Queen — A Night at the Opera: How to Identify a First Pressing

• Cover: The cover has a white background with the band's crest logo — designed personally by frontman Freddie Mercury and combining the zodiac symbols of the four band members — placed at the centre.
• Other: The album was released on November 28, 1975, separately in the UK by EMI Records and in the US by Elektra Records; the two different labels are the first clue for identifying which region a copy comes from.

• Label: The US edition was released by Elektra Records, which should differ from the UK EMI Records edition in label design (Elektra and EMI each have their own independent label-image systems), but the specific label-artwork details could not be found described verbatim in any accessible source this time and are honestly marked as unverified.

• Hollywood Records first reissued the album in the US on September 3, 1991, with two bonus remix tracks; a DVD-Audio edition followed on April 30, 2002; Hollywood Records reissued it again on November 21, 2005; and on November 8, 2010, Universal Music announced a remastered expanded edition for release in May 2011 — this whole series clearly postdates the 1975 original vinyl.

discogs.com returned a 403 this time and could not be accessed; the English Wikipedia entry was used instead. That entry records limited first-hand manufacturing detail about the cover and label, and mentions no catalog number or matrix information.

• 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.