| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
| Bleach SP34 (1992) test pressing | |||||||
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Inverted-labels test pressing on pink translucent vinyl. The labels are both retail side B labels turned upside down to appear as white labels, but the artwork can be viewed if the record is put directly over bright light. There is a two seconds drop-out on side B during Negative Creep. Comes in a white cardboard sleeve and a clear plastic inner sleeve. All copies found but one have completely blank labels. So far, four confirmed copies have been found: 1. Blank side A label, "Nir" written in light blue pen and "vana" written with pencil on side B label. Perhaps "Nir" was just a short note at the pressing plant or at Sub Pop, while a later owner added the rest of the name. 2. Blank labels. This came in a plain white sleeve. Sold by Danny Peters of Mudhoney. 3. Blank labels, but "Nirvana Bleach Test - Fucked Up" is handwritten by Steve Turner of Mudhoney on the upper left corner on the cardboard sleeve sleeve. Steve received the test pressing while visiting the Sub Pop office, and later sold it on eBay. 4. Blank labels. This is a test pressing for the 1992 pressing of Bleach. The CD released in 1992 was remastered. It's possible that they also intended to release the remastered version on vinyl, and that this is what's on this test pressing, but the plates were never used to press retail records. The lacquers were possibly cut by K Disc, who also cut the 1989 release. RE1 means remake 1, so this was the first recut of the album since 1989. The lacquers were sent to Lee Plating which made the pressing plates, and these were sent to Erika Records for pressing records. Pink test pressings were made, maybe because that was the color they were going to start to press first. There were no black records planned for the 1992 pressing, but test pressings are usually pressed on black vinyl even if the retail records will be on colored vinyl only, so the color is unusual. A drop-out was discovered on side B of the RE1 cut. A new re-cut was done, with RE2 in the matrix, and new test pressings were made, pairing the Bleach RE2 side B with a recut of side B of a Bernstein promo record. Whether the RE2 cut was successful or not is unknown, but the working RE1-A and RE2-B combination were not used to press records, instead they manufactured new stampers from the old mother plates from 1989. Some pink test pressings claimed to be Nirvana test pressings actually weren't. Before this website launched the test pressings section around 2002, three copies where known of. All three were owned by the same person, who got them from Bruce Pavitt, co-founder of Sub Pop. Two of these were sold a few years before 2002, but when the third was about to be sold in April 2002, it was discovered that the music on it was not Nirvana. It is unknown what it actually was. The seller claimed that the previous two were Nirvana (unconfirmed), but he didn't know why this third wasn't. Matrix codes are also unknown. Probably the similar colors led to the mix-up.
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 1. Copy 1, side B  2. Copy 2, the record sold by Dan Peters  3. Copy 3, inverted labels  4. Copy 3, the text written by Steve Turner  5. Copy 4, label Thanks to Enrico Vincenzi, Chris Pugh, Rob Daily (info, image 1), Dan Peters (image 2), Vaughan Bowden (info, images 3-4), and Steve Turner. | |||||||
| Main Pressing plants Pennyroyal Tea Test pressings Collection |
