All 113 pressings

Folder 74

Poland

The yellow shell - read off the object at native resolution, and matching no row. 6617491's note says black (mentioning that a grey version exists), 11570337's images show black, 12890225's show clear.

Catalogue
RC 1683
Label
RC
Released
1988
Confidence
Not on the master
Why this grade

RC 1683 on the RC label returns exactly three Polish rows, and the card matches all three in layout - the same A RC COMPANY edge, the same SIDE A / SIDE B rear panel, the same gramophone-in-a-square device. But the object differs from every one of them on two independent axes. Its shell is opaque yellow, where 6617491's note says Black cassette, 11570337's images show black and 12890225's show clear. And its front panel carries the album's own Derek Riggs artwork, where all three rows' images show a different, bronze-toned painting. A copy that is not any of the three rows sharing its catalogue number is a fourth variant, and a fourth variant is not in this master - which is what No match says. This entry first graded it Narrowed (3) and was argued out of it: the grade said three rows fitted while its own distinguishing bullets said none did, and both could not be true

Worth
No recorded Discogs sale
A photograph of pressing 74, Poland

What the record says

Every line below was read off a native-resolution crop of the photograph named beside it.

Every line of small print, and the photograph it came from — 5 of them

Inlay front panel: the album's standard Derek Riggs artwork under a white band carrying IRON MAIDEN in pink outline over SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON, the RC gramophone-in-a-square device, RC 1683, STEREO and DOLBY SYSTEM, with a blue diagonal corner banner reading 1988 HEAVY METAL

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Inlay rear panel: SIDE A numbered 1-4 and SIDE B numbered 5-8, the album's eight titles in the album's running order

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Inlay edge: A RC COMPANY printed down the left margin

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Shell, side A: opaque yellow plastic, five screws, with a white paper label carrying an orange repeating-RC monogram pattern, the RC gramophone device, RC 1683, and A over STEREO

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Shell, side B: the same yellow shell and orange-patterned label, side letter B

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The photographs

IMG_1534.jpg1 of 7READ FROM

The object, and what marks it out

Sleeve, labels and inserts

  • Shell - opaque yellow/mustard plastic, screwed at five points, with a printed white paper label on both faces.
  • Label - an orange repeating RC monogram pattern behind the text, a house style shared with the card's edge printing.
  • Inlay - a single folded card, glossy, with the album artwork on the front and a plain tracklist rear.
  • Condition - card bright with light edge wear; both labels clean.

What distinguishes this pressing

  • The yellow shell - read off the object at native resolution, and matching no row. 6617491's note says black (mentioning that a grey version exists), 11570337's images show black, 12890225's show clear.
  • The standard album artwork on the front panel - the second axis, and independent of the first: every one of the three rows' images shows a bronze-toned painting in that position, not the Derek Riggs cover.
  • The 1988 corner banner - a third, weaker disagreement, with 11570337 alone: its banner reads 1989 and Discogs dates it 1989.
  • Catalogue number RC 1683, the A RC COMPANY edge and the rear-panel layout - what this copy does share with all three rows. It is why this is a fourth variant of a catalogued number rather than an unrelated tape, and why the entry says so instead of calling the object a mystery.
  • A row's photographs document one submitter's copy, not the release. That cuts both ways and is worth stating: it is the reason a single matching image would not have confirmed anything either. Here three separate rows' images agree with each other and disagree with this object, which is a different weight of evidence from one photograph.
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. 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.

  • Case/inlay: general handling wear with some edge and corner softening; no cracks or splits visible in these shots.
  • Shell: light surface marks and handling wear are visible. No visible warping, tape spillage or shell damage in these photographs.

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

Decided, and the answer is that it is none of the three. RC 1683 on the RC label returns three Polish rows and nothing else in master 19182. The card's layout matches all three: same A RC COMPANY edge, same rear panel, same gramophone device.

Then both features that could tell them apart disagree with all of them. The shell is opaque yellow, and the one row that describes its shell calls it black while the other two are photographed black and clear. The front panel is the album's own artwork, and all three rows' images show a different, bronze-toned painting there.

This entry originally graded it Narrowed (3) and the grade was wrong. The argument for it was that unofficial Polish rows are thinly documented, so a variant might hide inside one of them. But the entry then listed, as its own distinguishing evidence, two axes on which the object matches none of the three - which is the definition of not being any of them. A grade and its evidence saying opposite things is the thing to fix, not to caveat.

So: a fourth RC 1683 variant, uncatalogued. That is not a failed identification. The catalogue number, the label and the card layout place it precisely; what is absent is a row for it.

What would change the grade: a Discogs submission for the yellow-shell, standard-artwork variant, at which point this becomes an ordinary identification against a candidate list that finally contains it.