I think it more likely that in 88 the WEA graphics dept. was being rather sloppy and forgot to change from US cat#ing (and minor details like printing location), and anyway at the time the barcode would be held as someone-who-must-be-obeyed's gospel, marketing finally taking over completely.
Hi Lee, 7294-2 would be the catalogue number for the US edition (and possibly Canadian too, though WEA Canada sometimes varied the numbers slightly) - US WEA tended to take the original LP number (EKS 7294 in this case), remove the alpha prefix, and stick -2 on the end. The International editions would be 960 467-2 (like the other entry that you bought at JB), later reformatted to 7559-60647-2. Platterlog had 960 467-2 listed until 2004, apparently distributed by Warner Music Australia the whole time, so I can't tell whether or not they got the Pickwick copy in 1994. Janie's copy with the US number on the package plus German disc looks a bit odd, I wonder whether it originally came like that? Although, given that 87/88 was still fairly early in CD history, it could have been that US WEA had all their disc manufacturing done in Germany or Japan at that time.
Phil, would that listed Australian release make this International rather than European? Or would one series of cat#s numbers be International and one European (both releases have the same barcode)?
1988 is probably correct for the US, as this CD didn't appear in Schwann until the Winter 88/89 issue that was published around November 1988, but that has to be qualified by the fact that Schwann, like other catalogues which had human involvement, occasionally missed things or picked them up late. Music Master just says '89 for the Euro WEA-distributed CD, and lending credence to that is that is was released in Australia on 15 May 1989. MM has November 1994 for the Pickwick-distributed version.
I think Discogs has got this wrong or there is a misprint on both the CDs presented - which list the copyright as 1988. My copy cat# 960 67-2 has the same discrepancy. I'll enter mine as 1988 though as that is the later date. Discogs has both releases as 1987 but they are most likely wrong or the date given on all three CDs is wrong. I'll post mine and work it out from there.
Added a variation with different rights societies, double sided 3page folder, and not distributed by Pickwick. All printed matter "Printed in the USA", disc made in Germany, by WME, in a Warner "W" jewel case.It also has US cat#s on spine (7294-2), and barcode is set differently