Find your pressing, not just the album.

A pressing is one manufacturing run of a record: a specific label, country, year and catalog number, sometimes a specific color of vinyl. An original pressing, a later reissue, a Record Store Day exclusive and a colored variant of the same album are different pressings, and collectors price them differently.

Check these, in this order:

1. Catalog number. On the spine, the back cover and the center label. It is the strongest single clue.
2. Label and country. The label design changed over the years, and pressings from different countries carry different labels.
3. Barcode. Records with a barcode were pressed from the 1980s on; its absence points to an older pressing.
4. Matrix or runout. The code etched in the dead wax near the center label separates pressings that look identical from the outside.
5. The vinyl itself. Color, splatter or marbling, and any numbering or hype sticker.

Vinyl Portfolio shows these details for every pressing of an album so you can match them against your copy.

A barcode or catalog number scan goes straight to the pressings that carry it. A cover scan or a search shows every pressing of the album, newest and oldest, with label, year, country, catalog number and the format description. Pick the one that matches and its cover and variant come with it. Pressing data comes from Discogs, the largest database of record releases, and cover art from Discogs, MusicBrainz and the Cover Art Archive.

Because collectors pay for the pressing, not the album. A sought-after original can sell for many times the price of a current reissue of the same record. Vinyl Portfolio values each record from the sales of its own pressing. How we price records