Elektra Pressings;

back to main page

  This page has been built in order to clarify the whole SP / AR pressings for the Elektra Usa vinyl Promo`s & Test Pressings, there have been some major developments in this matter made by myself & also by Matthijs in Holland which prompted me to add this page, we actually found much of the same information form two different sources so this should be accurate.

During the `80`s and early `90`s Elektra had vinyl pressed in two different pressing plants;

  SP stands for SPeciality Records based in Pennsylvania which is on the East coast of America near New York.
  AR stands for Allied Record Company based on the West coast of America near Los Angeles.

  As Elektra`s head office is based in New York it makes sense that most of the Test Pressings would have been made there and most of the usa vinyl appears to have been pressed with the Speciality Records Master Plates. The reason for two pressing plants?, Money - vinyl LP`s are heavy and to ship vast amounts from the East Coast of America to the West Coast would be expensive plus vinyl is fragile so they simply used two plants.

  The Master Plates would have been shipped to Allied Record Company for them to press the vinyl in, Allied Record Company would have made small alterations to the Master Plates so they could identify which LP`s were pressed by them in case of faults in any run which explains the additional matrix detailing on the AR vinyls.


  What i aim to do is to list the variations of each vinyl lp as well as noting the promo lp`s numbering detail as that will give a fairly accurate count of how many of each were pressed - for this reason i need anyone with a numbered promo copy of Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, Garage Days Re-Revisited or ...And justice for all to email me the number on the gold promo stamp (thats assuming i don`t already have a lower or higher number already listed!!).

I will be adding details of the normal elektra lp`s (red & black labels, gray labels & record club issue) later on - i did discover recently that elektra swiched the promo 12" singles from white labels to `gray` labels in `89 so the elektra gray label lp`s are later issues.