a case of CYA run amok more than anything.
 
I've won a number of CDs from radio station give-away contests. Unfortunately, with CDs there are no pressings, stampers or better vinyl quality to consider. :sigh:

To me, promo albums are interesting just to add variety to a record collection. I wouldn't pay a premium for one, unless it were something really special. A promo pressing of an early Beatles LP, for example. But hardcore collectors may feel quite differently.
 
I recently discovered a demo LP in my stack from Muddy Waters entitled "Hard Again." I'm quite sure I've had it since it was new, but have no idea how I got it. Interesting record though - it features Johnny Winter, James Cotton, and Pine Top Perkins.
 
I was wondering the same thing regarding the legality of said promos ... I recently got a bunch of records from someone who said a friend of his was a radio dj and there was promos .... Well it turns out there is a loaner copy of Planet P Project - Pink World and a bunch of other ones like Run DMC, Daddo, Bon Jovi .... I think the Pink world one might be worth something as it does have the ominous "Not for Sale Promotion Use Only" in gold
 
Arkay said:
I've won a number of CDs from radio station give-away contests. Unfortunately, with CDs there are no pressings, stampers or better vinyl quality to consider. :sigh:

To me, promo albums are interesting just to add variety to a record collection. I wouldn't pay a premium for one, unless it were something really special. A promo pressing of an early Beatles LP, for example. But hardcore collectors may feel quite differently.
Click to expand...

Don't want to start an argument here, but my understanding is that there are better quality materials being used...like the SHM CD's. Also they are all pressed, which is why some audiophiles say that a commercial CD that you rip and then burn sounds better than the original. With pressing you get more flaws in the bit stream from various anomalies like off center pressing.

As to how that relates to radio station give-aways, I have no idea, but there are various pressings from different manufacturing plants.:music:
 
One of the reasons I asked the question was because I was so impressed with the sound of the 1966 Jefferson Airplane Takes Off LP that I got yesterday.

It is marked "Not for Sale" and "Demonstration."

It is undoubtedly among the very best sounding LPs that I own, so I was wondering if these Demo Records might be pressed with more care and on better vinyl.

It's sort of logical, I guess, that they would put their best foot forward.
 
Catswold said:
Don't want to start an argument here, but my understanding is that there are better quality materials being used...like the SHM CD's. Also they are all pressed, which is why some audiophiles say that a commercial CD that you rip and then burn sounds better than the original. With pressing you get more flaws in the bit stream from various anomalies like off center pressing.
Click to expand...

I've always thought that was true and do it to all CD's I purchase if not only for the sound but for archival purposes. I'd like to see a test done on the theory
 
Logos said:
One of the reasons I asked the question was because I was so impressed with the sound of the 1966 Jefferson Airplane Takes Off LP that I got yesterday.

It is marked "Not for Sale" and "Demonstration."

It is undoubtedly among the very best sounding LPs that I own, so I was wondering if these Demo Records might be pressed with more care and on better vinyl.

It's sort of logical, I guess, that they would put their best foot forward.
Click to expand...

yes, now that I'm thinking about it, some of my best sounding records are promo stamped
 
They're made with stampers that weren't worn out; that's why they tend to sound better.

FWIW, lots of promo albums around here (my father was in radio in the 50s), they tend to be kind of weird ones though.

calypso.jpg
 
This is probably the best demo LP that I have as far as sound goes.

I also bought a collection of LPs and 45s from a kid whose father was a DJ at a radio station. There were numerous demo LPs and 45s in that group - plus 6 red vinyl 45s (one of them being Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35)and 1 yellow vinyl 45. And alot of Moby Grape demo 45s.

grandillusion.jpg
 
I was told by a record store owner/collector from the day of record stores, that promos are give aways and demos are for audience review.
He told me that record stores get demos to play at the store and they were always the good stuff. Im sure that wasnt the only place demos were used of course. but I bought several demos from him and they had black marker dots in one corner of the jacket and that was how he personally kept count of how many times it had been played.


Not definitive but one angle.


..
 
Sam Cogley said:
several of the Dire Straits promos were run off on Quiex II vinyl, and they command a rather hefty premium over the regular versions of those discs. Heavier, quieter and first off the stampers...nice combination.
Click to expand...

Do you know which Dire Straits titles to look out for? I have a nice wlp of their first s/t LP.

Also, there are a few threads which deal with the differences between promos and demos at the www.recordcollectorsguild.org
 
I really think the more scary warnings were intended to put people off from buying them and keep the resale value down.

The more valuable items are CDs and records that were only released as promotional/demo items. For example, many years bought a Replacements EP on CD from a local record store named Incocerated - Live which had four live tracks and a single from their last album that was being pushed at radio. It was not given a commercial release, but was only available as a promotional release. I paid $5 for the copy the record store received but didn't want (they specialized in heavy metal music); the next issue of Goldmine had copies for $40 and up.

The Replacements followed it up with a second promotion-only CD EP titled Don't Buy or Sell - It's Crap.
 
That Robert Mitchum...a demo record...take THAT for a test spin.

I have bunch of promo LPs purchased from a variety of used record shops over the years...many of them, by far, are the best quality pressings that I own.
 
Distortions said:
Do you know which Dire Straits titles to look out for? I have a nice wlp of their first s/t LP.
Click to expand...

I started a thread asking for more information about them, but it's been quiet. The only ones I've seen are Love Over Gold, Alchemy and Brothers in Arms. The only one I have in my collection is Alchemy, but I'm looking for the others.
 
What about record marked "Audition Copy"? I picked up a Liberty audition copy in rather poor condition from a record store for 50c. My mother thinks that these were records sent to different labels; they may or may not have been actually picked up by the labels. Is she right on this?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom