First I had about 50 UK CD’s and CD singles from the late 80’s and early 90’s made by the P.D.O. pressing plant in Blackburn, England. These CD’s began to darken/bronze on the label side in varying degrees. I sent PDO many of the discs in 1994 and they replaced many but not all of the discs (some were even bootlegs pressed there they couldn’t replace!). To this day I have some, and have bought some thru ebay, that continue to bronze. Luckily I have had no info loss and have backed them up on CD-R. PDO has been good about recognizing and helping with this problem and even have a website set up for customers.

Second I have about 40 UK CD’s and CD singles made at the UK Swindon pressing plant in the early 90’s, including a number of Pet Shop Boys discs. I always try to keep my CD’s in controlled enviroments but when I moved from Chicago to Ohio in the cold winter of 1995 I loaded a van with all my CD’s and I am sure it stayed very cold for awhile only to warm up when I brought them back into the house. Nearly all these CD’s ended up with a sticky crystalline film on the info side, in many cases clouding the CD and making the it completely unplayable. Calls to EMI Swindon before they closed down in 2002 (very suddenly how suprising!) were not too helpful although one engineer hinted at some type of release from the CD layers (maybe a gas?) when exposed to a temperature shift. They suggested using isopropyl alcohol to clean the CD’s which has worked in some cases but leaves its own film. They said it was a rare problem and they didn’t have replacements for the few affected. I have copied some but not all to preserve the music and I will probably need to replace some if I can find them.

I have seen other defects on occasion such as pinholes in early Warner Brothers US CD’s, silver flaking off the edge of a few CD’s, and other weird spots appearing on the edges of UK CD singles.

In all these cases it comes down to one thing: poor manufacturing methods in order to cut costs. Makes one paranoid as I love my music and want it to last!!

Any chance of creating a regularly updated and printable spreadsheet format type database listing brands of CD’s, DVD, Gaming Discs that have a history of deterioration or increased chance based on factors such as date of manufacture, materials, etc.?