bought the boxset today, so now I'm one of the 10,000 lucky few.

listening to the vinyls now. just had to smile when seeing the P-shaped memstick.

the machine gun 12" is fine (and what an awesome track) but what's with all the scratches, and I mean so many scratches allover all the sides, and greasy fingerprints on both the album discs?????

the box was still sealed when I opened it at home.

or might this be part of the concept??
 

somebody please enlighten me, I'm more puzzled than disappointed really.

 

 

I live in the U.S. and received my Box Set in the mail.  I do remember noticing what looked like finger prints on some of the sides of the vinyl...And no, I do not really think it's for effect.  I think some people were sloppy when handling the discs in the factory.

Thankfully, I've played the vinyl more than 2 times and everything works/sounds fine.

-JHJ

Same here in France... finger prints, but hopefully no scratches, and everything sounds great!

oops

I'm going to check mine too and I will let you know tonight

(I live in France too) 

little fingerprints too 

unfortunately, I can't play them because I don't get a turntable at the moment

however, machine gun is fine

is the forum-administrator able to give us a little explanation of that or not? 

Yeah. Mine have fingerprints all over them as well. There are also scratches but they aren't huge. Unfortunately my player is in storage at the moment so I can't say if there's anything wrong with them. But I am a little disappointed that they weren't in nicer condition.

Well, I do hope that all of the Box Set owners who can't listen to the vinyl just yet, I hope it all plays wonderfully (I recommend cleaning the vinyl a little before 1st or 3rd play)....

The funny thing tho, to (maybe) make matters worse...

 ...Is my friend just got the U.S. -- Regular Non-Box Set-version -- of the vinyl.  He says it's not on the same quality as the Box Set vinyl (less than 180 gram?)....Yet, strangely the double-vinyl he has plays @ 45 RPM's throughout, whereas the UK Box Set version plays @ 33 1/3 RPM's...

Basically, this is all too strange...

 

-JHJ

I too just got the box set (USA).  Haven't played it yet but the vinyl indeed does all have swirls on it, fingerprints, etc.  For $60 I was hoping for less of a problem.  I haven't noticed yet whether the vinyl is played at 33 or 45 rpm--better fidelity is had at 45 rpm so I would hope that's how it's pressed (the new REM lp is pressed that way).  The vinyl is clearly not standard weight--probably 180 gram

I live in Mexico city and already bought the box set at Tower. It has fingerprints and some scratches but plays great in 45rpm. I had observed the same thing with the new Goldfrapp LP and Year Zero remixed, they play fine, but i had to clean them before playing. Maybe record labels just forget how to handle Lp`s properly but i have no big problem with that. At least they still release music in this format..

I'm pretty sure that those marks are not fingerprints. I've seen new vinyl "stained" like that before. It's probably just patterns on the vinyl that sometimes appear when the record is pressed at the factory.

 

skh:

'm pretty sure that those marks are not fingerprints. I've seen new vinyl "stained" like that before. It's probably just patterns on the vinyl that som

 

 
believe me, it's both: loads of swirls/stains/scratches AND fingerprints, there's even a disc with a clear 4-finger print on one side and a single fingerprint on the reverse side. of course this is far from usual, I buy lots of vinyl and the only instance that comes close to the state of this box set were those badly pressed Trax records (on recycled vinyl) but even those did not have greasy fingerprints on them. this must clearly mean that the Portishead vinyl was placed in inner sleeves by hand. that still doesn't explain the surface damage on the vinyl but since there are more of you noticing this wear and tear, I am now guessing that something went wrong in the pressing plant - running out of inner sleeves or a faulty part of the machine - and all the vinyl discs still hot from the press were stacked 'naked', without an inner sleeve to separate them, making them stick together, creating the damage we can all see now. but those fingerprints, did someone forget to put on gloves?

anyway, would be cool to hear the real story.

 

 

 

heyy i live in mexico city too do u dj? maybe we could meet as portis fans to go crazy for a while with such great music, what do u say Dani