a-ha — Scoundrel Days
One of the first records to go through the full archaeology treatment — and the record that convinced me a single media grade does not tell you enough.
Condition snapshot
LP Visual
VG
Noticeable surface marks and scratches.
LP Playback
NM
Exceptionally clean playback on the current listen.
Sleeve
G
Structurally good, but marked by its previous life.
The three grades are deliberately independent. This copy is the reason the site uses separate visual and playback grades.
The copy
Artist: a-ha
Album: Scoundrel Days
Original release: 1986
Pressing: 1986 European pressing, manufactured in Germany by Record Service GmbH, Alsdorf
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Catalogue: 925 501-1 / WX 62
Original inner: present, printed with lyrics, credits and artwork; roughly VG+.
How the fuck did you get here?
The sleeve says Germany. The dead wax says the story is more complicated.
The stamped R/S Alsdorf marking points to Record Service in Alsdorf, where this European copy was physically pressed. But the hand-etched manufacturing trail also carries Allied-style markings, B-series numbers, SH suffixes and Sheffield Lab Matrix delta numbers. Put together, the evidence points to American metalwork and stamper lineage feeding into a German pressing operation.
That does not mean I can claim the original mastering definitely happened in the USA. What the markings do support is a production chain in which US-origin metalwork or stampers associated with Allied Record Company and Sheffield Lab Matrix ended up being used by Record Service Alsdorf in Germany. One record, at least two countries, and considerably more industrial history than I expected when I put it on the turntable.
Runout highlights
Side A: stamped R/S Alsdorf 925501-1A2; hand-etched markings include 1-25501-A-RE1-SH1, B-25153-Re1-SH1 and △14089.
Side B: stamped R/S Alsdorf 925501-1-B with a small suffix still worth rechecking; hand-etched markings include 1-25501-B-RE1-SH2, B-25154-Re1-SH2 and △14089-X.
The grading problem
Visually, this is a VG record. The scratches are obvious enough that calling the disc EX or NM would be nonsense. Put the needle down, though, and the current copy plays remarkably cleanly: no obvious crackle, pops or other surface noise on the listen that produced this entry.
So the useful description is not simply Media: VG. It is LP Visual: VG / LP Playback: NM. That difference is the whole point of the grading system used on this site.
The library mystery
The outer sleeve has a library barcode on the front and the centre label carries a handwritten library identifier. That strongly suggests this copy once belonged to a lending collection, although the institution has not yet been identified. The sleeve itself is actually in much better structural and visual shape than the G grade first implies; the permanent library markings are what drag it down.
How it reached this collection
Thélise found a batch of English-language and better-known records in a charity shop and brought some home for me. The exact shop, date and price have become a little hazy, which is one of the reasons the catalogue now records acquisition stories properly instead of trusting future me to remember anything.
Still to add
Front and rear sleeve photographs, centre-label shots, the original inner sleeve, close-ups of the runout markings and a final physical recheck of the tiniest Side B characters. This page is intentionally allowed to grow as the record gets revisited.