By tricky (81.133.192.77) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 10:11 am:

you are looking at a list/web site or listening to a dj playing a rare tune.it or he says that there are only 1 or 2 copies known.what i want to know is for a small indie 60,s 70,s label what would be the minimum pressing amount? see even though a lot of tunes are rocking horse poo obscure (rare is an overused term) copies must be out there.for example the shrine label.surely copies are in doo wop collectors hands as they also pick up on transitional soul sounds.surely any label could,nt put out 10 or 20 releases of a very small press.your input please.

By E (68.163.56.33) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 11:01 am:

500 copies is the usual minimum, sometimes 300.

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 11:08 am:

There was an amount that would be sent to distributors. My memory is a little fuzzy, so maybe Weldon can set me straight. A thousand records was known as a " deal ". With that Deal, the distributor was allowed so many for promotional purposes ( usually a couple of hundred records ) and the remainder was to be distributed to record outlets.

By Weldon A Mc Dougal II (68.80.162.3) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 11:59 am:

Hi Ralph, when we started are record company Harthon, because we had to pay for the pressing, we would get the minimum 300, then we would give the distributor 100,they would use 25 for promotion, Motown was another story, they would have DJ copys made,they would send me two to three hundred for promotion, Ralph you were right about a thousand records was a deal, but they would give the distributer about 100 free goods, but if the record was selling, most of the time there was no deals.
WELDON

By Ralph (209.240.205.62) on Friday, April 02, 2004 - 12:02 pm:

Thanks for clearing all that up for me Weldon. You never let us down.