Fake Test pressings
Or how I was stupid enought to get ripped off on Ebay


“Dear Magnus,
I am sorry you are not happy with the record. I assure you that it is not a fake as I know exactly where it came from and I even know who pressed it and exactly what pressing plant it came from. But as you are unhappy I do not wish to argue and cause bad feeling. I will not be able to refund you until this coming weekend. PayPal have finished the investigation with the Japanese dealer who has caused me so much grief and I have been exonerrated from his accusations and my account will be returned to normal standing. I will have money in my acount by the weekend and will refund you then. I am sorry to hear that you feel that you have to question my integrity as to my issuing a refund. This is where the feedback system fails badly. I have over 10,000 positive transactions in 4 years on ebay alone and yet people will only pay attention to the negative feedback from 2 individuals. It saddens me greatly that you have conveyed your doubts as to my sending a refund once I have recieved the record. How would you feel if I asked how I am to know if you will send the record back once I have issued a refund. Anyway, in the spirit of goodwill I will refund you first and then you can return the record.
My sincerest apologies to you,
Kind Regards,
Vinnie”

I sure wish I would have settled with this. But I really wanted to believe him. Could I be wrong? Was I too paranoid? What if he actually told me the truth? And if it really was a fake, how did he do it? To replace the label and put on a new white label would not be possible to do without it being too obvious. But if there was a way to remove the print and the colours? I started to ask different local second hand record shops if they ever had heard about it. I also showed them my copy. Nobody thought it was possible and all considered my Overkill white label being genuine. I searched the web for information about fake white labels but found nothing. I emailed some other collectors and asked them what they thought. Some of them thought it was possible, others were more sceptical. One had actually heard that bluepyevinnie sold fake records but had also heard from many that said he was honest and sold real stuff. Finally I tried myself to bleach a record I did not care about. The result was a disaster and I decided to believe bluepyevinnie and believe it was not possible to bleach a label without it being very obvious. Poor me. I let Vinnie know I believed him. At the same time he had started to get quite a few negative feedback and he had also made the feedback private.

Vinnie was glad of course and sent me this:

“Dear Magnus,
Hello. Many thanks for contacting me. It's no problem to change your mind and no problem to have doubts. White label test pressings are a minefield of varying problems and to add to that there are forgeries and fakes in circulation. More often than not it is the professionally finished copies that are the fakes. They are pressed in quantities of around 500 to 1,000 and have perfect shiny labels. A genuine test pressing will sometimes have the roughest and most dubious looking labels and even sometimes have a stick on label that may have been put on by hand. A genuine test pressing exists for many reasons. They can be pressed just to see if the system at the pressing plant is working and these copies may have no label at all. These are normally destroyed and melted back down for use later. Sometimes the pressing plant manager will ask for a copy of something just to make sure all is running smoothly. These may have a white or different coloured label or even a label from another disc altogether. Then there are the copies that are sent to RECORD COMPANY, MANAGEMENT and ARTISTS. These usually are pressed in quantities of around 12 or so. It is unusual for a test pressing to run to more than 25 copies. For more than 25 copies a custom promo label will be made and sometimes even these can have the appearance of a home made hand stamped item. I know this information first hand as I have worked at a pressing plantmyself as well as being signed to a major label (EMI and RCA). I'll be happy to discuss any doubts that you may have over this and any other test pressings that you may have and try and offer a explanation as to the process. Don't worry, there are no hard feelings on my part and I am only too glad to help where possible. I'll look forward to your reply,
My Kindest Regards,
Vinnie”

Fake test...(startpage), 2, 3, 4 (this page), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
Ariadnar2006


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