Question about Platinum Certification.

[Omni]

The way I understand it, it goes like this (for the United States):

Gold - 500,000 copies sold.
Platinum - 1,000,000 copies sold.
And as of 1999: Diamond - 10,000,000 copies sold.

Each 1,000,000 copies that have been sold earns that album a Platinum certification. Which means that if an album goes Diamond, it's essentially gone 10x Platinum. I was reading on Wikipedia that Pearl Jam's Ten has went 12x Platinum, selling 9,400,000 copies. How is this possible? 12x Platinum is Diamond and then 2x Platinum. Shouldn't it be 9x Platinum and then nearly Gold again?

[nieh]

If I remember right, they award platinum status based on how many copies of the album were bought from the record company by the retail stores, not on how many copies the public buys from the stores. It wouldn't surprised me if you added up all the copies of Ten still sitting in cd stores that would make up a decent portion of the difference considering I still see multiple copies everywhere I go.

Either that or the numbers are coming from two different sources, possibly from years apart.

[Omni]

Aah! That would explain it. Thanks a lot. Little things that don't add up for some reason like that tend to really eat at me.