Folder 93
Hungary
The un-mirrored price code BE. The single feature Discogs uses to separate the two Hungarian rows, and the only one of the two that carries it this way round. Legible here in two frames, from two distances, with correctly-printed cover text beside it in the same orientation.
What the record says
Every line below was read off a native-resolution crop of the photograph named beside it.
Run-out photographed, both sides, across fifteen frames. Side A assembles across successive macro shots to SLPXL, 37213-A, then 1, P and HP - the string both Hungarian rows record, differing between them only in spacing (SLPXL 37213-A 1 P HP against SLPXL 37213 - A 1 P HP), so it corroborates the pressing family and discriminates nothing. Side B is photographed here - folders 46 and 47 had no side-B deadwax frame at all - and SLPXL, 37213 and -B resolve cleanly. The characters after -B do not. They are present in the frames and clearly etched, but at this angle and lighting they blur past reading, so the trailing 1-15 that Discogs records for the 1988 misprint and not for the 1989 pressing can be neither read nor ruled out. The grade does not rest on it.
Barcode and Other Identifiers: Matrix / Runout
As Discogs records them for release 1367898. Green: in my collection (1 of 2). Red: missing.
| ✓ | Matrix / Runout (Side A) | SLPXL 37213 - A 1 P HP — this copy |
| ✗ | Matrix / Runout (Side B) | SLPXL 37213 - B 11 P HP |
Every line of small print, and the photograph it came from — 17 of them
Rear cover, top right: the circled price code reads BE, upright and the right way round - at native resolution, sharp enough that the bowl of the B and the three arms of the E are unambiguous
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Rear cover, same frame and same orientation as the code: …OD DIE YOUNG reads left to right the right way up - which is what establishes that the BE is printed that way and the photograph is not turned
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Rear cover, tracklist: MOONCHILD · INFINITE DREAMS · CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS · THE EVIL THAT MEN DO / SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON · THE PROPHECY · THE CLAIRVOYANT · ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG and Produced, Engineered and Mixed by Martin Birch.
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Rear cover, lower left: the EMI box with EMI Records Ltd. / Hayes / Middlesex / ENGLAND, then Manufactured under license of EMI and Made in Hungary ℗ 1988 EMI
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Rear cover, lower right: ℗ 1988 Original Sound Recordings made by EMI Records Ltd, © 1988 Iron Maiden (Holdings) Ltd. and the printer credit MAHIR – Sylvester J. Ny.
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Front sleeve, under the logo: the GONG device and SLPXL 37213 - read at native resolution; the downscaled frame suggests a hyphen and a space that are not there
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Label, side A: SLPXL 37213-A and 19'52"
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Label, side A: MADE IN HUNGARY ℗ 1988 and ③③ STEREO (two overlapping circled 3s)
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Label, side A: the GONG device and the EMI box, both circled
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Label, side A: 1. MOONCHILD (A. Smith – B. Dickinson) 2. INFINITE DREAMS (S. Harris) 3. CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS (A. Smith – B. Dickinson – S. Harris) 4. THE EVIL THAT MEN DO (A. Smith – B. Dickinson – S. Harris), then Az EMI Ltd. Records felvétele
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Label rim, Hungarian and English: A HANGFELVÉTELT A TÖRVÉNY VÉDI · ARTISJUS · UNAUTHORIZED COPYING OF THIS RECORD IS PROHIBITED
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Label, side B: SLPXL 37213-B and 24'08", over 1. SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON (S. Harris) 2. THE PROPHECY (D. Murray – S. Harris) 3. THE CLAIRVOYANT (S. Harris) 4. ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG (S. Harris – B. Dickinson)
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Run-out, side A: SLPXL, then 37213-A, then 1, P and HP, read a few characters at a time across successive frames of the same arc
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Run-out, side B: SLPXL, 37213 and -B resolve; the characters following -B are etched and visible but do not resolve into letters at this angle
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Jacket interior: plain unprinted brown kraft card, no printing of any kind, with the opening edge split and frayed along its length; the record sits in a plain white paper sleeve, not a printed inner
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Sleeve condition: heavy creasing and a soft crushed corner at the front lower right, edge wear along the opening
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Sleeve condition: dark foxing and staining across the rear upper edge, heaviest by the price code corner
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The photographs
IMG_1717.jpg1 of 30READ FROM
The object, and what marks it out
Sleeve, labels and inserts
- Outer sleeve - a single (non-gatefold) jacket, locally printed, with the Gong device and
SLPXL 37213on the front and no barcode anywhere on it. - The rear price code is a circled
BE, printed correctly. This is the whole identification: the other Hungarian pressing prints the same two letters mirror-reversed. - Jacket interior - plain brown kraft card, unprinted. The record is kept in a plain white paper sleeve; there is no printed inner and no insert.
- Labels - orange-tan paper with dark brown text, the Gong device at the left and the EMI box at the right, in the same setting as folders 46 and 47.
- Vinyl - black.
- Condition - a well-used copy. The jacket is creased across the front lower corner, worn and split along the opening edge, and foxed and stained along the rear top edge. No shop sticker, unlike both earlier Hungarian copies.
What distinguishes this pressing
- The un-mirrored price code
BE. The single feature Discogs uses to separate the two Hungarian rows, and the only one of the two that carries it this way round. Legible here in two frames, from two distances, with correctly-printed cover text beside it in the same orientation. SLPXL 37213- the Hungarian Gong catalogue number, on the front sleeve and on both labels. It matches both Hungarian rows, so it fixes the pair and not the copy.ARTISJUSon the label rim - Hungary's authors' society, corroborating the country independently of the catalogue number, and recorded as the rights society on both rows.Made in Hungary ℗ 1988 EMIon the rear andMADE IN HUNGARY ℗ 1988on both labels - a direct country statement, again shared by both rows.MAHIR – Sylvester J. Ny.on the rear. Discogs credits Sylvester János Nyomda as printer on both rows but credits Mahir as maker only on 1367898, so this leans the right way - weakly, since a missing credit on a submission is not evidence of a different manufacturer.- Not a discriminator here: the run-out. Normally the strongest evidence a vinyl LP carries, and on this pair it is nearly useless - the two rows record effectively identical metalwork, and the one difference between them sits in the part of side B that these photographs cannot resolve.
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: 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.
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 first ordinary Hungarian pressing to reach this shelf.
Hungary was never in doubt: Made in Hungary ℗ 1988 EMI on the rear, MADE IN HUNGARY ℗ 1988 on both labels, ARTISJUS on the label rim, and a Hungarian printer credit. SLPXL 37213 is on the front sleeve and both labels. The master holds exactly two Hungarian vinyl rows under that number, both on Gong, and they are the same pair folders 46 and 47 were matched against.
Discogs separates them in one sentence, on the 1988 row: “Similar to [r=1367898] except the price code at the back is mirrored.” Its identifiers record that code as Ǝᗺ, circled; the 1989 row records BE, and the mirroring is also what earns the 1988 row its Misprint format descriptor.
How the other candidates were ruled out
| This copy | 1367898 | 32039438 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rear price code | BE, circled, upright | BE | Ǝᗺ circled |
| Year | - | 1989 | 1988 |
| Format | - | LP, Album, Stereo | LP, Album, Misprint, Stereo |
Why the code is upright and not a rotated photograph. Turning BE through 180° reverses the letter order and flips each letter, which for these two near-symmetrical shapes lands close to Ǝᗺ - so orientation genuinely matters here and cannot be waved away. The crop that settles it holds the code and the tail of the tracklist in one frame at one orientation, and there …OD DIE YOUNG reads the right way up and left to right. The cover is the right way up; the code is upright; it is BE.
What the run-out contributes, and what it does not. Both sides were photographed, which is more than either earlier Hungarian copy managed - folder 47's dossier notes the discriminating string lives on side B and that side B's deadwax was not among its frames. Here it is among the frames, and it still does not decide anything: SLPXL 37213-B resolves, the characters after it do not, and the trailing 1-15 that Discogs records for the misprint and not for this row can be neither confirmed nor excluded. Side A assembles to SLPXL 37213-A 1 P HP, which both rows record. So the strongest class of vinyl evidence corroborates the pressing family and separates nothing, and the identification rests entirely on the printed price code.
This corrects the shelf's standing summary. Folder 47's entry concludes that the collection holds the Hungarian misprint twice “and the ordinary 1989 pressing not at all”. That was true when it was written and is not true now: 46 and 47 are the misprint, 93 is the ordinary pressing, and the pair can now be compared side by side.
Standing caveat. The version list is incomplete by construction, so a third, uncatalogued Hungarian pressing carrying an upright BE cannot be excluded by anything on this object. What is established is that this copy is not the mirrored-code misprint, and that among the rows the master does hold, 1367898 is the only one it can be.