Sawcuts & Hole-punches Question

[mrnickgreen]

Hi

I'm in the UK and have recently become quite involved in buying rare rap CDs from the 1990's. As most rare rap CDs never gained a British release I buy most of them from the US via ebay & Amazon.

I've noticed that quite a high percentage come with either a sawcut to the spine or a holepunch through the barcode or back insert. This doesn't happen in the UK so I wondered what it really meant.

I've heard various reasons for this:

1) It means it's a promo
2) It's been reduced in price by the store that sold it
3) It means Out of Print

And some other even more wacky reasons.

Does anyone know the truth??

Thanks!

 

[HCL-G]

Promotional copy not destined to sale.


This is what i know.

 

[Blaze1]

I always here it's just a promo release meant to be given away free to radio stations or for the stores to play, but in the same breath it's always said that there is no difference between a retail release, music wise that is.

 

[SMMWest]

It is done to Cd's that us Record Labels give to Magazines for Review, Record Stores for In-Store play, Street Team members, Distributors for promotion (these are the snakes that will sell them for profit).

Since we are giving these Cd's aways for 'Free' and taking a loss on them, we don't want those people of whom we issue them to selling them for profit thus we most of the time damage the Barcode so as to make it unscannable, some also saw the Spine to make it completely unsellable within Record Stores.

 

[mR.SiPpYGeTiPpY]

Hi

I'm in the UK and have recently become quite involved in buying rare rap CDs from the 1990's. As most rare rap CDs never gained a British release I buy most of them from the US via ebay & Amazon.

I've noticed that quite a high percentage come with either a sawcut to the spine or a holepunch through the barcode or back insert. This doesn't happen in the UK so I wondered what it really meant.

I've heard various reasons for this:

1) It means it's a promo
2) It's been reduced in price by the store that sold it
3) It means Out of Print

And some other even more wacky reasons.

Does anyone know the truth??

Thanks!

It does happen in the UK.. A lot of my ichiban/koch/ryko i bought in the late 90's from cd fairs was whole punched/saw marked/drill holed.

You'd be able to find a lot of rare priority/smg/triad shit in the UK too with the same markings.

The stores don't hole punch, they may put marker on the barcode though.

Here's the best explanation you're likely to find

http://www.foetusized.org/cdcutouts.html

 

[mR.SiPpYGeTiPpY]

Since we are giving these Cd's aways for 'Free' and taking a loss on them, we don't want those people of whom we issue them to selling them for profit thus we most of the time damage the Barcode so as to make it unscannable, some also saw the Spine to make it completely unsellable within Record Stores.

Even on the bulk lots artists don't get paid royalties, it is another reason for their very low retail price.

 

[AdolfOliverBush]

And you can usually tell whether or not your CD is going to have a hole punch, drill hole, or saw cut when buying online. You're looking at a fairly newly released CD and all of them are $12 or more and there is one for $7, probably going to have some kind of promo mark. It seems like any Thizz release I buy that is not brand new has a hole punch. It pisses me off, but I just suck it up. I usually leave the sellers a neutral feedback stating they never mentioned the hole punch in their item description.

 

[Flowjob]

I used to work in a record store and we had lots of US import vinyl albums that were cut outs. they were bought instore at a very cheap price and the cut was there to make sure the store didn't sell the LP at full price.