Cover dates same as on sale dates?

[hendersong]

Hi - hopefully someone can help. I want to buy a copy of the prog from the week I was born (21st Dec 1982). I can't work out if that should be prog 295 (cover date 18th) or 296 (cover date 25th). I could buy both but it'd drive me mad not knowing what the "right" one is!

[Richard]

Prog 2057, which subscribers got today and which is in the shops next Wednesday 15th, is dated 15 November. If that has always been the practice, then you want the one dated 18th. I had however heard (quite a while ago) that magazines were dated with the date they come off the shelves, so I don't know what the position was in 1982.

[M.I.K.]

Prog 296. The cover date was a week in advance in 1982.