I'm going to use this as a chance to clear up some things I've been wanting to for a while, long read but some of you should find this useful.
Original Pressings - these are the first authorized copies from a high bias master tape to duplication, usually with a j card cover, sometimes with special art & ink labeling directly on the cassette, high quality grade cassette, sometimes different color & style of cassette shell, very low noise, high quality audio, & correct length tapes. These cost the most to duplicate
Second Pressings - these are a second issuing of authorized copies usually from a high bias master tape to duplication, sometimes duplicated from a original pressing, sometimes not as great audio quality, may have cover, cover may be in black/white rather than color, may have sticker label instead of ink labeling, quality of cassette usually good, some noise but high quality audio, usually more units pressed than the original pressing issue due to cost being the same for more units
These authorized pressings are the only items produced with the intent to distribute the content in it's intended quality. The majority of music online is not taken from these tapes, instead from bootlegs & poor sources. The originals were sold straight from the artists, by consignment at authorized stereo shops, and at authorized retailers such as Musiquarium and Poptunes in Memphis and surrounding areas. These tapes were usually duplicated on machines that were in spec and serviced properly for small-run duplication for independent artist/producers.
Old Bootlegs - these are the first wave of duplicated copies of authorized pressings, done by a third party without permission, using low-end duplication equipment, low grade cassettes (usually speech grade), much worse sound quality, incorrect tape lengths, higher noise levels/balance issues/treble&bass issues. Simple labeling, no cover/artwork. These were duplicated close to the release of the originals by shops and are what many on the internet usually believe to be original pressings as the originals are not always seen and documented. Though these bootlegs do not, and should not represent the quality of the the original authorized issues. These are also what some of the "rips" are sourced from when the Memphis "remastered" MP3 scene first became a thing around 2005-2006. Local sellers of these bootlegs were many including Boss Ugly's, Mr Z's, and local stereo shops such as TNT Pro Audio.
Late 90's early 00's Bootlegs - these were bootlegs made many years after the original pressings were long gone and could not be sourced. Many of the original artists had moved on to CD's, national releases, and record deals, and were no longer producing cassette tapes. This was a time when old underground Memphis music was first making a local resurgence in the south and there was a collector market for physical copies of the older, now hard to find titles. These were usually duplicated from old bootlegs, occasionally from an authorized pressing. Audio quality now ranging from okay to not very good at all. Bootleggers were still using the same old duplicators from the early to mid 90's that were usually never serviced. These were being made in bulk on low-grade cassettes. Some artists were also even bootlegging and repressing their own old titles, an example would be Tommy Wright III bulk pressing large quantities are his affiliated Street Smart releases to sell in local markets to fund his new projects. These were sold to music shops in the region and directly to customers by catalog. These tapes were widely available. Many of these are what people also believe to be the original pressings, as they are coming directly from the artist. Audio quality usually was very noisy and faulty pressings were common. Other sources for late 90s boots were some of the local music shops such as Boss Ugly's, tape duplicators such as Stuart's, and as well as an old website "MTownBound" ran by B-Low that duplicated and sold tons of the tapes that you will see pictured on youtube. King JC's Basement Tape Distribution was also selling his own tape copies on the old Southwest-Connection website. These era of bootlegs make up the majority of the digital conversions and "remastered" mp3s
Late 00's to Present Day Bootlegs - In the late 00's, TWIII resurfaced on ebay selling all sorts of bootlegs of everyone's tapes. He was running duplicators still in operation from Stuart's to make copies of everyone's old tapes; all of which was without permission of the original artist/producers. First being his projects and affiliated producers MDB, Maceo, Blackout's tapes; then moving on to any and everything. These tapes were all over the place in sound quality as they were being copied from all sorts of sources. They were widely available and are now in the hands of people worldwide, TWIII would open many ebay accounts, it would get shut down, & he would open another. TWIII's newer bootlegs are for the most part now well documented as bootlegs. But his older bootlegs from the late 90's are in the same technical category.
Player One came into the internet market attempting to represent DJ Sound. He originally was releasing digital-only "reissues" of DJ Sounds's tapes beginning in 2006. Then once he realized the ignorance of the millennial and international market and how "lifetime fans" would buy anything, he started an ebay store doing just the same thing as TWIII, plus much worse. He was selling bootlegs of all of DJ Sounds tapes, followed by DJ Paul's, DJ Squeeky's, Skinny Pimp's, Lady B's and many others; they were all duplicated in bulk. He also decided to increase the hustle by then making homemade "master tapes" and selling those as well. People actually paid hundreds and hundreds of dollars for these, when they were not even remotely masters. You can see these all over youtube. For example, some of these were handwritten on cassette tape models that weren't even manufactured during the time they would have been mixed down in the early 90's. Basically people were buying homemade mixtapes dubbed in his apartment. He would move on to sell Maniyak's titles the same way as well as "masters" and put random tracks together to keep selling digital albums thru CDBaby. He literally was throwing anything together for a DJ Sound vol 12, 13, 14, etc.. And also did a bunch of hilarious things like a "Nigga Creep" red tape that he sold on ebay that was recorded from an MP3 fan-made compilation. The tape was sold as a super rare OG from 1995 on a red shell cassette with a red sticker printed from a computer. The best part is the tape featured tracks from the 1998 Prophet Posse album and right on the sticker it says Hypnotized Minds, when none of those things even existed in 1995. Still the millennial international internet has this made-up album listed as something amazing, when it never even existed and was dubbed from random MP3s to cassette. There was never a Nigga Creep tape. After that tape sold, Player One then sold the rest out. He would routinely sell his "only copy" of an "original" tape, only to then sell bulk a few weeks later. He sold numerous cassettes dubbed from MP3 to cassette for titles that also never existed but were scrapped up and pieced together from whatever he could find. He's been releasing 'albums' with random tracks ever since.
Counterfeits - this is where it gets really bad, there are present-day tape counterfeiters overseas that create tapes to look like the original pressings (or what they believe to be original pressings). I have gone out of my way to track and confirm one of these people in Germany and what this guy does is try to mimic the cassette style, label, and text of any specific tape, and then sells it. If the original sticker label is yellow on youtube, he'll use a yellow label. He just types it up and prints it out. They aren't even bootlegs. They are complete counterfeits, and all that is recorded onto the cassette is an mp3 rip downloaded from the internet on both sides. It's not even a copy of a bootleg, as they have no access to any of the original tapes. This in my opinion is by far the worst kind of this whole game. These people are deliberately cashing in on the market by selling things that aren't remotely authentic. I've seen these items get sold and resold on ebay numerous times, and even when the buyer overseas relists it, they'll list it as an OG too, it sells for something more, and it ends up in hands of someone else and the misinformation continues. This is apparently the cycle where we're at now.
Bottom Line: Many millennials and tape collectors alike, for some reason believe these tapes are the actual underground tapes from back in the day and are worth something. They are 9 times out of 10 merely a copy of a copy, and in some cases even worse than that when it comes to the counterfeits. The market now is flooded with all sorts of completely incorrect information, all sorts of fans and original "collectors" worldwide that have no idea what they are talking about, and garbage product is what gets sold hand to hand, and for ridiculous prices. Even artists are scamming on the action and pushing it further. The true original pressings are in fact rare, and worth a very good amount of money. The sound quality alone is one of the main reasons. People assume that what is posted on youtube is what these tapes actually sound like, that Memphis underground rap is all about low quality, low budget, tape hiss etc. When in reality, that is all created by myth and the continuation of bootlegging and scamming the music to the point of what it is today, is the result. People literally pay hundreds of dollars for what is essentially a vhs copy of a copy of a bootleg vhs movie. That to me is crazy.