All 113 pressings

Folder 10

Germany

Rim claims Printed in the UK for Promotional Use Only; Discogs says that is untrue and it is German.

Catalogue
PLP 9 68640-9
Label
EMI (2)
Released
1998
Confidence
Confirmed
Why this grade

settled by playing it, on 2026-08-31, and by nothing else. Two unofficial German picture discs share this catalogue number, this barcode and this artwork, and no photograph can separate them because the difference is in the grooves. 9697123 is a mispress whose side B plays tracks from The X Factor in place of the printed tracklist. I played side B and it doesn't, which excludes 9697123 and leaves 3925500, the copy that plays what the disc says it plays

Reference
Discogs 3925500
Worth
No recorded Discogs sale
A photograph of pressing 10, Germany

What the record says

Every line below was read off a native-resolution crop of the photo named beside it, except where the source column says otherwise - those rows come from the record itself, by reading it or by playing it, and each says which.

No run-out groove photograph exists in this folder.

Every line of small print, and the photograph it came from — 10 of them

**Side B played on 2026-08-31: it does not play The X Factor.** That is what I heard, and it is the one observation that separates the two candidates. Recorded as the negative it is: what I confirmed is the absence of The X Factor, which is the whole discriminator, rather than track-by-track agreement with the printed side. Not photographed and not photographable; see the confidence section

played by the owner, not a photograph

Disc face: barcode 9 024349 686409

IMG_0642

Disc rim: Special limited Edition / Printed in the UK for Promotional Use Only / PLP 9 68640-9

IMG_0643, IMG_0641

Disc rim: Digitally Remastered © 1998 Iron Maiden Holdings Ltd. ® 1998 EMI Records Ltd. Marketed manufactured and distributed by EMI Records, ©® 1998 Iron Maiden Holdings Ltd. under exclusive license to EMI Records Ltd.

IMG_0641

Disc rim: Warning: Unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting of this record is prohibited!

IMG_0641

Disc face: OTHER SIDE - 1. MOONCHILD 2. INFINITE DREAMS 3. CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS 4. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

IMG_0642

Disc face: THIS SIDE - 1. SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON 2. THE PROPHECY 3. THE CLAIRVOYANT 4. ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

IMG_0642

Disc face: EMI logo in a yellow-outlined box

IMG_0642

Disc face: a pale blue ice-field background overlaid with six yellow-bordered colour live photographs of the band

IMG_0642, IMG_0643

Other disc face: Derek Riggs' album-cover painting - Eddie over the ice field - with the IRON MAIDEN and SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON logos

IMG_0640

The photographs

IMG_0640.jpg1 of 4READ FROM

The object, and what marks it out

Sleeve, labels and inserts

  • There is no paper label - the image is printed across the whole playing surface, both sides.
  • Face A - the album's Derek Riggs cover painting. The official UK picture disc in folders 15 and 21 carries the clairvoyant painting instead, so the two are not the same object despite both being Riggs.
  • Face B - live band photographs in yellow-ruled frames over a blue ice-field background, with the two side listings and the rim inscription.
  • Sleeve - plain; no card display cover of the UK picture-disc kind.

What distinguishes this pressing

  • What side B actually plays - the discriminator, and the only one that exists for this pair. 9697123 is recorded as a mispress playing The X Factor on side B; 3925500 plays its printed tracklist. Side B was played and it is not The X Factor, so the mispress row is out. Nothing on the surface of either disc differs, so this one negative is the whole identification.
  • The disc says it was printed in the UK as a promo, and Discogs says that is untrue. The rim reads Special limited Edition / Printed in the UK for Promotional Use Only / PLP 9 68640-9, and both candidates carry the note “Information printed on the disc indicates it was manufactured in the UK for promotional purposes, but it is actually a German unofficial release.” The printed origin is a claim the record makes about itself, not evidence.
  • That claim does not separate the two candidates. Both are the same disc physically, and both carry the same rim. Only 3925500 is tagged Promo on Discogs, but that is a catalogue descriptor for the same printed statement, not a second difference - so the promo line corroborates the pair and decides nothing between them.
  • Live photographs on face B - the immediate visual difference from the official UK picture disc, which carries the clairvoyant painting.
  • Barcode 9 024349 686409 - the digits 68640 inside it echo the catalogue number PLP 9 68640-9.
  • A 1998 item, ten years after the album. Folder 16 (Brazil, 2001) and folder 42 (2015) are later.
Eight tracks, two sides, and the recording credits

Side A

  1. A1Moonchild
  2. A2Infinite Dreams
  3. A3Can I Play With Madness
  4. A4The Evil That Men Do

Side B

  1. B1Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
  2. B2The Prophecy
  3. B3The Clairvoyant
  4. B4Only The Good Die Young

Bruce Dickinson - vocals · Dave Murray - lead and rhythm guitar · Adrian Smith - lead and rhythm guitar, synth · Steve Harris - bass, string synth · Nicko McBrain - drums.

Produced, engineered and mixed by Martin Birch. Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, New York. Recorded at Musicland Studios, Munich. Published by Zomba Music Publishers Ltd.

These are recording credits, sourced from Discogs release 576952, the UK original, and apply to the recording rather than to this pressing. No packaging or artwork credit is given here: this is an unofficial pressing, which reproduces Derek Riggs' album-cover painting on one face without Discogs recording any artwork credit against it.

Condition, from the photographs

A photograph cannot grade a record - this is a description of what is visible, not a grade.

  • Sleeve: general handling wear with some edge and corner softening; no splits or seam separation visible in these shots.
  • Vinyl: light surface marks and handling sheen catch the light. No visible deep scratches, warping or edge damage in these photographs. The labels are clean and unmarked.

No Goldmine grade is claimed for it, or any other. I have no record of where this copy came from.

What is settled, and what is not

Confirmed on a playback, not on a photograph, and that is the only way this folder could ever have been closed.

What the photographs establish is the catalogue number PLP 9 68640-9, the barcode 9 024349 686409 and the rim inscription, all read off this copy. Germany is the catalogue's word, not the record's: the disc says it was printed in the UK, Discogs files both candidates as German and says that printed line is untrue, and nothing in these photographs tests either claim. No run-out was shot, and a run-out is where a pressing plant would show itself.

Two Discogs entries share that catalogue number, that barcode and that design, and no photograph can separate them - the difference is in the grooves, not on the surface:

How the other candidates were ruled out
  • 3925500 plays the correct tracklist.
  • 9697123 is a mispress: side B plays tracks

from The X Factor (1995) instead of the side printed on the disc.

**Side B was played on 2026-08-31 and it is not The X Factor.** That excludes 9697123 and leaves 3925500. The evidence is the owner's, it is not in the evidence table's photographic sense, and it cannot be re-checked against a crop by anyone reading this later - but it is the right kind of evidence for this particular question, and it is the kind the dossier asked for while it was open.

Two things stay true after the upgrade. The record still claims a UK promotional origin that Discogs says is false, so Germany here remains the catalogue's attribution rather than the object's. And the standing caveat still applies: an uncatalogued third pressing sharing this artwork cannot be excluded, and playing side B would not detect one that also plays the correct tracklist.