Nirvana — Nevermind: How to Identify a First Pressing

• Cover: The cover shows a baby swimming naked underwater, reaching for a fishhook baited with a dollar bill; the label, Geffen, had prepared an alternate cover with the baby's genitals obscured, worried about the controversy it might cause.
• Cover: The only compromise Cobain ultimately agreed to was a sticker placed over the genital area bearing the sarcastic text 'If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile', rather than replacing the cover image outright; available records suggest the official release did not use a fully obscured cover.

• Other: The album was officially released on September 24, 1991, by DGC Records; the hidden track 'Endless, Nameless' was not included on the original 1991 vinyl edition — it only appears on later CD pressings, about 10 minutes of silence after 'Something in the Way' ends. Neither the vinyl nor the cassette edition ever included this track — useful for judging whether a vinyl copy has the complete original tracklist.

• In 1996, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs released a vinyl reissue in its ANADISQ 200 series (a 24-karat gold CD edition came out around the same time); a double-CD deluxe edition and a four-CD-plus-DVD super-deluxe edition were released for the 20th anniversary in September 2011; and for the 30th anniversary in 2021, a box set with 8 vinyl records and 5 CDs containing 70 previously unreleased live tracks was released — all of these clearly differ from the 1991 original vinyl.

discogs.com returned a 403 this time and could not be accessed; the English Wikipedia entry was used instead. No evidence was found that an officially released vinyl copy with an 'obscured cover' was ever actually distributed, so it was not listed under known_variations — first_pressing_marks only honestly notes that such an alternate cover had been prepared at the time.

• Read the runout (the smooth area between the last groove and the label) with the disc tilted under a lamp: matrix numbers, stamper codes and mastering initials are the strongest evidence.
• Label details change between pressing plants and years: rim text, logo style, address, "Manufactured by" wording.
• Cover printing shows the plant and era: printer credit, catalog number position, barcode presence.
• Match all three. A first-press disc in a later cover, or the reverse, is common.

Shoot the label straight on in even light, then the runout with the disc tilted so the etched text catches the light (a phone torch from the side works). Add the front and back cover, the spine, and any inner sleeve or insert. The app reads the label and cover; the runout photo is what confirms the pressing.