Walk into any record shop and you will hear a private language: gatefolds, deadwax, flipbacks, company sleeves. None of it is complicated, but knowing the words changes how you look at a record. Here is the full tour, from the outside in.
The jacket
The printed cardboard cover is the jacket, or outer sleeve. Variations matter to collectors:
- A gatefold opens like a book, with artwork or lyrics inside. The Beatles' White Album is the famous example, a plain white gatefold with the title embossed rather than printed.
- Flipback sleeves, common on 1960s Indian and British pressings, fold the front artwork over the back edges and glue it there. They are a quick visual clue to an older pressing.
- A cut-out notch or punched hole in the corner marks overstock that was sold off cheap, which matters when you are judging what a copy should cost.
Indian jackets from EMI's Dum Dum era have their own character: thicker board, matte print, and often a printed catalogue of other releases on the back.
The inner sleeve
Between jacket and record sits the inner sleeve, paper or poly-lined. Original printed inners, with lyrics or label advertising, add real value to a collectable pressing. At the shop we preserve original inners and add a fresh poly-lined sleeve when the paper has grown abrasive with age.
The label
The paper circle in the middle is the label, and it is the record's identity card. It carries the label name and logo, the catalogue number, and usually a pressing-plant clue. Label design changes over the years are how collectors date a copy: the same album can exist with a dozen label variants, and the earliest variant is usually the one that commands first-pressing money.
The deadwax
Between the last groove and the label is a smooth band called the deadwax, or runout. Scribed into it by hand or machine are the matrix numbers: codes identifying the metal stamper that pressed the record. This is where the real forensics happen. Our Indian Thriller, for example, carries the American master number AL 38112 in its deadwax, which proves the Indian plant pressed it from Epic's own metalwork.
If you take one habit from this post, make it this: tilt a record under a lamp and read its deadwax. It is the only part of a record that cannot be reprinted or swapped.
The groove itself
One long spiral, roughly half a kilometre of it on each side of an LP, walls angled at 90 degrees, with the left channel cut into one wall and the right into the other. Everything a record does, it does with that single physical fact. Which is exactly why the cleaning, storage, and handling habits we write about here matter: the music is literally carved into the walls.
Next time you pick up a record, run the checklist: jacket style, inner sleeve, label variant, deadwax. Four glances, and you will know more about the copy in your hands than most sellers do.
