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Hello to everyone. My particular interest is Tomita's vinyl albums (I am starting to seek out his more recent work on CD but they can be rather scarce and expensive!). I have to admit that having been an illustrator for many years I am also attracted to the cover art. The more albums of his I find, the more differing issue numbers I keep seeing (not just for different countries). I have many questions I would like to ask all you other admirers of Tomita's work and I hope in the future some of you may be able to provide answers.
For starters, is the Catastrophy 1999 LP on Tam as rare as I think it is and does that make the 7" single even rarer? Also why did RCA issue some of Tomita's LPs on the 'Gold Seal' label?, they appear to be very uncommon.
I can assure you I have never owned an anorak but I admit I do find the differing covers and issues rather intriguing (hey the musics not bad either!)
Until the next time.Best wishes, Marshman

 

Answering the one question I can answer...

Gold Seal was RCA's "midprice" classical label. Red Seal was their full-price line, and "Victrola" was their bargain label. New recordings would be released on Red Seal, and after a few years some would be bumped down to Gold Seal, to entice new buyers with a lower price. Sort of like a paperback version of a book. (Victrola was generally for older catalog items with names that had lost some of their market appeal or with outdated sound.)

I don't know that all of Tomita's albums were reissued on Gold Seal. I had some cassettes of his later albums that were branded Gold Seal, but I never saw the earlier, more popular albums on that label.

 

Since you mention his newer work being scarce (not so true) and expensive (which I guess would be fair to say) I'm guessing you are not hunting in Japan. Very few Western collectors were buying these releases in Japan so most of the imports floating around came in through importers to wind up in collectors hands and they would generally pick the titles they thought record shops would want. So I mean to say that whatever you find outside of Japan doesn't really reflect rarity. Something imported in fair numbers might even be more commonly found outside of Japan in some rare instances it's become a hot collectable inside Japan.

I have the 2 CD versions so I never hunted for the vinyl of that album and definitly not in the 45rpm bins - though I've seen the regular LP in the U.S. years ago in someone's collection. What I can say, is since it's a Toho Sci-Fi film copies would find their way into many more collectors shops than if it were just another soundtrack, but one would really have to go hunting in Japanese collectors shops to figure out the rarity involved.

And for what it's worth - the live Pioneer version of "The Tale of Genji" is out of print but it's not so rare, I see more used copies and western collectors with copies than westerners who own the Denon version Tomita considers definitive. "Sennen no koi" is out of print and hard to find. "Misty Kid of Wind" and the laserdisc/VHS of "Hansel and Gretel" have been out of print for years and are rare. "Mind of the Universe" and "Back to the earth" are out of print but not very rare. "Storm from the East" seems to waft in and out of print but tends to be easy to find and seems to have been imported a lot outside Japan. Generally though, all his newer works are in print

 

RCA Gold Seal Label

Thanks for the replies gentlemen! If anyone is interested I've only come across two Tomita vinyl LPs on the Gold Seal label, 'Firebird' issued in 1976 and 'Bermuda Triangle' issued in 1979 (both in the same years as the Red Seal issues ). Bit odd really as both LPs are common on the Red Seal label but I've only seen a couple of each of the Gold Seal copies.Why issue a cheaper issue in the same year when there appear to be plenty of the regular copies sold?
Another question! On the subject of 'Bermuda Triangle', there were 'limited edition' runs of the US LP in coral pink and Aqua blue (a really lovely translucent colour by the way!) with stickers on the shrink wrap giving the actual edition no. I'm pretty sure there were more pink produced than blue but does anyone know how exactly many copies of each were actually produced?
Thanks Nick for the info on CDs, ebay prices don't always appear to reflect the scarcity or otherwise of an item so it helps to have some pointers.

 

RCA just kept the original COPYRIGHT year on the reissues. Same recording, same artwork, no new copyright. The key is in the catalog numbers. For Bermuda Triangle, the Red Seal is ARL1-2885 and the Gold Seal is AGL1-7144. In these numbers, ARL means Red Seal, AGL means Gold Seal, 1 means a one-disc release, and the last four digits are a sequential catalog number. I believe RCA used the same sequence for all their LPs, pop and classical, so there were a few years between the Red Seal and Gold Seal versions. I don't have a discography linking numbers to years.

I don't. You may have to track down the highest serial number you can find. My pink Red Seal LP is #23687. My blue Bermuda Triangle LP is a 4-track promo. Was the full album ever released on blue wax?

 

Never mind; I found a picture of one. Yes, it was.