1132211 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Green River strictly do not present any noticeable difference in the artwork or in any of the other examples of differentiation mentioned in RSG §1.4.1. The second is listed as Repress, justified by the difference in the marks caused by the stamping / pressing, one with a deep groove away from the center hole and the other with a light groove close to the center hole. The difference in manufacturing is evident, but it doesn't necessarily have to have occurred at different times. It could have occurred in the same factory at the same time on different pressing machines and stampers. Except for these marks, there is apparently nothing to distinguish the two editions, which used the same cover and the same center labels. There are also no significant differences in the runouts of the two, indicating that the same matrices have been used. As stated on RSG §1.4.2 "reissues that cannot be told apart from the original issue cannot be entered as a unique release - unique releases must have a means of identifying them as such!"
This is not a unique case, there are perhaps hundreds of similar cases of differentiation by machinery / stamping used. Should these be kept separate, contrary to the aforementioned Guidelines or be merged, proving that there are no other differentiating factors?
A merge proposition would certainly generate a huge noise / debate and would probably never be approved by the 4x1 ratio needed to approve or deny a merger.
But it would be a lot of fun...
I would say yes, keep separate. They are indicative of different pressing just as much as any other identifiers, imo. We keep cassettes with even minutely different shells separate, theres no reason to no treat stamper rings in the same way.
Otherwise you might also start arguing that otherwise identical releases that have different pressing plant identifiers in the runout should not be separate. Well, a different stamper ring is almost as good an indicator of a different pressing plant in my view.
GroovingPict
I would say yes, keep separate. They are indicative of different pressing just as much as any other identifiers, imo.
Different pressing rings usually don't qualify for unique releases, because
lbamaral
The difference in manufacturing is evident, but it doesn't necessarily have to have occurred at different times. It could have occurred in the same factory at the same time on different pressing machines and stampers.
The thing with identifiers in runouts is that you can detract credits and LCCN from them. Not so here. I personally don't have a problem with keeping unique releases for such noticable differences, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.
But it's true hat what constitutes a "mere" manufacturing variation sometimes seems rather arbitrary. I know there's quite a few s who don't think that a missing dot in a label matrix should be fundamental enough to make something unique, but a printed difference remains a printed difference.
GroovingPict
keep separate. They are indicative of different pressing just as much as any other identifiers
The marks are not indicative of different presses, they are only indicative that different machines and stamper plates were used in the pressing. In addition, there is a clear recommendation that "Different stampers / matrix numbers for the same edition [...] would not count as a unique release" RSG §1.4.4
+1
It's certainly logical for such trivial differences to be combined into a single Release, so I imagine you'll get a huge amount of pushback and the Guidelines will never be changed one way or the other to clarify.
