blue note Blue Note SHM SACDs from Japan 2017

[Kevin Bresnahan]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Did that first CD come in a long box? Does an OG long box add value, ever?

The "Black triangle" CD shown above was an early Japanese-only issue. I bought many early CDs from Japan and I don't remember any of them coming in any kind of holder. They were just sealed CDs like all of the stores use today. The longbox was a US invention, done to allow record stores to re-use their LP storage bins and (supposedly) to prevent theft. This link shows some early Japanese CD issues where you can see that none of them had any sort of additional packaging: http://www.keithhirsch.com/cd-gallery/sealed-cd-gallery

As for the first US pressing of Hancock's "Maiden Voyage", the so-called "McMaster", it was issued in 1986, which puts it in the era where there was probably a longbox. After all, "Speak Like A Child" first came out on CD in the US in 1987 and as this picture shows, it came in a longbox.

I have no idea if having the longbox would add value to the CD.

[JSngry]

I've kept my non-generic long boxes on the theory that if a video game is worth more with the original packing, then a CD might. Probably getting it all wrong, especially these days.

But I do have plenty of OG SNES games with boxes and instructions, so...I'm rich, right?

[sidewinder]

Good memories of emerging with a handful of BN longboxes of ‘The Turnaround’, ‘Point Of Departure’ and ‘Spring’ on the day I bought my first (Nakamichi) CD player. They were a pig to rip open !

[JSngry]

Let's talk 'em up here enough to drive up a speculative frenzy for them on eBay, then drop our product, pocket the bucks, and then walk away.

That's how it works, right?

 

 

[felser]

57 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

Good memories of emerging with a handful of BN longboxes of ‘The Turnaround’, ‘Point Of Departure’ and ‘Spring’ on the day I bought my first (Nakamichi) CD player. They were a pig to rip open !

When I first started buying the BN CD's, I cut out the pictures from some of the longboxes and hung them on the wall of my office cube.  Still have them in a file folder - Art Blakey's "Ritual", Mobley's "No Room for Squares", Andrew HIll "Point of Departure", Lou Donaldson Quartet/Quintet/Sextet, Bobby Hutcherson "Dialogue", Grant Green "Grantstand".  Herbie Hancock "Maiden Voyage" (heh heh), and Sonny Rollins, Vol, 2.  Hope I didn't destroy valuable collectors items 

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Let's talk 'em up here enough to drive up a speculative frenzy for them on eBay, then drop our product, pocket the bucks, and then walk away.

That's how it works, right?

 

 

Almost - need to talk 'em up on the Hoffman site, where every version of every CD ever issued is a rare collectors item...

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

The "Black triangle" CD shown above was an early Japanese-only issue. I bought many early CDs from Japan and I don't remember any of them coming in any kind of holder. They were just sealed CDs like all of the stores use today. The longbox was a US invention, done to allow record stores to re-use their LP storage bins and (supposedly) to prevent theft. This link shows some early Japanese CD issues where you can see that none of them had any sort of additional packaging: http://www.keithhirsch.com/cd-gallery/sealed-cd-gallery

As for the first US pressing of Hancock's "Maiden Voyage", the so-called "McMaster", it was issued in 1986, which puts it in the era where there was probably a longbox. After all, "Speak Like A Child" first came out on CD in the US in 1987 and as this picture shows, it came in a longbox.

I have no idea if having the longbox would add value to the CD.

I was in London for a few weeks in '91, where I went on a bit of a buying frenzy.  At the stores there , they didn't even seal the new CD's, let alone put them in long boxes.  They would keep the discs behind the counter, and you'd bring the jewel case up to the counter.   Don't remember if that is how they did it at the big Tower Records on Piccadilly Circus, but that is definitely what the smaller stores in Ealing were doing.

[sidewinder]

I don’t remember seeing the long boxes in the UK. That was very much a US and Canada thing. At the time it was $ for £ for CDs as well so in N. America around half the price !

’Ritual’ was another one I got in the longbox too. ‘No Room For Squares’ too. Like a kid in a candy store when I saw these, still have them (sans longboxes).

Yes, the smaller UK stores such as Mole used to keep CDs behind the counter. Tower Picadilly sealed them with anti theft gizmos I think (very sophisticated ).

Edited August 7, 2018 by sidewinder

[Dan Gould]

1 minute ago, sidewinder said:

I don’t remember seeing the long boxes in the UK. That was very much a US and Canada thing.

I'm surprised I figured it was a world-wide thing since it was designed to fit into the pre-existing deep display racks for vinyl, two  long boxes equal to the width of a 12 inch record.

[JSngry]

The ones that I have a particular "affection" for are the ones for non-reissued items, new releases. I think I got a George Russell, and at least one Andrew Hill.

Why that is, I will attempt to neither justify nor analyze.

[medjuck]

IIRC there were some long boxes where the cover picture filled the entire box;  sometimes the top half of the picture would mirror the cd cover and the bottom would be a continuation of that picture.  I wish I had some examples to show-- but I don't. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

42 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

I'm surprised I figured it was a world-wide thing since it was designed to fit into the pre-existing deep display racks for vinyl, two  long boxes equal to the width of a 12 inch record.

No, it was definitely a US/Canada thing. There was a lot of pressure from the environmentalists to eliminate them too. The record labels knew that the end was coming when they started individually sealing the CD inside the sealed longbox. They put a special sticker on the outside to let the retailer know that it was double sealed. The sticker was the yellow & red square sticker you see in this picture:

[sidewinder]

The longboxes didn’t last that long either - by the early 1990s they were pretty well gone in N. America. I think the last one I bought was a Bobby Watson ‘The Inventor’.

Probably find that European environmental laws would have outlawed them - and for imports they increased the transportation costs.

Edited August 8, 2018 by sidewinder

[Big Beat Steve]

I suppose you all are talking about SINGLE-CD longboxes? Cannot consciously remember having seen them often in the early days of the CD - maybe because the music of interest to me always came in jewel cases. I often saw (and bought some) CD sets in longboxes of the half-LP size and still find them quite practical. Contrary to many of the smaller box sets current now that are just fatter versions of the single-CD packages they at least allow the pictures in the liner notes to be reproduced decently.

[medjuck]

15 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

No, it was definitely a US/Canada thing. There was a lot of pressure from the environmentalists to eliminate them too. The record labels knew that the end was coming when they started individually sealing the CD inside the sealed longbox. They put a special sticker on the outside to let the retailer know that it was double sealed. The sticker was the yellow & red square sticker you see in this picture:

This is an example of what I'm talking about below, 

15 hours ago, medjuck said:

IIRC there were some long boxes where the cover picture filled the entire box;  sometimes the top half of the picture would mirror the cd cover and the bottom would be a continuation of that picture.  I wish I had some examples to show-- but I don't. 

as compared to: 

 

17 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

 

I have no idea if having the longbox would add value to the CD.