Record Club vs. Store purchased records

good question, I have thought that too regarding some of those Columbia House records I have compared to other regular pressings.

So, all you vinyl nuts out there, help us out, was there a difference in the record club pressed vinyl? They do seem kind of crappy.

Good info, Elizabeth.. I can remember playing some record club pop/rock pressings way back when I had crappy gear and could tell the pressings were lower grade then! I would say, trash all the columbia club pressings of pop/rock and try to find used on ebay or record store original 1st pressings if you can find them.

no difference in quality

I was a member of those clubs during the 70's and 80's. I received the same quality vinyl the stores carried with the same packaging. I found the Columbia club pressings and the Book of the Month Club pressings to be better than some of the other pressings. But during the 80's disco era the vinyl was thinner physically on almost all labels than in the 60's or 70's.
The import labels were thicker and quieter during the 80's. The Japanese labels were almost always better during this time. Allot of the late 70's, 80's and 90's rock, soul and jazz was done on floppy (dyna-flop type) vinyl. And may digital recordings were in the mix then as well. I guess what I'm trying to say is that quality went down tremendously during the 80's and 90's in all genre's.
These same records were printed in the millions of copies and quality did vary from run to run.

Try to find random copies of some of your vinyl and see if the quality is better. For instance Dire Straits Love over Gold. I have it on Germany, USA and another country which I can't remember right now. The Europen copies were very very good compared to some of the American copies.