$700 for a Grey Tristessa? Really????

Yeah, this is a little over the top, I guess.

There’s an interesting discussion about the grey vinyl on sp.com: http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/board_n … opic=15434

There are reasons to believe that the grey copies were pressed on purpose, as a separate colour, and not just a result of not cleaning the presses between the black and the pink run. Apparently, if you press two different colours without cleaning in between, you will end up with far less copies with mixed colours, and it is also unlikely, according to some, that the mixed copies will look grey if you go from black to pink (or vice versa).

Noone else cares?

yeah, i guess i care (mildly). i have heard this alternate theory before, and it seems to make the most sense.

i’m working with pette discographies to come up with a small article about this to post on our homepage. stay tuned, and thanks for bringing this up bram.

There’s an interesting discussion about the grey vinyl on sp.com: http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/board_n … opic=15434

There are reasons to believe that the grey copies were pressed on purpose, as a separate colour, and not just a result of not cleaning the presses between the black and the pink run. Apparently, if you press two different colours without cleaning in between, you will end up with far less copies with mixed colours, and it is also unlikely, according to some, that the mixed copies will look grey if you go from black to pink (or vice versa).[/quote:1cvndplx]

As fas as I know and with me Dave Asselin and Matt, borh major collectors… And as per Matt as he had been in touch with the Sub Pop guys and at one point owned like 70+ Tristessa’s in all variants oer cokours… it WAs indeed NOT INTENDED, but ended up this way as per some copies being grey. Not per se as per the cleaning issue or something, but by accident… Not as intended per se thus!!!!

Matt told me there are around 300 grey-ish copies.
BC doesn’t have a grey copy, nor to the guys from Sub Pop.
The guys were even quite surprised when Matt contacted hem to point this out…

thanks for your input, sven.
so you’re saying that the intention was to only make black and pink vinyls, but for some unknown reason, about 300 grey copies were pressed. and you do agree that this was an accident, but that this very likely has nothing to do with the story of not cleaning the plates between the two different colour pressings. right?

i’ve recently seen a pink copy on ebay and it had quite a bit of black marbling going on. now that is what i think we could expect from not cleaning the plates.
unfortunately i forgot to bid on it and it went to someone else for a fairly cheap price. i’m still angry at myself for that, as i was prepared to pay a decent amount of money for that copy.
i’ve got the picture from the auction saved on my home pc. i’ll post it here when i’m at home and think of it. (probably next week.)

thanks for your input, sven.
so you’re saying that the intention was to only make black and pink vinyls, but for some unknown reason, about 300 grey copies were pressed. and you do agree that this was an accident, but that this very likely has nothing to do with the story of not cleaning the plates between the two different colour pressings. right?

i’ve recently seen a pink copy on ebay and it had quite a bit of black marbling going on. now that is what i think we could expect from not cleaning the plates.
unfortunately i forgot to bid on it and it went to someone else for a fairly cheap price. i’m still angry at myself for that, as i was prepared to pay a decent amount of money for that copy.
i’ve got the picture from the auction saved on my home pc. i’ll post it here when i’m at home and think of it. (probably next week.)[/quote:2tbjugy5]

indeed, exaclty

well, i received a very long email on behalf of pette discographies, detailing [their] main problems with the \"cross contamination\" theory. it’s not structured very well, but the main points are there. i guess what i’m saying is, it’s not ready to be a front page article yet. if anyone (particularly arthur, bram, and sven) wants me to forward the email for perusal, please PM me your email address. if i don’t hear from anyone about it, i will assume you either a) trust my opinion and research or b) trust pette discographies opinion and research and will forward onto arthur for inclusion on the site as reworked by me, but only slightly.

again, i really am deferring to the experts here. i do not claim to be the end all of smashing pumpkins vinyl. but for fucks sake, pette discographies deals with an INSANE amount of color variations and limited releases. and they specialize with this particular label. if you have not seen the site, please visit http://www.pettediscographies.com/default.asp.

anyway, hope to reach some form of accord on this issue soon. thanks.

Hi Derek, please forward to Bram and Sven at least, if you like. Of course we will not rewrite the conclusions of Pette Discographies, but we might want to include a footnote, or something.

i’ve recently seen a pink copy on ebay and it had quite a bit of black marbling going on. now that is what i think we could expect from not cleaning the plates.[/quote:2jb603mq]
here’s the picture from the auction:

We published an article about the Tristessa vinyl single frontpage just now, focusing on the grey vinyl version. With many thanks to Pette Discographies for the interview and Derek for writing the article & creating the great artwork to go with it.

The texts on the 3 different uploads of Tristessa have been changed accordingly, I hope you vinyl collecting guys can agree on the changes?

http://www.spfreaks.com/default.aspx?pa … &item=1125 (black vinyl)

http://www.spfreaks.com/default.aspx?pa … &item=1126 (grey vinyl)

http://www.spfreaks.com/default.aspx?pa … &item=1127 (pink vinyl)

Too bad we can’t find the original pressing invoice for the 7", that’d probably clear this up immediately.[/quote:3hp8dcvi]
Yeah, exactly.

I tried to figure out the pressing numbers for each of the 3 colors of Tristessa 7" vinyl (which could have been clear figures if that pressing invoice would be known) and I still have a bad feeling about it. It’s full of guesses and lucky shots. This is what I mean:

7,500 total pressing: guess
2,500 pink pressing: confirmed by Sub Pop
200-300 grey pressing: guess
4,800 black pressing: calculated from 2 guesses and 1 confirm

I have no idea if I make sense here, but I think the grey pressing will exceed the number of 200-300 pressed by far. I’m more thinking of 1,000 – 1,500 (same as I Am One vinyl). My guts feeling says that the grey pressing for Tristessa is just as much on the market as the I Am One 7". I can not really proof that, so I might be completely wrong here. Shoot this to pieces, if you like.

But also, when I compare the Tristessa grey vinyl with another rarity like La Saga Racontee CD (approx. 125 pressed) then I see the grey pressing for Tristessa around 10-15 times more on the market. So both ways I reach a number of 1,000 – 1,500 pressed for Tristessa grey vinyl. No?

i think the original pressing invoice will say something like:
– pink: 4500
– black: 3000
without any mention of the grey copies.

so i guess the actual pressing quantities are the same, minus the grey copies.
pink: 4500 – x
black: 3000 – y
grey: x + y
(x or y can be 0. x + y is estimated to be around 200-300.)

2500 pink copies doesn’t make sense. the black vinyl copies are definitely rarer than the pink ones, no?

If the grey vinyl was intentional, then great. It would make sense.

The only thing that I disagree with about the article, or what is neglected……the Nirvana Silver/Dive single was repressed as were several other Sub Pop items by Erika Records because Sub Pop was in major financial problems (close to going out of business bad). That is where all of the different variations of Bleach came into play, after the original White Vinyl version. But the key on any of those is that on the label it does say "pressed by Erika".

Luckily, we know that the Grey Tristessa doesn’t fall into this category, but Petite Discographies should know this, whether they want to admit it or not. That is why Sub Pop isn’t keen to admit it, because who wants to say in a discography "to keep ourselves in business, we had to re-press 8000 copies of Bleach on 15 different color variants"

Regardless if the grey was intended or not, the Tristessa Grey is still just as rare as it was originally. Too bad we can’t find the original pressing invoice for the 7", that’d probably clear this up immediately.[/quote:1na3irx7]

I guess I see your point, but even you acknowledge this is really not relevant with respect to the Tristessa release. The only reason the other singles were brought up is to provide evidence about Sub Pop being misleading, not getting into why, necessarily.

i think the original pressing invoice will say something like:
– pink: 4500
– black: 3000
without any mention of the grey copies.

so i guess the actual pressing quantities are the same, minus the grey copies.
pink: 4500 – x
black: 3000 – y
grey: x + y
(x or y can be 0. x + y is estimated to be around 200-300.)

2500 pink copies doesn’t make sense. the black vinyl copies are definitely rarer than the pink ones, no?[/quote:1bdobwim]

i’ve always assumed these numbers to be correct.
at least: pink > 4.500
then: with the grey ones… i guess there might be a lot more than 300 just as Arthur stated.

the bill probably only features the pink and black ones.

we’ll never know for sure, but thanks for the insight as per the great article!

This is what Pette says on his website about Tristessa pink & black. What to believe? Should I correct pink to 4,500 and black to 3,000 (or maybe better: 2,500 and set 500 to grey?)?

\"The only Sub Pop release by Smashing Pumpkins. All had foldover paper sleeves with Singles Club forms attached. There were a lot of these pressed – I have read 4500 on pink marble vinyl and 3000 on black vinyl. Or so I had been led to believe. Sub Pop says there were 2500 pink ones. I feel like this can’t possibly be correct because there are so many on the market. The black ones are definitely more scarce, and the market actually reflects this.\"

in my email correspondence with john, he estimated 1500 on black. also the 200-300 noted in the article. apparently, the 2500 pink comes from sub pop themselves.

honestly, i’d just put \"unknown\". since we really have no idea, we should just say so.

based on the market…

4.500 pink
3.000 black
~500 grey…

which makes total sense in a way…
initial press: 5.000, they ran out of pink, started the marble, switched to grey.
and a second press of all blacks.

sorry:
i meant:

4.500 pink and grey…
3.000 black

running out of pink they switched.

4.500 pink and grey…
3.000 black

running out of pink they switched.[/quote:277att1u]

Is that "somewhat confirmed" info, that the initial pressing (first pressing) was all pink, and the second pressing is black? Running out of black is impossible, so it truly makes sense, to put it like this!

4.500 pink and grey…
3.000 black

running out of pink they switched.[/quote:21qujz0w]

Is that "somewhat confirmed" info, that the initial pressing (first pressing) was all pink, and the second pressing is black? Running out of black is impossible, so it truly makes sense, to put it like this![/quote:21qujz0w]

total pressing was 7.500
that’s confirmed by SubPop.

as far as i know it was all one press run done in one go.
meant to be pink then black.
somewhere as our article states, in the pink run they went for marble, more marble and total grey.
and then the black ones altogether.

I have no idea if I make sense here, but I think the grey pressing will exceed the number of 200-300 pressed by far. I’m more thinking of 1,000 – 1,500 (same as I Am One vinyl). My guts feeling says that the grey pressing for Tristessa is just as much on the market as the I Am One 7". I can not really proof that, so I might be completely wrong here. Shoot this to pieces, if you like.

But also, when I compare the Tristessa grey vinyl with another rarity like La Saga Racontee CD (approx. 125 pressed) then I see the grey pressing for Tristessa around 10-15 times more on the market. So both ways I reach a number of 1,000 – 1,500 pressed for Tristessa grey vinyl. No?[/quote:19m3e2o2]
i don’t agree with this way of thinking.

i don’t think the grey tristessa has the same ebay presence as the i am one 7". (but then that’s just my feeling, of course.)

on top of that, the amount of copies on the market does not necessarily represent the amount of copies pressed. it’s not because you see the grey tristessa ten times more than that french promo cd, you can calculate 10 * 125 = 1250 and assume that’s a good estimate for the amount of grey tristessa vinyls pressed. i can see the logic behind that, but why would it work like that? that french cd is so rare. how many times have you seen it for sale? i think the error margin is way too big here. maybe for items that were made in larger quantities (thousands) this method of estimation might work better.

I have no idea if I make sense here, but I think the grey pressing will exceed the number of 200-300 pressed by far. I’m more thinking of 1,000 – 1,500 (same as I Am One vinyl). My guts feeling says that the grey pressing for Tristessa is just as much on the market as the I Am One 7". I can not really proof that, so I might be completely wrong here. Shoot this to pieces, if you like.

But also, when I compare the Tristessa grey vinyl with another rarity like La Saga Racontee CD (approx. 125 pressed) then I see the grey pressing for Tristessa around 10-15 times more on the market. So both ways I reach a number of 1,000 – 1,500 pressed for Tristessa grey vinyl. No?[/quote:pv2xxowz]
i don’t agree with this way of thinking.

i don’t think the grey tristessa has the same ebay presence as the i am one 7". (but then that’s just my feeling, of course.)

on top of that, the amount of copies on the market does not necessarily represent the amount of copies pressed. it’s not because you see the grey tristessa ten times more than that french promo cd, you can calculate 10 * 125 = 1250 and assume that’s a good estimate for the amount of grey tristessa vinyls pressed. i can see the logic behind that, but why would it work like that? that french cd is so rare. how many times have you seen it for sale? i think the error margin is way too big here. maybe for items that were made in larger quantities (thousands) this method of estimation might work better.[/quote:pv2xxowz]

agreed…

i’ve always assumed some hundreds of greys were made.
not much more, maybe tops 500.

i’ve always assumed there were less than 100 copies, but that’s because that’s the only number i ever read. if i think about it, there might as well be more copies, although i’m not suddenly convinced that there definitely are.