Orion

With over 1 million copies sold globally after being released in 1983, this record is definitely not rare. However, it’s a very interesting one. The label – Factory – made a sleeve of the record so complicated that even though Blue Monday is the biggest selling single ever, the label lost money with every copy sold. That’s why the cover got less and less complicated with each new pressing and the latest pressings don’t even have the die-cut sleeves.

The color bar on the sleeve looks random, but it’s not. It actually spells out catalog number, band name and song titles.

I’m happy to have one of the earlier presses with a die-cut sleeve and black inner. The copy also has a pressing mistake – both sides (even though labeled correctly as “Blue Monday” and “The Beach”) contain Blue Monday on them.

Normally, you could expect an early pressing + some mistake to make the record actually worth something, but in this case – with 1 million copies sold – I really can’t believe that’d be the case. However, it would be interesting to know how many similar copies with the mistake are out there.

Any thoughts of this record? Share them in the comments. See also the previous posts in “Picks from the crate” series.