Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now
Robert Brook wrote to me recently with some questions.
Hi Tom,
I read your recent post about Sticky Fingers and the European TML reissues you included in shootouts.
It raised a question for me that I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now.
The fact that the UK TML earned an A+ to A++ grade and that, with just a one copy sample, you wouldn’t consider that pressing to have shootout winning potential, suggests to me that the US pressings you favor will grade at A++ or higher.
In other words, if you put a shootout together of [redacted stamper] pressings and whatever else you like, does every copy in the shootout grade at least A++ / A++? Are the right stampers that reliable?
I guess I’ve always assumed that even if you put together a shootout with this or any other title, and even if you only include pressings that have won or placed high in the past, at least a couple of them would end up graded no higher than A+ or A+ to A++.
And if that is correct, wouldn’t it be worth buying more UK TML’s to see if any emerge that could win a shootout?
With Revolver, for instance, why not just do shootouts with [redacted numbers] if those are the ones that win the shootouts? Why even bother with [later pressings]?
Robert,
All good questions! I could go on for days with this kind of inside baseball stuff. I’ve been living it full time for more than twenty years, and it obviously interests you because you are actually trying to hone your shootout skills and figure out how many of what pressings you need to get one going, etc., etc.