Folder 42
Europe
The forgery, identified. Left-opening sleeve and a black-rimmed disc - the two tells Discogs gives for the counterfeit of the Italian picture disc. Folder 33 is the genuine one.
What the record says
Every line below was read off a native-resolution crop of the photograph named beside it.
No run-out groove photograph exists in this folder.
Every line of small print, and the photograph it came from — 13 of them
Disc face: 060 7902580 and the EMI logo
image00090
Disc face: Made in Italy By EMI Italiana S.p.A.
image00090
Disc face: Recorded at Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany, Illustrations: Derek Riggs, Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Martin Birch
image00090
Disc face: ℗ 1988 Original Sound Recordings made by EMI Records Ltd, © 1988 Iron Maiden (Holdings) Ltd.
image00090
Rear sleeve: 060 7902580 and barcode
image00095, image00096
Rear sleeve: Made in Italy by EMI Italiana S.p.A. with the EMI logo
image00093, image00094
Front sleeve: PICTURE DISC and LIMITED EDITION
image00098
Front sleeve flash: CONTAINS EXCLUSIVE MONSTERS OF ROCK MEGA POSTER + STICKER
image00098
Die-cut sleeve, open along the LEFT edge with the front cover upright
image00087
Disc rim: solid black to the edge - no clear-vinyl rim
image00092
Insert 1 - the S.I.A.E. rights sheet: a white card headed IRON MAIDEN Seventh Son of a Seventh Son PICTURE DISC, carrying the tracklist, Produced, engineered and mixed by Martin Birch., 1988 Original Sound Recordings made by EMI Records Limited., 060 7902580, an S.I.A.E. box with a faint circular stamp struck on it, and the EMI logo
image00089
Insert 2 - a die-cut sticker: MONSTERS OF ROCK · IRON MAIDEN · MODENA Arena Civica 10 settembre 1988
image00089
Insert 3 - a folded colour poster: the same MONSTERS OF ROCK MODENA Arena Civica 10 settembre 1988 design at large size, with a band photograph
image00088
The photographs
image00087.jpg1 of 12READ FROM
The object, and what marks it out
Sleeve, labels and inserts
- Outer sleeve - dark blue die-cut card with a circular aperture, so the picture disc forms the cover image. It opens on the left.
- Disc - a picture disc. Side one carries the cover painting; side two the Eddie/eye artwork with the tracklist and credits printed onto the disc face. The printed image runs into a solid black rim at the edge; nothing shows through it.
- Labels - none. A picture disc has no paper label.
- Inserts - the package is complete. Discogs describes this release as including reproductions of three things: the S.I.A.E. rights sheet, a sticker, and a 58×86 cm colour poster of the Modena Monsters of Rock concert. All three are here - the rights sheet and the die-cut sticker together in image00089, the poster folded down in image00088. The poster was photographed folded and against no scale, so its 58×86 cm size is Discogs' figure rather than a measurement.
What distinguishes this pressing
- A Monsters of Rock item for Modena, 10 September 1988 - dated tour ephemera for the album's own touring year - and, here, reproductions of it: this copy has the sticker and the poster and the rights sheet, the complete package. Discogs records the same three items for both the original and the counterfeit, which is exactly why having them all never settled anything.
- A left-opening sleeve and a black-rimmed disc. The two tells that separate this release from the 1988 original, and the only things in this folder that a reproduction of the disc face could not supply.
060 7902580- the picture-disc catalogue number, ending0rather than1. Discogs writes the counterfeit's as060 -7902580; the object prints it without the hyphen, like the original.Made in Italy By EMI Italiana S.p.A.printed on the disc itself - which is a statement the counterfeit copies, not a country of origin. This disc is catalogued as European, 2015.- Not the same release as folder 33 - the collection holds the Italian picture disc and its forgery side by side, which is what let each one identify the other.
Eight tracks, two sides, and the recording credits
Side A
- A1Moonchild
- A2Infinite Dreams
- A3Can I Play With Madness
- A4The Evil That Men Do
Side B
- B1Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
- B2The Prophecy
- B3The Clairvoyant
- 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. Sleeve illustration, concept and design by Derek Riggs (with Rod Smallwood). Inner-sleeve photograph by Ross Halfin. Published by Zomba Music Publishers Ltd.
Personnel and studio credits are sourced from Discogs release 576952, the UK original, and apply to the recording rather than to this pressing. The producer, publisher and copyright lines are independently corroborated by this copy's own label, quoted above.
Condition, from the photographs
A photograph cannot grade a record - this is a description of what is visible, not a grade.
- Sleeve: light handling wear; the die-cut aperture is clean-edged and the corners are square in these shots. Visibly less worn than folder 33's, which is what a 2015 object next to a 1988 one looks like.
- Disc: the printed surface is bright and unmarked, with the light handling sheen normal for a picture disc. No visible deep scratches, warping or edge damage in these photographs.
- Labels: none to grade - a picture disc has no paper label.
Nothing on this page comes from playing the record. 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, and it is the counterfeit. This entry was Narrowed (2) because the three tells Discogs uses to separate the 1988 Italian original from its forgery had not been photographed. Two of the three now have been, and both point the same way.
How the other candidates were ruled out
| Tell | Original 4133640 | Counterfeit 6954314 | This copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Die-cut sleeve opens | right | left | left - image00087 |
| Vinyl rim | clear | not clear | solid black - image00092 |
| Run-out | matrix etched | none | not photographed |
Neither reading needed equipment. With the front cover held upright, the two card panels part along the left edge. And the printed image on the disc runs into an opaque black band at the rim: at native resolution the cloth the record is lying on shows through nowhere along that edge, where folder 33's copy - a different object, on a different cloth - is plainly translucent in the same place.
Why these two count and the rest of the folder does not. Everything else gathered here is printed on the disc face or the sleeve: 060 7902580, Made in Italy By EMI Italiana S.p.A., the 1988 ℗ and © lines, the barcode 07777902580, which is identical on both entries. All of it is what a forger reproduces, which is the point of a forgery. The sleeve's construction and the vinyl's rim are not printing - they are how the object was made - and Discogs attaches each of them to one candidate and not the other.
The complete package was the trap, and it stays a trap. This copy has all three inserts - the S.I.A.E. rights sheet, the die-cut Modena sticker and the folded Modena poster - and dated 1988 tour ephemera looks like the strongest thing in the folder. It is worth nothing here, because Discogs lists the same three items for both entries: reproductions of “S.I.A.E. rights sheet with tracklist and credits; sticker; cm 58x86 color poster of 'Monsters of Rock' concert in Modena, Italy, september 10, 1988” for the counterfeit, and the originals of those three for the 1988 release. A complete package is therefore evidence that this copy was not broken up - nothing more. What settled the identification were two facts about how the object was manufactured.
The run-out would corroborate but is not needed. Discogs records 7902580 A PD and 7902580 B PD etched on the original and nothing at all on the counterfeit, so a bare run-out here would agree with the verdict. It has not been photographed, and two independent tells already agree.
Standing caveat: this method cannot exclude a pressing absent from Discogs - and against a forgery that caveat bites harder than usual, because a second, uncatalogued forgery would not have to differ from this one in any way that shows.