cut-out albums

I know what they are and how they can drop a discs price faster then you can even say "cutout", but why? Is it a promotional or radiostation thing to keep track of CD's? I'm kind of new to the whole collecters deal, just wondering....

I used to buy cutouts on vinyl alot back in the 70's and 80's I think the reason was to get rid of them as those were not selling as fast as most wanted them to!

You will see the "(C)" designation at the end of the album description area on some albums. This means the record was a "Cutout". A cutout refers to a small physical mark or cut on the album cover. It can be a small hole or slit in the album cover, but it does not affect the actual record. These records were "leftovers" produced by the record company and sold at a discount to retailers. Cutouts are priced no higher than "Better than Poor but Below Good" (4) condition, but they could have a "99" condition rating.


Wargod48

Hardcore collectors hate cut outs because they generally want their albums/CDs as "mint" and unmarked as possible, but if it weren't for record store cut-out bins back in the 80s, I never would've had as many albums as I did!

Back then at least, an album became a "cut-out" when the label was discontinuing a title, so marking them with a punch or drill hole thru the UPC code was a way of signifying to retailers "Just sell'em off as cheap as you can, we don't care."

I used to have cutouts that actually had the upper right corner of the album jacket cut off.

I think the album I saw the most while browsing cutout bins was The Who's "Odds and Sods". To this day I wonder if there is anything decent on that one.

I bought em too - I remember buying KISS - Peter Criss as a cut out. Ace wasn't available as a cut out.

tohostudios wrote:

I used to have cutouts that actually had the upper right corner of the album jacket cut off.

I have a couple of LPs like that too.

I think the most common cut-outs I saw back in my vinyl buying days were AC/DC's FLICK OF THE SWITCH, FLY ON THE WALL and WHO MADE WHO. I remember buying all three of those for $2.99 apiece at the drug store (!) around the corner from my house, and it seemed like any time I looked thru the cheap-o bins at any other stores, those three albums always popped up.

It allows retailers to sell them below cost as "damaged" legally so they can write them off as a loss.

Just the other day I bought a couple of "Promo Cutout" CDs at the store, but they were just as new and shrink-wrapped and normal as anything else on the regular shelf....do those count?

The sticker on the back said Promo Cutout...don't know why. Oh, well, I don't care. They were only $5.99 ea.

Wow! ALways thought they were just overstocks -I didn't realise there were so many varieties -especially not that they were marked to count as a loss.

Annoying when a CD you buy on ebay turns up as a cutout but it wasn't mentioned in the item description.