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Tuesday 21 October 2014

1st Pressing .......3rd reissue or worthless piece of junk?

Finding what looks like a valuable haul of 60's or 70's vinyl is always exciting ......but establishing whether it's really worth a high value sometimes takes a lot of time researching and even then you can't always find your copy. In particular the Beatles where numerous amounts of  different pressings and reissues were released and that's without even looking at foreign copies or bootlegs.






There are many ways of course you can try and establish the date and release that you have found
Laminate cover or plain matt cover? Positioning of labels, catalogue numbers, shades of picture (sometimes the colours are slightly different). Flipback or not? is the name of the printer shown? Spot colour used on Logo (as for Beatles E.P. shown)

Sometimes the text and credits have slight variancies, sometimes the record company details changed slightly. As far as the label goes they are many things to look out for....logo sizes, styles positioning, are they boxed?, are there any unintentional printing errors? are the song credits different or missing etc etc.
And of course one of the best ways of checking a release is the information on the run out with the matrices- and stampers, etchings and any other information that has been added. For example many LP's bear the etching  "Porky prime cut" or similar relating to the cutting engineer George Peckham. Many bands chose to add cryptic or amusing messages on the run out and these help to identify the pressing. These are just a few of the ways to identify a release but there are many more that you may already be aware of. Some records like New Order  - Blue Monday 12" had numerous releases all slightly different in one way or another and this means if you are listing for sale you need to be very specific about the information provided as people will collect every issue released.


Using a website like Discogs is very useful in helping to make a correct identification and getting an estimation on the value, for example here is a link to Blue Monday's master  listing on Discogs

Of course there are exceptions at the other end of the spectrum where only 1 copy was ever made and only ever released in the UK which makes identifying it a whole lot easier and sometimes a whole lot more valuable too. It is always interesting when I come across some vinyl for the first time with no prior knowledge of the artist,or record label and it sets me out on a whole new journey of discovery................the joys of being a vinyl collector/seller.

I currently still have a number of Beatles LP's  for sale, mainly UK and in great condition. Check them out at Vinyl_Spurs via my links http://www.discogs.com/seller/Vinyl_Spurs/profile

I will leave you with one you may not of seen or heard of before and see if you can guess the value without surfing for details - KEEP VINYL ALIVE with Vinyl_Spurs