All 113 pressings

Folder 81

Poland

The SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON misprint and the reordered sides - the discriminator, and it is visible in the row's own primary image. Side B opens with Can I Play With Madness, which is not the album's order.

Catalogue
AP 038
Label
ACOMP
Released
1988
Confidence
Confirmed
Why this grade

one ACOMP row exists in the master and this card is its photograph - the same blue ground, the same hand-drawn IRON MAIDEN lettering, the same HQ High Quality and STEREO-HIFI DOLBY SYSTEM boxes, the same ZAiKS • BIEM • AP 038 foot rule. It also carries the same misprinted tracklist: side B opens CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS and continues SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON - the rather than a - and closes ONLY THE GOOD DIED YOUNG, with the durations 5'50 6'18 4'39 5'10 and 3'38 9'59 4'24 4'43. Discogs' tracklist field for this row does not say that: it lists the album's standard order, which its own primary image contradicts. The image is the evidence and the field is normalised boilerplate - and the image is addressable rather than merely asserted: its URI is in the committed release-6854520.json

Reference
Discogs 6854520
Worth
No recorded Discogs sale
A photograph of pressing 81, 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 — 6 of them

Inlay front panel: the album artwork under the ACOMP sunburst device, with STEREO • HI-FI and DOLBY SYSTEM at the spine and a white title strip reading IRON MAIDEN / SEVENTH SON / SEVENTH SON

IMG_1602.jpeg

Inlay rear panel: SIDE: A 1. MOONCHILD, 2. INFINITE DREAMS, 3. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, 4. THE PROPHECY and SIDE: B 1. CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS, 2. SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON, 3. THE CLAIRVOYANT, 4. ONLY THE GOOD DIED YOUNG, with ZAiKS over BIEM

IMG_1603.jpeg

Inlay inner panel: the same eight titles with writing credits and durations 5'50, 6'18, 4'39, 5'10 / 3'38, 9'59, 4'24, 4'43, the foot rule • ZAiKS • BIEM • AP 038 •, and the Polish notice Wszystkie prawa zastrzeżone. Kopiowanie i odtwarzanie publiczne bez upoważnienia wzbronione.

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Inlay: HQ over High Quality boxed beside the ACOMP device and a boxed STEREO-HI-FI DOLBY SYSTEM

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Shell, side A: clear plastic with a green-and-white striped paper label - the ACOMP sunburst device, a large ACOMP wordmark, IRON MAIDEN / „SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON”, a boxed A, and the Polish rights notice

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Shell, side B: the same label, boxed B

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The photographs

IMG_1602.jpg1 of 8READ FROM

The object, and what marks it out

Sleeve, labels and inserts

  • Shell - clear plastic with a printed green-and-white striped paper label on both faces, five screws.
  • Inlay - a folded blue card reproducing the album artwork, Polish rights notice, English tracklist.
  • The shell differs from the row's photograph. 6854520's images show a plain duplicating shell with a blank pink label strip and a handwritten side letter. This copy has a printed ACOMP label. The row records nothing about its shell, so this is variance rather than contradiction - but it is recorded here rather than smoothed over.
  • Condition - card bright, lightly creased at the folds; labels clean.

What distinguishes this pressing

  • The SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON misprint and the reordered sides - the discriminator, and it is visible in the row's own primary image. Side B opens with Can I Play With Madness, which is not the album's order.
  • The eight printed durations - legible on the card and legible in the row's photograph, value for value.
  • The ACOMP sunburst device and HQ High Quality boxes - the same house furniture in the same positions as the row's image.
  • ZAiKS • BIEM • AP 038 as one printed rule - the catalogue number is set into the rights line rather than given its own field, which is how the row's image prints it too.
  • Beware Discogs' tracklist field here. It gives the album's standard running order for this row. The card in the row's own photograph does not, and neither does this copy. The skill warns about exactly this - a boilerplate tracklist contradicting the release's own evidence - and the warning was earned on a pressing with its sides swapped.
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

Settled on a photograph rather than a field, which is the point worth keeping. AP 038 on the ACOMP label returns exactly one row in the master. A single surviving candidate is not proof, so the grade needed a second cross-checkable detail - and the obvious one, the tracklist, disagreed at first look: Discogs lists the album's standard order and this card does not.

Opening the row's primary image resolved it the other way. The card in that photograph is this card, and it prints the same reordered sides, the same SEVENTH SON OF THE SEVENTH SON misprint, the same ONLY THE GOOD DIED YOUNG, and the same eight durations. Whoever submitted the row typed the album's tracklist instead of transcribing the object.

One difference is left standing rather than explained away: the row's images show a blank pink-strip duplicating shell where this copy has a printed striped ACOMP label. The row records nothing about its shell, so there is no recorded field to contradict - unofficial Polish operations used whatever shells were to hand, and the card is what carries the identity here.

Standing caveat: an unofficial Polish cassette absent from Discogs cannot be excluded.