Casiopea - Mint Jams Vinyl - Japanese First Pressing / Promo
£
145
$
192
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Description
NOT BEEN PLAY TESTED!
Casiopea – Mint Jams (1982 Original First Pressing / Japanese Factory Promo Archive)
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Promo, White / Full Color Hybrid Label
Label: Alfa Records (Standard full-color labels featuring the distinctive black factory promo stamp)
Cat No: ALR-20002
Matrix / Runout: Side A: (stamped) ALR-20002A 2-A-3, [〄 JIS logo and CS54S56789XYZ at 3 o’clock, 1 at 9 o’clock] / Side B: (stamped) ALR-20002B 2-A-3, [1 at 9 o’clock]
Description:
A magnificent, high-grade audiophile artifact that preserves an exceptional, 100% authentic promotional copy of Casiopea’s definitive jazz-fusion masterpiece. The outer cardboard sleeve is a structurally solid, original 1982 Japanese retail jacket manufactured by Alfa Records, which lacks any external red ink stamps or silver metallic promotional stickers. This clean presentation indicates the record plant housed this early-run promotional disc inside a standard commercial jacket to fulfill early distributor and radio station demand. The cleanly typeset spine remains presentable, and the back of the sleeve is unmarred by promotional markings. Reflecting its history as a targeted broadcast copy handled directly by radio personnel or DJs, the jacket has shed its original external paper OBI strip.
Contained safely inside is the pristine vinyl disc alongside its original double-sided paper insert. The front of the insert features a sharp layout of the album tracklist accompanied by the iconic performance headshots of the band's "golden era" lineup (Issei Noro, Minoru Mukaiya, Tetsuo Sakurai, and Akira Jimbo). The reverse side features exhaustive liner notes written entirely in Japanese, documenting the recording details at Chuo Kaikan Hall and a meticulous mapping of the band's technical stage equipment. The vinyl itself is housed in its original round-bottomed, anti-static high-density clear polyethylene (HDPE) inner sleeve, perfectly protecting it from paper scuffs. The record labels feature standard commercial color printing but are explicitly distinguished on the right side of Side 1 by a bold, black factory ink hand-stamp reading (Mihonban / "Sample Disc"), certifying its extreme rarity as an official Japanese promo item.
The dead wax inscriptions document an elite engineering lineage: the CS stamp confirms the record was masterfully pressed at the legendary CBS/Sony pressing plant in Shizuoka, Japan using their ultra-quiet, premium vinyl compound. The highly sought-after 2-A-3 matrix codes on both sides place this disc at the very inception of the manufacturing line, struck from Mother #2 and Stamper #3 from the "A" cutting session before any plate degradation could occur. Holding the disc up to a direct, brilliant light source reveals the definitive "secret" signature of the CBS/Sony plant: the black vinyl is beautifully translucent, showing a smoky amber/brown hue under light. The area surrounding the spindle hole shows minimal to no trail lines, confirming that despite its radio station origin, this specific archival copy was rarely played. Uniting the unparalleled sonic depth of fresh, first-generation analog stampers with the historical romance of an early-access preview copy, this unique assembly represents the definitive purist presentation of Japan's finest live fusion performance.
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