The lowest run for CD replication I've been able to find is for 500 units. However since most of the cost is in creating the glass master it's not that much more expensive to go for 1000.

Professionally-made CD-Rs are supposedly of higher quality than home-produced ones.

The reality is that for most performers who aren't well known and who don't know how many they will sell, the cost of making even a few hundred CDs or CD-Rs is too much. For them, by far the less risky option is to burn CD-Rs to order.

The real issue, as SA points out, is one of labelling. If it's a CD-R as opposed to a replicated CD, it should be described as such.