Decca Contract Info

DECCA PRESSING Decca pressed many licensed labels such as London, Brunswick, Vogue, Coral and others as well as it's own Decca label. No other company from 1954 to 1980, when the Company was sold, pressed any Decca product except Decca. Only from 1980 do you find the Polygram ink printed moulded plastic labels. There are no Contract Pressings of big sellers like the Rolling Stones to prove this true. They were the biggest Contract Pressing company of all the major labels such as Oriole, CBS, Pye & Philips. Decca sometimes mastered the Contract Pressings into their own master plates, this can be found with 1964 Fontana & Philips 45s. The Decca style typeface in the runout gives this away. As of yet we've not found any difference in the take or mix used as Decca were the top company of the day, errors weren't made! Decca were always made with the Push Out centre in the 50s & 60s, though you do find unfinished untrimmed-edge test pressings with the centre prongs uncut, as well as solid centre Demos in the 50s, alternating between Tri & solid centre at random & even within the pair of 1 sided Demos even as we've found. Some 70s Decca have solid centres. BUCKINGHAM [Decca] and GRAMOPHLTD [EMI] codes were used on approx 1000-2000 pressings before they were replaced as worn out. Exact numbers depended on many factors naturally. A 1963 copy of the Beatles 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' still with the first label style has 'ARO' and 'APD' CODES, meaning 325th stamper on the A side and 350th on the B side (or is it 360th?). Either way, it shows over 300 stampers there was about 15% tolerance here. 1000-2000 pressings per stamper = 325,000 to 650,000 copies, though the higher seems more likely as the record sold a million very fast.

ˆ1973	ˆ1973
ˆ1964	ˆ1965
ˆ1973	ˆ1970
ˆ1972	ˆ1973
ˆ1977	ˆ1967
ˆ1963	ˆ1974
ˆ1966	ˆ1966
ˆ1964	ˆ1974
ˆ1972	ˆ1968
ˆ1974	ˆ1973
ˆ1966	ˆ1969
ˆ1971	ˆ1968
ˆ1966	ˆ1968
ˆ1967	ˆ1974
ˆ1961	ˆ1974