It was recently brought to my attention by a long time member here, Alan G, that he received a few pressed 'Silvers' when ordered from NUGS. He had three in his possession and friends of his had four more making a total of seven and there may or may not be more that have already been distributed.
After much investigation and corroboration... the above facts have been confirmed by NUGS. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me give you the facts chronologically as I know them.
1) As I said above I was contacted by Alan and it was the first I ever heard of pressed 'Silver' Springsteen Archives. I asked some questions and found out this:
All of the pressed 'Silvers' have (IFPI #s and matrixes). This shows they are not CDRs with labels pasted on such as Doberman and others. We may call original Doberman's, Silvers for expediency's sake but they are not and never were pressed.
Identifying pressed 'Silvers' when comparing them with CDrs is... pressed 'Silvers' have the IFPI codes.
On many CDs, there are two Source Identification Codes (SID Code) in the matrix band. The SID Code, which was introduced in April 1994, consists of the letters IFPI (which stands for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), followed by 4 or 5 additional characters.
There are two different SID Codes found on CDs:
Mastering Code - The first SID Code in the matrix band is the "Mastering Code." The Mastering Code begins with "IFPI" followed by a sequence of digits beginning with the letter L, followed by two numbers that indicate the pressing plant, and then 1 or 2 additional digits that indicate the Laser Beam Recorder (LBR) that cut the glass master. The Mastering Code is put on the CD at the time the glass master of the CD is cut by the LBR, and it appears on all subsequent pressings of the CD sourced from that specific glass master.
The codes on these pressed 'Silver' archives are molded/stamped into the clear inner ring and are hard to read because they are the same color as the ring plastic. Very tiny. There are NO IFPI codes on any of the CDRs. As described above, the existence of an IFPI should indicate a glass master for a pressed 'Silver'.
In addition, CDRs have “dot matrix” appearing numbers in the center plastic ring, no IFPI markings and no matrix numbers.