CBS LPs - US unified numbering system (original) (raw)

In 1970 CBS US started a new numbering system for their LPs that included at least ARC (American Record Company), Barnaby, Blue Sky, CBS, Caribou, Columbia, Columbia Masterworks, Epic, Gamble, Golden Fleece, Great Western Gramophone, Harmony, Invictus, Kirshner, Monument, Mums, Odyssey, Philadelphia International, Portrait, Sound Stage, Spindizzy, Stiff, T-Neck, TSOP and many others.

Prefixes consisted of 2-3 letters with the first letter generally indicating the price. Exceptions to this are mostly quadraphonic records that sometimes began with a Q.

The second letter was generally either a C (Columbia), an E (Epic) or a Z (all the other labels).

If there was a third letter it generally was a G or else a 2 or 3 that indicated it was a double LP. The way the numbering on double LPs worked was that the whole package receive a number and the two LPs that made up the package received the next two numbers in sequence. For example...

A lot of the listings are derived from Schwann catalogs. Dating is mostly from Schwann and could be off by a month. When Schwann listed reissues they skipped the price code and listed only an "E" or a "C" for example. It is very likely there would have be a price code included. From January 1970 to December of 1980 we are only missing four Schwann catalogs. Columbia House (their record club) used the original label and numbers for their reissues. Earlier popular LPs later issued on cassettes was an entirely different numbering system though there were a few classical issued in this numbering system. A few 10" EPs are in this numbering system and one Chicago box set of 4 LPs was also issued as 2 cassettes with different numbers.

This is a work in progress, additions and corrections are most welcome. AL and BL numbers are the A side and B side numbers, please email the actual LP prefixes which generally begin with F, H, J, K, M, P, Q or Y