Vinyl

David, this reminds me of an image I saw of a large record store, who in about 2005, parked a skip outside and dumped all their vinyl into it, with a sign saying 'help yourself' as they apparently needed the space... 

congratulations, JD

When talking about KC and vinyl, I'm very fond of my three LP's

They are all high quality releases, and in very good condition, except from Lark's Tongues cover having some 

yellow-brown staints from (Japanese) humidity, and Red not being particularly flat.

Q is Quality Records in Canada, I think right? Yours is a Canadian label variant?

Cool....I have all my original KC on vinyl, most sound just fine as the mastering back then was not great for King Crimson, especially In the Court, but that was a tape machine issue.

The recent remastered versions all sound excellent, I'm only missing Starless and Bible Black reissue. I found a VG+ copy in Calif 2 months ago for $20, my original one is in bad shape now...All the reissues are on 200g and are flat, well done.

Embossed cover, nice, and Canadian releases use to have relatively hardback covers.

I certainly prefer my records to play clean, but I don't mind covers to have a bit of wear (no creases though). Actually, I like when they don't look new.

And what do you think in general of digital remastering, Catcher?

Agree about all that, but apparently, as I've seen it, most of the digital remastering have been done by not so "very good engineer"s, or what other reasons there might have been. 

Regarding Steven Wilson's remixing and remastering, I can confirm that his Aqualung certainly "can make a bad older recording come to life and sound pretty special", which I've been very happy about as I missed it much. 

Can you maybe tell me, Catcher or somebody else, 180g vinyl, or in fact all vinyl, can be thicker or thinner at the same weight, 

how come?

no
 

Yes, that's the only possibility I can think of, but how come? Maybe difference in production technique.

JD wrote: I think the 180g spec might be a shot size not necessarily the actual end product weight.

Yes, I've seen different weights, but that's not the explanation, as some records can be almost double as thick as others. 

The German ones are for instance mostly thin while the American thick, and it has always been like that, disregarding the weight.

I don't think thick or thin matters since there are mfg tolerances for both meaning +/- allowances on thickness and weight. It's possible it's thicker but if it says 180g it should not be thick as a 200g record. Diameter of the record also has a tolerance, some records I have are a tad wider than my platter as well some just a pube hair under the diameter of my platter, so for sure all of this will affect weight, thickness and simple feel of the record.

I think if you go to GZ Media website they have a section that lists the mfg tolerances of 12" LPs as well other sizes like 7" and 10"....

If you have a scale you can weigh the LP in question.