One of my thrift finds is a 1996 CD by the Yale Russian Chorus, Chants and Carols. The disc is copper colored instead of the usual silver, which made me curious.
The label
It came out on Epiphany Recordings. When the chorus announced it in September 1996, Yale's news office described the label like this: "Epiphany Recordings is an audiophile label that records directly to glass optical disc masters and issues copper CDs in numbered, limited editions instead of the standard aluminum disc." (Yale News, 1996)
The album
Chants and Carols was the chorus's first CD for international distribution. It was recorded in Yale's Dwight Chapel in the spring of 1996 under the musical direction of Mark Bailey, and has 25 pieces of liturgical and folk music spanning the 12th to the 20th centuries, from the Russian Orthodox church and the religious traditions of Greece, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Poland. (Yale News, 1996)
Discogs lists it as catalogue number EP-9, a limited, numbered edition, with the format noted as "Copper CD". (Discogs)
Why copper?
A normal CD stores its music as pits in plastic, with a thin metal layer on top that reflects the player's laser back. That layer is almost always aluminum; some premium discs use gold or silver, mainly because they resist corrosion better. (Wikipedia: Compact disc) Copper is pretty unusual, and that's where the color comes from.
This isn't the same thing as "bronzing", a defect where the silver layer on some 1988-93 discs from one UK plant corroded to a bronze color and started skipping. (Wikipedia: Compact disc bronzing) Mine is evenly copper all over and plays fine, so it was made that way.
How many were made?
I couldn't find out. Neither the announcement nor Discogs gives the edition size. As of October 2026 only two people on Discogs list it in their collections, and none are for sale, so it doesn't turn up often.