Lathe-Cut Picture Disc Bootlegs?

[SONARC]

I thought I'd throw this out here and see if anyone knows anything about it:

Recently, on the message board for Guided By Voices, someone pointed out a picture disc of dubious origin - several people on that board are pretty close to the band, and the general feeling is that the record in question is not an authorized release.

Here's the record, for sale on eBay
[***DO NOT GO THERE IF YOU ARE AT WORK, AS THERE ARE SOME NSFW IMAGES ON THAT PAGE!!!***] : Game Of Pricks

So... as mentioned, there are some other, ummm, similar types of records for sale on that page, with pictures of nekkid women, and which I'm fairly certain are also not authorized releases by any of the bands they feature.

Then it occurred to me ... these are all one-sided "picture disc" singles, right? I've seen those around in the past, and I would wonder who would bother making such a limited-run item, since regular picture discs are generally kind of cost-prohibitive - well, the unauthorized ones certainly would be, anyway. Now I'm thinking it's some dude with his own lathe-cutter and a bunch of old Hustler magazines!

[piaptk]

Those look a lot like vinyl recorder pic discs. Don’t appear to have the contours of a pressed record...

[SONARC]

Ah, now that's kind of unfamiliar territory to me. If I'm not mistaken, the only DIY disc I have made on a vinyl recorder is that Dead Meadow single you released a little while back. So, I don't really have a good grasp of what would distinguish it from a traditional pressed record - what exactly do you mean by contours? I mean, I know what a contour is, but in the context of a vinyl record, as you mentioned. Those records all *seemed* to be round circles, to my eye. I know that "back in the day" (in my best grandpa voice), I've mistakenly purchased what turned out to be counterfeit picture discs, and the friendly local record clerks implied that possibly, bootleggers slipped an illegal run of something in between runs at some pressing plant. Even then, I wasn't sure that was entirely possible, but most of us were unaware of things like lathe cuts and vinyl recorders and such back then. It would make a lot more sense, though, thinking about it now.

Those look a lot like vinyl recorder pic discs. Don’t appear to have the contours of a pressed record...

[piaptk]

Pressed picture discs (even bootleg ones) have a profile from the stampers in the center, usually about as big as the center hole of a 45. And the edges are sort of tapered down and thinner. I can’t TOTALLY tell from the pic, but i don’t seem any pressing marks and for such obscure weird records my guess is that someone with a VR is just making one or two at a time and seeing if anyone is dumb enough to spend $250 for them.