Counterfeit Records – Buyer Beware

When anything becomes both valuable and collectible, it’s inevitable that sooner or later, someone will attempt to reproduce it in order to profit from presenting and selling the reproduction as if it were the real thing. It happens with money, paintings and stamps, and unfortunately, rare records.

While many counterfeit records were easily identified and sold as such when they were new and plentiful, over time, people forget about them or forget how to distinguish them from original pressings.

Often, buyers will pay top dollar for records that aren’t authentic. Just as often, the sellers of those records aren’t even aware that the item they’re selling is a counterfeit, rather than an original pressing.

Counterfeit records, pirate pressings and bootlegs have been sold to unwitting collectors for decades, though the practice of making counterfeit records seems to have peaked in the late 1970s. In this article, we’ll cover the history of counterfeit records, show a few examples of some frequently seen titles, and offer some general advice as to how to avoid inadvertently paying a lot of money for a record that may be a forgery.

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Click any of the links below to jump to each category:

Counterfeit Records and Pirate Pressing Terminology
History and Motivation
Examples of Counterfeit Records
Examples of Pirate Pressings
Modern Pirate Pressings
Counterfeit Stickers and Resealed Records
How to Identify Counterfeit Records
Conclusion

Counterfeit Records and Pirate Pressing Terminology

Before going into detail about these questionable pressings, it’s important to understand the terminology and the differences between the three kinds of unauthorized records that are usually encountered in the market.

Counterfeit records – Counterfeit records are unauthorized releases of any record that are intended to duplicate the original, authorized pressing in order to fool the buyer into thinking that they are buying the genuine item.

These records often look quite a lot like original pressings and can easily fool the untrained eye or inexperienced buyers. Most counterfeit records are singles or albums by major artists and are usually reproductions of items that are long out of print or titles which were only issued for promotional or radio station use.

Pirate pressings – Pirate records are pressings which contain recorded music which has been previously and legitimately released, but are packaged in such a way as to not fool the buyer into believing they are buying the original item.

Pirate pressings may contain the exact same songs as a well-known album, but may have a different cover, a different title, a different label and record company mentioned on the product, and often may feature all of those things.

A relative of pirate pressings are so-called “tax scam” labels, which often popped up for short periods of time to release records for the express purpose of losing money. The Tiger Lily label may be the best example of this.

Unlike counterfeit records, which are made to fool buyers into paying money for a rare collectible, pirate pressings were often sold at the same price as regular albums, and were simply manufactured to make money from buyers who might otherwise buy the legitimate album.

Bootlegs – Bootleg albums are records which contain previously unreleased material, usually by a well-known artist. Bootlegs represent an entirely new product, and are not intended to fool the buyer into believing that they’re buying a legitimate release from a major record company. While there are some exceptions, most bootleg records do not represent legitimate releases and usually contain previously unreleased studio or live recordings.

The term “bootleg” is often used interchangeably in casual conversation with “counterfeit” or “pirate” to refer to any record that was not authorized by a record company and/or recording artist.

This usage is incorrect and often confuses collectors and would-be buyers, as bootlegs are distinctly different products from counterfeit records. The three terms, counterfeit records, pirate records and bootleg records refer to three distinctly different products.

Despite this, one will often hear even experienced record sellers refer to a counterfeit record as “a boot,” as in, “This record isn’t original; it’s a boot.” One rarely encounters the term “pirate” among collectors, but that may have a lot to do with the fact that pirate pressings, while once quite common in the 8 track tape format, have always been relatively rare in the record market.

Counterfeit Records History and Motivation

Counterfeit records have been sold to collectors for decades; the earliest examples likely date to the age when records were still shaped like cylinders. Many rare blues 78 RPM singles have been counterfeited, as well.

All five of the Elvis Presley singles issued on the Sun label have been counterfeited in both 45 and 78 RPM formats, as these became collectible rather early in Elvis’ career.

As collectors started to seek out records that were no longer available for general sale, unscrupulous individuals decided to fill the need in the marketplace by making reproductions.

Early attempts were often of questionable quality, but as technology improved in the graphics industry, so did the quality of the counterfeit records produced by these individuals.

While some counterfeit records were produced to be sold to collectors at the market price for the reproduced item, many titles were simply sold in quantity to record wholesalers, often at rock-bottom prices.

The album generally regarded as the most-widely counterfeited album ever, Introducing the Beatles, was often found in the 1970s in stores selling them at discounted prices that rarely topped $4.

Few buyers likely thought they were buying a rarity at those prices, especially when the discount bins were often full sealed copies at that price.

Of course, over the decades, many of these records have changed hands multiple times and their origins have long been forgotten. Today, people find the now-40-year-old-copies of that Beatles album and assume that they must be original because they’re old, or because their parents bought them as children.

In fact, they’re just forty year old counterfeit records.

While some titles, such as Introducing the Beatles, often appeared in bargain bins, other counterfeit records were made to fool buyers purchasing brand new releases. In the late 1970s, counterfeit copies of new titles by major artists often found their way into the distribution chain.

At that time, it was sometimes possible to buy counterfeit pressings of a new album the very week it was released. These were sold by stores that may have had no idea that the records they were selling were fraudulent in origin.

Perhaps the most famous example of this was the soundtrack to the film, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring the Bee Gees. This album was pressed in large quantities in anticipation of it becoming a big seller.

Unfortunately, the movie was a flop and the record sold poorly, leading many retailers to return them to distributors. The record company reportedly had more copies of this particular album returned to them from distributors who couldn’t sell them than they had pressed in the first place.

Regardless of whether the records being reproduced were older collectibles, rare promotional items, or new releases, the motivation for those who made them was the same – to produce them as cheaply as possible and to sell them at a profit.

Most often, counterfeit records are rare titles by major artists, though there are also plenty of examples of relatively obscure titles by artists that are unknown outside the collecting community. The latter is particularly true of albums in the garage rock and psychedelic rock genres.

Examples of Counterfeit Records

To list all known examples of counterfeit records, even in the rock and roll category, would be a thankless task best suited to encyclopedists. Still, there are a number of well-known examples that most collectors are likely to encounter sooner or later, and that would include, not surprisingly, counterfeit records by the Beatles.

Introducing the Beatles – Introducing the Beatles is the granddaddy of all counterfeit albums; no other record has ever come close. It’s quite likely that the counterfeit copies of this album outnumber originals by two or three times, despite the fact that the original album sold quite well.

Introducing the Beatles was released on the small Vee Jay label in January, 1964 and due to legal action, was out of print by October of that year. After that, it became a highly sought after collector’s item, and the counterfeiters took over to fill that demand.

Early counterfeit issues were clumsily produced, with fuzzy covers and poor color. Later pressings were much more convincing.

With original pressings of the album, mono copies outnumber stereo copies by a ratio of roughly 50:1, making stereo copies quite rare. Naturally, about 95% of the counterfeit copies have covers that say that they are stereo.

What they don’t have are records that say they are stereo, and every fake copy of this album we’ve ever seen with a stereo cover had a record that played mono and lacked the word “stereo” on the label.

Original pressings were made with surprisingly thick vinyl with stamped numbers in the trailoff or “dead wax” area near the label. Most counterfeit copies are pressed with thinner, more flexible vinyl and have handwritten numbers in the dead wax.

Counterfeit copies of the album that feature a color band around the label are usually missing the color green in the band.

The easiest way to determine whether a copy of Introducing the Beatles is genuine or not is to look at the hole on the label. Do both the title of the album and the name of the group appear above the label? If so, the record is likely genuine. If the name of the album and the name of the group are separated by the play hole, then the record is a counterfeit.

Any copy with a brown border around the front cover is a fake.

Many original pressings of Introducing the Beatles included a custom Vee Jay paper inner sleeve. These are missing on all counterfeit copies.

Other counterfeit Beatles albums on Vee Jay:

• Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles – The counterfeits of this album omit the word “stories” from the title and lack the original album’s gatefold cover.
• The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage – Originals have the title of the album written on the spine of the cover; counterfeit copies do not.
• Jolly What! The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage – Originals have the title of the album written on the spine of the cover; counterfeit copies do not

Other counterfeit Beatles and Beatles-related albums of note:

• Yesterday and Today – Many of the counterfeit copies of the Beatles famous “Butcher Cover” have front covers that feel slick to the touch, while originals had a rough feel to them. Many of the fakes have colored vinyl records; the originals were all black. The colored vinyl pressings are technically pirate issues.
• Let It Be – Believe it or not, this album was out of print for several years in the late 1970s, so some wily individuals made copies of it. Originals have a red label with sharp printing; the fakes that we’ve seen have pinkish labels with somewhat blurry printing.
• The Savage Young Beatles – (see image above) Original pressings feature the catalog number on the front cover printed in black; the counterfeit copies show the number in red.
• The Beatles Christmas Album – This one can be tricky, as many counterfeit copies of this record are quite convincing. The original album had a cardboard cover with a paper slick glued on; most of the fakes have the cover art printed directly on posterboard. On original pressings, look at the second photo on the lower left of the front cover. The words “theater royal” are legible on original pressings.

Note: the presence of the stamped words “Bell Sound” in the vinyl are not necessarily an indication of an original pressing, as many of the fakes have this.

• 

  John Lennon/Yoko Ono – Two Virgins – Original U.S. pressings included a brown paper outer cover that was sealed with a round white sticker on the right side. Copies with brown covers that open on other sides, which lack the sticker, or copies where the brown wrapper is not large enough to cover the entire album cover are likely fakes.

• Roots: John Lennon Sings the Great Rock & Roll Hits – Counterfeit copies of this 1975 mail order album are quite convincing, especially since the original pressings were so poorly made.Original pressings included a custom inner sleeve advertising other albums on the label, and had the title of the album printed on the spine.On original covers, the text on the other albums shown on the back cover is legible, and on original discs, the catalog number is faintly etched on the label itself.
• Ed Rudy – American Tour With Ed Rudy #2 – an album of Beatles interviews. Original pressings had thick, ultra-heavy vinyl; the counterfeit pressings used thin, flexible vinyl.

Other common or well-known counterfeit albums by major artists:

• David Bowie – The Man Who Sold the World – Original U.S. pressings of this 1970 album featured a cartoon cover, but were quickly deleted due to poor sales. Counterfeit pressings have handwritten matrix numbers in the dead wax; originals have stamped numbers. The labels on original pressings are smooth in texture, while the fakes tend to be pitted.
• Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio – Originals of this album sell for thousands, and were pressed on thick, brittle vinyl and had the title of the album printed on the spine. Fakes have thin, flexible vinyl and no spine printing.
• Elvis Costello – Live at the El Mocambo – This late 1970s LP was originally issued only to radio stations in Canada. Most counterfeit copies have flimsy posterboard covers and labels with tears around the spindle hole. Many fakes of this album have completely different labels altogether.
• Emmylou Harris – Gliding Bird – This was Emmylou Harris’ first album originally had a color cover and label. Copies that have black and white printing are fakes.
• Buddy Holly – That’ll Be the Day – Like the album above, originals of this album sell for thousands, and were pressed on thick, brittle vinyl and had the title of the album printed on the spine. Fakes have thin, flexible vinyl and no spine printing.
• Phil Lesh/Ned Lagin – Seastones – Fake copies of this odd electronic album have posterboard covers; the originals used paper slicks glued to a cardboard cover.
• Madonna – Erotica – This 12” single picture disc is one of the few picture discs to have been counterfeited. Originally pressed as a legitimate release but withdrawn before being distributed, the original pressings are quite rare and sell for thousands of dollars. Genuine copies have stamped matrix numbers; counterfeit copies do not.
• Todd Rundgren – Runt – Todd Rundgren’s 1970 solo album was counterfeited several times in the late 1970s and include versions on both the Ampex and Bearsville labels. On all copies, the words “Queens Litho in U.S.A.” are clearly legible on original covers but not on the fakes.The fake Ampex copies usually have a red printed box on the cover that mentions “We Gotta Get You a Woman.” Originals do not have this, as the “box” was actually a sticker that was attached to the copy used to make the counterfeit pressings. Oddly enough, the rare variation of Runt that includes alternate takes and mixes has not been counterfeited.
• The City – Now That Everything’s Been Said – This 1968 LP featuring Carole King originally had a color cover and label; the fakes have black and white covers.
• The Yardbirds – Live Yardbirds Featuring Jimmy Page – This album by the Yardbirds was released by the band’s former label to take advantage of the success of Jimmy Page’s new band, Led Zeppelin. Page sued and the album was withdrawn from sale but was quickly counterfeited to meet collector demand. Counterfeit copies of this album exist on both the Epic and Columbia Special Products labels. Look for pitted labels and tears around the spindle hole on the fake copies, which may have stamped matrix numbers in the dead wax just like the originals.The most common counterfeit pressing of this album features a black and white cover and a black and white label.  You would think that this would immediately suggest to anyone that this album is a counterfeit, as all original pressings had color covers and yellow labels, but we’ve seen a lot of people over the years selling these as “white label promo” copies.  There are no legitimate white label promotional copies of this album; even the copies sent to radio stations had yellow labels. Not that it matters, since the white labels on the counterfeit copies do not indicate that they are promotional pressings.   All copies of this album that have either black and white covers or white labels are counterfeits.

Other albums we’ve seen over the years as counterfeit pressings include:

• The Banana Splits – The Banana Splits – The soundtrack to this 1970s children’s show was once quite collectible, counterfeit copies of a white label promo copy exist.
• David Bowie – The Man Who Sold the World (German pressing with the “round” cover)
• David Bowie – An Evening With David Bowie – promotional interview album; the counterfeit copies are quite convincing.
• Chocolate Watch Band – One Step Beyond – white label promotional copies of this album have been counterfeited
• Chocolate Watch Band – The Inner Mystique – Counterfeit copies of this album have white labels; the originals were brown.
• Gandalf – Gandalf 1969 psych LP on Capitol.
• David Gilmour – David Gilmour (1978) – We inadvertently bought a counterfeit pressing of this album brand new from a major record store chain within a month of the album’s initial release.
• The Kinks – Face to Face (U.S. copies on Reprise)
• Mad River – both Capitol albums by this late 1960s band have been counterfeited.
• The Nice – Ars Longa Vita Brevis (Columbia Special Products pressings)
• The Nice – The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack (Columbia Special Products pressings)
• Small Faces – Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake (U.S. pressings)
• Leslie West – Mountain – Fake copies of the debut LP by Leslie West have poorly printed covers and labels.
• The Yardbirds – For Your Love – The counterfeit pressings of this LP are quite good, though the quality of the photos on the front cover is not as good as the original pressings.
• The Yardbirds – Little Games

This list is far from complete; there are hundreds of examples of counterfeit albums.

Examples of Pirate Pressings

Pirate pressings are records containing material that is legitimately available elsewhere, but is packaged differently.

The purpose of these pressings, unlike counterfeits, is not to fool the buyer into thinking that they’re buying something rare and valuable, but to simply get the buyer to pay for it.

In the 1970s, pirate 8 track tapes were quite common and were often sold at truck stops and convenience stores. Titles would be identical to those sold in record stores but the labels usually lacked artwork and the names of the companies producing the products were different from legitimate issues.

Pirate records, by comparison, are less common. A company called Melody Recordings issued a number of titles in the early 1970s, all of which had the same cover, depicting two crowns and two scepters.

Artists and titles in this series included:

• Cheech and Chong – Cheech and Chong
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Pictures at an Exhibition
• Faces – A Nod Is As Good As a Wink to a Blind Horse
• Grand Funk – E Pluribus Funk
• George Harrison and Others – The Concert for Bangladesh (custom cover)
• Michael Jackson – Got to Be There
• Carole King – Music
• Carole King – Tapestry
• Led Zeppelin – IV
• Don McLean – American Pie
• Harry Nilsson – Nilsson Schmilsson
• Charley Pride – Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs
• Santana – Santana (third album)
• Paul Simon – Paul Simon
• Sonny & Cher – All I Ever Need is You
• Traffic – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
• Neil Young – Harvest

There were other labels that released such albums in the early 1970s, but they were largely out of business by 1975, due to increased enforcement of U.S. copyright laws.

In the mid-1980s, a label called Koala popped up that issued a number of albums by well-known artists, all without liner notes or photos of the artists themselves. Little is known about this label, which the covers claimed was based in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Many of the Koala covers featured generic images or photos and carried this disclaimer:

“Notice – The illustrations are a commercial concept for this album. Therefore we are unable to say that the illustrations represent a completely accurate presentation of the recording artist as he has or does now appear. This album may contain previously released material.”

Artists included:

Paul Anka – She’s a Lady
The Monkees – She Hangs Out
The Fendermen – Poison Ivy
…along with dozens of others.

Modern pirate pressings

Most contemporary pirate pressings fall into a gray area that resides somewhere between pirate pressings and counterfeit records. The most common examples would be records which appear, at first glance, to be official record company issues, but which are pressed as either colored vinyl records or picture discs, even though no official release of those album exists in those formats.

All five Elvis Presley 78 RPM discs on the Sun label have been pressed on colored vinyl, for example. The pressings are thin, flexible vinyl, when the originals were made from rigid shellac, and were, of course, all black.

We have seen numerous albums by such artists as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or Metallica, to name a few, that appear to be genuine record company releases, except for the fact that they’ve been pressed on colored vinyl or as picture discs. These records are often sold as “limited editions” or as “promotional copies.”

On the colored vinyl issues, the covers usually look identical to the original issues. The labels may or may not look the same, and are often older label designs that mimic the designs used on the original issues of the albums, rather than the labels currently in use.

Counterfeit Stickers and Resealed Records

While counterfeit records remain a problem and will likely continue to be one for as long as records are sold, a new problem has popped up in recent years, largely involving records sold on eBay by a relatively small number of sellers.

That problem involves used records that have been resealed in shrink wrap in order to fool buyers into believing that the used records being sold are actually new ones.  Often these records have counterfeit stickers applied to the shrink wrap, promoting a song or an included bonus.

These records are sealed examples of albums that are rarely found in sealed condition, and these sealed examples usually have rare and/or previously unseen stickers attached to the shrink wrap.

To be clear, there’s nothing unusual about finding still sealed examples of older or rare records. We have plenty of sealed records for sale in our store. Nor is there anything particularly unusual about finding sealed records for sale that have stickers on the wrap.

Older sealed records are often found with price stickers still attached, and some older albums had “hype” stickers attached that were intended to make potential buyers aware that the album contained a particular song, or that it contained a bonus of some kind, such as a poster.

The problem is that it appears that there are a few sellers on eBay and elsewhere who are finding nice used examples of rare records, re-sealing them in shrink wrap, and then attaching newly-printed stickers to the wrap. They are then claiming that these records are vintage new, unopened items.

In some cases, the stickers are common ones that were often seen on those titles when they were new. In other cases, the stickers are unusual to the extent that people who have been selling rare records for 30-40 years do not recall ever having seen them before.

Sometimes, the records have stickers attached to the covers that say “Promotion Copy – Not for Sale,” though the record inside may or may not be (and likely is not) a promotional copy of the album.

Not surprisingly, these records, which are almost always titles by collectible artists, such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin or the Velvet Underground, end up selling for large, and sometimes, record-breaking, prices.

With modern graphics programs like Photoshop and affordable laser and inkjet printers, it’s quite easy to scan and print convincing replicas of stickers, especially since many of them consisted only of white text on black paper or black text on white paper.

The problem for would-be buyers is that the stickers are fake, the shrink wrap is not original, the “new” record being advertised is almost certainly a used one, and most importantly, the seller makes no effort to make any of those things known to potential buyers. The records are presented as rare, sealed examples of original pressings with rare, previously-unknown stickers.

Obviously, it’s difficult, if not impossible, for buyers to determine if a sticker or shrink wrap is original or not via photographs online.

On the other hand, there are a few things that potential buyers should consider when examining such items.

• • Look at all of the items the seller has for sale to see if there’s anything suspicious about the group of records as a whole. We’ve noticed that the sellers who offer such records tend to have groups of records for sale at any given time that have a number of things in common:
    • They only have records by top-tier artists for sale and they’re all valuable items. It’s all Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Velvet Underground, etc.  They never have albums for sale by non-collectible artists.
    • Every album has one or more stickers on the shrink wrap.
    • Every album (or nearly all) are still sealed, or are opened copies that still have shrink wrap on the cover.
  • Look for common price stickers.  We’ve noticed that a lot of these records tend to have price stickers from either Sears or Kmart.  While both stores sold records in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s unusual to see a seller offering 20 records for sale from a broad period of time that all have Sears or Kmart stickers on them.If you see that ten of the albums for sale also have the same price sticker on them, that’s likely a clue that something isn’t what it seems to be.
  • Look for rare or unusual stickers. Stickers with song titles are common. Check other auction listings to see if other sellers also have albums with similar stickers.Check completed auction listings on eBay and at popsike.com to look for other examples of such stickers to see how common or rare they might be.It would be quite unusual for someone to find a sticker on a cover of an album that is 50 years old that no one has ever seen before.Yet one of these eBay sellers recently had a copy of the Beatles Yesterday and Today album for sale with a sticker that suggested that the album was part of Capitol Records’ archive.The sticker had a typed date and noted that the record was a “second state” Butcher cover. And yes, the cover was still in the shrink wrap.

    Another oddity from the same seller was a sealed copy of Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, complete with a never-before-seen sticker that indicated that the album was a promotional copy.

    The sticker looked very professional, and the album sold for thousands of dollars.

    

    Unfortunately, the sticker (and probably the shrink wrap) was a fake, as Capitol designated promotional copies at that time by punching the word “free” or “promo” in the cover, rather than using stickers.

    Another Beach Boys oddity turned up not long ago. Their first album, Surfin’ Safari, was originally issued with a cover that indicated that the album was stereo. This was an error; the album was not true stereo. Later pressings corrected this by changing the banner to read “Duophonic”, which was Capitol’s name for their rechanneled stereo process.

    This particular copy of Surfin’ Safari featured both a stereo and a Duophonic banner, as well as a never-before-seen sticker touting the alleged “benefits” of Duophonic. That album sold for a lot of money, but the entire thing was almost certainly fabricated by an unscrupulous seller.

  • Look for stickers that don’t seem quite right. We recently saw a first pressing stereo copy of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited (see image above or click here) that had a hype sticker for the song “Like a Rolling Stone”, a hype sticker for the (very rare) photo that came enclosed in the first few copies pressed and a discount sticker indicating that the record had been reduced in price to only $1.27.That’s a first pressing of what was, in 1965, a brand-new record. While all three stickers may be reproductions, the $1.27 sticker is the one that stands out for being wrong, as that album, especially in stereo, would never have been discounted to such a low price as a brand-new release.
  • We’ve also seen stereo copies of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles with similar stickers. While mono copies might have been found in discount bins when Capitol stopped pressing mono records, there would have been no reason to discount the stereo version, which remained in print for decades and which remained a big seller for the entire time it was in print.

  • 

    Be suspicious of stickers that are nicer than they should be. Most genuine stickers are wrinkled, or may have wear or fading, especially after 30-50 years. Newly-printed stickers, of course, will always appear perfect.

    As an example, consider the first album by the Velvet Underground & Nico, which came with a sticker on the cover that looked like a banana. The cover had a tease printed on it – “Peel slowly and see.” Pretty much everyone who bought that album did try to peel it.

    Unfortunately, the stickers usually became torn during attempts to peel it, and many people gave up. Most copies seen for sale have a banana that has been completely peeled, one that has been partially peeled, or one where someone tried to peel it, gave up, and then put the now-torn sticker back in place.

    What is almost never seen is a copy of that album where the banana is 100% intact. Yet one eBay seller often has 2-3 copies for auction per week, and each of them has a banana sticker that is absolutely perfect. How unusual is that? There is probably one copy of that album in 1000 that has a sticker that no one has ever attempted to peel.

  • 

    Look for listings that have only sealed records or listings where nearly all of the records are either sealed or are still in the shrink wrap. Shrink wrap machines are fairly inexpensive, but finding perfect copies of 50 year old records to reseal is hard.

    Close examination to check for wear under the shrink wrap may be difficult to do online, but we’ve seen records from some of these sellers where the wear on the cover under the shrink wrap was noticeable even in the photos they used in their auction listing. Ring wear on the cover or wear near the mouth of the cover are often giveaways.

How can you protect yourself against resealed records or albums with fake or counterfeit stickers? There is no surefire way to protect yourself, but here are a few suggestions:

• Look out for any of the unusual or suspicious things listed above. If all of the seller’s albums for sale are rare, perfect, sealed, and have stickers, you’re likely looking at a bunch of fraudulent listings.
• Don’t do business with sellers that do not offer refunds if you aren’t satisfied.
• Do your research. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to know what you’re buying.

How to Identify Counterfeit Records

It can be difficult to identify any particular record as a counterfeit, especially if you do not have a known original pressing at hand with which to make a comparison, or if you have never seen an original pressing before.

There are certain traits that are often seen on counterfeit records:

• • • Labels that are pitted, off-center, or have tears near the spindle hole.
    • Vinyl that has streaks, bumps or other marks that may suggest that it’s of poor quality.
    • Thin vinyl – Records from the 1950s and early 1960s were usually pressed from heavy, relatively rigid vinyl. Counterfeit pressings of those titles are usually pressed on lightweight, flexible vinyl.
    • Incorrect cover construction – Older album covers were usually printed on paper slicks that were then glued to gray or brown cardboard. Many counterfeit records have covers that are printed directly on white posterboard, making the covers thinner and lighter.
    • Poor cover detail – Printing and detail on both the album cover and the label may be of poor quality or be somewhat blurry. Make sure that the smallest text on the cover is completely legible.
    • Incorrectly formatted matrix numbers – Many original pressings from major labels have machine stamped numbers in the dead wax area. Most, but not all, counterfeit records have hand etched numbers. There are exceptions to this, however, and some fakes do have stamped numbers.

Buyers should always be suspicious of any unusually rare record offered for sale in exceptional condition at a price that seems too good to be true.

One thing that almost all counterfeit records have in common is that they’re always in mint condition. Why wouldn’t they be? They’re likely new. Original copies of albums that are 30-50 years old, on the other hand, rarely turn up in new, unplayed condition, so buyers should take that into consideration if you’re unsure.

Counterfeit Records Conclusion

It’s unfortunate that people want to take advantage of record collectors, but if there’s a record that people want to buy and it’s rare, chances are good that someone has reproduced it for profit. Your best advice when considering a purchase is to buy from reputable dealers, or find someone who may be familiar with an original pressing and get their opinion before buying.

While most counterfeit records can be spotted by an experienced eye, a few are exceptionally good copies. Be careful when buying, especially if the condition and the price seem too good to be true.

Colored Vinyl Records

If you have spent any time around records, either 45 RPM singles or albums, you might have encountered the term “colored vinyl records.” You might think that’s a strange question; after all, all records are colored vinyl records, aren’t they? And aren’t they all black?

Historically, most records are black, probably because black vinyl is relatively inexpensive compared to other colors of vinyl and possibly because the dark colors might help obscure any impurities that might be in the compound.

This isn’t a new thing; since the introduction of the commercial cylinder record in 1889, most records of any kind have been made from materials that were either naturally black or which were colored during the manufacturing process to make them appear to be black. The reasons for this had to do with both cost and with quality control. When you use different types of materials and different sources, you can make sure that all of your finished product looks the same by adding substances to make them look black.

Despite this, over the years, a few recordings, dating to the cylinder era, have been manufactured as colored vinyl records, with “colored vinyl” generally defined as some color other than black. Colored vinyl records have long been popular with collectors and they usually command a premium price on the collector market. In this article, we’ll cover the history of colored vinyl records and show examples of some of the more interesting ones we’ve seen over the years.

Browse by Category

Click any of the links below to jump to each category:

Colored Vinyl Records History
Older Labels That Manufacture Colored Vinyl Records
Liberty Colored Vinyl Records
Bel Canto Colored Vinyl Records
Columbia Colored Vinyl Records
Promotional Colored Vinyl Records
Japanese Colored Vinyl Records
Taiwan Colored Vinyl Records
Mass Market Colored Vinyl Records
Unusual Colored Vinyl Records
Privately Pressed Colored Vinyl Records
Unauthorized or Pirate Colored Vinyl Records
Colored Vinyl Records Today

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Colored Vinyl Records History

The earliest examples of colored vinyl records date to 1908, with the introduction of Blue Amberol cylinders by the Edison company. These cylinders, which were more durable and had longer playing time than the earlier versions, used celluloid that was dyed blue in order to make them stand out in the marketplace.

In about 1920, the then-new Vocalion records pressed colored vinyl records in the form of a reddish-brown, mostly to distinguish their products from others in the marketplace. While the company claimed that their records were more durable than the black ones offered by their competitors, the red color was mostly a marketing ploy.

Most records sold at the time were packaged in simple paper sleeves, rather than in custom covers, as albums are today. If a buyer were to browse through a stack of records and notice that some of them were colored vinyl records, they might be more likely to buy one, simply because it was a bit unusual.

In the 1930s, Columbia Records pressed a number of 78s as colored vinyl records, with most of them being blue.

Far more interesting were the records from Seattle-based Morrison Records, which began pressing colored vinyl records in the 1940s using multicolored vinyl.

Because of the way the vinyl was mixed, no two records, including those pressed consecutively, were alike. Though the tiny label had no artists of note on their roster, their records are moderately collectible today simply because of their unusual appearance.

Record companies rarely pressed colored vinyl records in the early to mid-1940s, probably due to cost concerns and the rationing of materials mandated by World War II. In the late 1940s, when RCA introduced their then-proprietary seven inch 45 RPM records, the company made the decision to press colored vinyl records in eight different colors.

These colors represented different genres of music, with classical records being pressed on red vinyl, for instance, and country records being pressed using green vinyl. They did this only for singles, however; all of their albums were made using black vinyl.

This unique brand of marketing using colored vinyl records didn’t last long, probably due to cost concerns. By 1950 or so, RCA was pressing all of their records, including their singles, using black vinyl, though they did maintain the color distinction for their classical records, which had a red label and a blurb on the cover that said “RCA Red Seal.”

Older Labels That Manufactured Colored Vinyl Records

There were not a lot of colored vinyl records pressed in the 1950s, though a few small labels, such as Aladdin Records and Crown Records, pressed a few titles on red vinyl.

Crown’s decision to make colored vinyl records is a bit odd, since the company was a budget label that mostly issued recordings that had previously been released by other companies.

Though Crown used the more expensive red vinyl, as opposed to the common black, they cut corners in other ways by producing poorly-constructed covers that had no reinforcement at the seams and by selling their albums without paper inner sleeves.

Another budget label that pressed colored vinyl records was the Tops label from California. Tops released mono records; their stereo pressings were issued on the sister label, Mayfair. These labels issued a few titles on red and yellow vinyl, with yellow vinyl being the most common. Here’s an example of a multicolored vinyl record from Mayfair by actress and model Sandy Warner.

Liberty Colored Vinyl Records

Stereo records were introduced to the market in late 1957, but not all labels immediately began producing them, as the market for them initially was quite small. Most of the labels, including the larger ones, introduced stereo pressings slowly. Liberty Records, then a major label, added stereo pressings to their catalog in 1960.

To celebrate, Liberty pressed a handful of titles as colored vinyl records using both blue and red vinyl. Oddly enough, the fact that these titles were colored vinyl records wasn’t advertised in any way on the cover, but would simply come as a surprise to the buyer. While Liberty issued records on both blue and red vinyl, the red vinyl pressings seem to be more common than the blue ones.

Although most of the titles in this limited series were pressed using either one color or the other, at least three titles, Julie London’s Julie is Her Name, Martin Denny’s Exotic Sounds from the Silver Screen and Spike Jones’s Omnibust, were pressed on both colors of vinyl.

Bel Canto Colored Vinyl Records

A short-lived record label from Columbus, Ohio, Bel Canto, arrived on the scene in the late 1950s. Bel Canto was an odd label in a number of ways. First of all, they were located in Ohio, away from the music scenes on either coast.

The company was owned by Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge (later TRW), a company known as an aerospace company and defense contractor, not as an entertainment company. Even more odd was the fact that Bel Canto released all of their albums on colored vinyl and in stereo only, which was quite unusual at a time when more than nine records out of ten were sold in mono.

One of Bel Canto’s titles, a stereo demonstration record, was pressed on multicolored vinyl. Most of Bel Canto’s releases fell into the light jazz and popular vocal category, and as far as we know, the label was out of business well before 1965.

Columbia Colored Vinyl Records

In the 1960s, a few record companies, notably Columbia Records and their affiliated label, Epic, began pressing colored vinyl records for promotional use.

The record company realized that radio station program managers often received dozens of records per month, and they wanted their product to stand out among them and perhaps get airplay as a result.

Columbia pressed hundreds of colored vinyl singles throughout the 1960s by artists as diverse as Andy Williams, Eydie Gorme, Patti Page, The New Christy Minstrels, Bob Dylan, the Yardbirds, Simon and Garfunkel and the Dave Clark 5.

Colors of vinyl used were green, blue, red, yellow, purple and orange, though red was by far the color used most often.

Columbia also pressed at least 14 colored vinyl albums for promotional use on red, yellow, blue, purple and green vinyl. The selection of albums pressed as colored vinyl records wasn’t nearly as diverse as the label’s singles; the titles were all easy listening, classical or soundtrack/original cast recordings.

Perhaps the most noteworthy among them were two different titles by Barbra Streisand – The Second Barbra Streisand Album was pressed on blue vinyl and Color Me Barbra was pressed on red vinyl.

Occasionally, starting in the 1970s and continuing to the present day, other record labels have pressed some of their titles as colored vinyl records exclusively for promotional use.

Sometimes these were intended as a tool to get the record played on the radio and at other times, they were simply pressed as a “thank you” to radio personnel for having promoted the record already.

As a rule these rare pressings always sell for higher prices than their black vinyl counterparts that were sold in stores.

A few examples:

• The Beatles – Reel Music – yellow vinyl; limited to 12,000 numbered copies
• Electric Light Orchestra -Ole ELO! – yellow vinyl
  • • Electric Light Orchestra -Out of the Blue – blue vinyl
• Fabulous Poodles – Mirror Stars – pink vinyl
• Elton John – Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy – brown vinyl; autographed on the inside cover by Elton John and Bernie Taupin (2000 copies)
• Madonna –Like a Virgin – white vinyl
• Madonna -Bedtime Stories – pink vinyl
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – You’re Gonna Get It – red vinyl
• Sparks – Introducing Sparks – red vinyl

The Chicago-based Chess label, which issued rhythm and blues records in the 1950s and 1960s, and its jazz subsidiary, Argo, pressed a number of titles on beautiful multicolored vinyl in the 1960s as promotional items.

Japanese Colored Vinyl Records

In 1958 in Japan, Toshiba Musical Industries, one of the two or three large manufacturers of records in Japan, began pressing colored vinyl records, with the introduction of their red, “Everclean” vinyl.

This vinyl compound was created in order to be more resistant to static electricity, and was intended to help prevent records from accumulating dust. Toshiba pressed red colored vinyl records from 1958 through early 1974, though they often coexisted on the shelves with black vinyl pressings.

Labels that were pressed by Toshiba included Capitol Records (and all of their subsidiaries), Odeon Records, Warner Brothers Records (through 1970),  Liberty Records, Stateside Records, and World Pacific Records.

While the red Everclean vinyl was intended to prevent the buildup of static electricity, the label was inconsistent in its use, as only a small percentage of the albums and singles pressed during that sixteen year period were made using that vinyl compound.

Furthermore, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to which albums would be issued on red vinyl and which only on black, and sometimes that was the case even with a particular title. In some cases, promotional copies of a particular album might have been pressed with red (or black) vinyl while the copies available for sale in the stores might be either the same or perhaps the opposite color.

Though these Everclean pressings were not manufactured with the specific intention that they be collectors’ items, they have become so over time, and a red vinyl copy of a given album will always sell for a higher price than its black vinyl counterpart, even if the red vinyl version is more common than the black one. Red vinyl LPs exist for such artists as the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Grand Funk Railroad, and Julie London, among numerous others.

Japanese records are collectible for a number of other reasons that you can read about here.

Taiwan Colored Vinyl Records

In the 1960s, thousands of titles were released in Taiwan as colored vinyl records. None of the record companies in Taiwan seem to have had legitimate licensing arrangements with major American or European record labels, however, making all of these titles unauthorized.

The most common colors used for these colored vinyl records were a pale green, a bright orange and a bright red. Some had English language label names, such as First Records, while others were printed in Chinese.

The albums were of poor quality, and while the records sounded terrible, being dubbed from other records, the quality of the album covers was even worse. The artwork was poorly printed on ultra-thin paper that was laminated in thin plastic.

What these colored vinyl records lacked in quality, they made up in quantity – nearly every major artist of the 1960s saw their albums issued as colored vinyl records in Taiwan. These include titles by Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, and hundreds of other artists.

Despite their poor quality, these records are sought out by collectors today. In some cases, these albums represent the only colored vinyl albums available by a particular artist.

Mass Market Colored Vinyl Records

Seeing an opportunity to make some money from record collectors by selling them the same titles a second time, record companies began pressing colored vinyl records as limited edition collectibles in the late 1970s. Albums by bands such as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Elton John, AC/DC, and the Eagles were pressed on various colors of vinyl for a short time.

While a few of these titles were domestically produced, such as the Beatles’ White Album, most of them were available in the United States only as imports from Canada, England and the Netherlands. Several of the titles from England, including the Beatles’ Abbey Road, Let It Be and Magical Mystery Tour, were pressed exclusively for export, making them quite hard to find in England today.

Here’s a list of a few of the titles pressed on colored vinyl in the late 1970s (not comprehensive):

• AC/DC
  • Got Blood If You Want It – multicolored vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Powerage – red vinyl (Canada)
• Beatles (article about Beatles colored vinyl albums here)
  • 1962-1966 – red vinyl (U.S., Japan, France, Germany, UK, and possibly others)
  • 1967-1970 – blue vinyl (U.S., Japan, France, Germany, UK, and possibly others)
  • Abbey Road – green vinyl (UK; export only)
  • Greatest Hits – gold vinyl, purple vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Magical Mystery Tour – yellow vinyl (UK; export only)
  • Let It Be – white vinyl (UK; export only)
  • Love Songs – yellow vinyl (Canada)
  • Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – gray marbled vinyl (Canada) clear, green, yellow, blue, purple, orange (France)
  • White Album – white vinyl (U.S., France, Germany, UK (export only) and possibly others)
• Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – Deja Vu – brown vinyl (UK)
• Eagles – Greatest Hits green vinyl (UK)
  • Hotel California green vinyl (Netherlands)
• Fleetwood Mac
  • Fleetwood Mac – white vinyl (UK)
  • Rumours – white vinyl (Netherlands)
• Elton John
  • Blue Moves – blue vinyl (France)
  • Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – yellow vinyl (UK)
• Led Zeppelin – IV – lavender vinyl (UK)
• Alan Parsons Project – Tales of Mystery and Imagination – yellow vinyl (Canada)
  • Pyramid – orange vinyl (Netherlands)
• Pink Floyd
  • Animals – pink vinyl (France) two versions; one has an all-pink cover!
  • Atom Heart Mother – blue vinyl (France)
  • Dark Side of the Moon – white vinyl (Germany, Netherlands)
  • The Wall – orange vinyl (Italy)
  • Wish You Were Here – blue vinyl (Germany, Netherlands)
• Ramones – Road to Ruin – yellow vinyl (UK)
• Rush – Hemispheres – red vinyl (Canada)
• Rolling Stones
  • Beggar’s Banquet – white vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Between the Buttons – yellow vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Big Hits, High Tide and the Green Grass – orange vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Black and Blue – blue vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Get Your Yeah Yeahs Out – blue vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Let It Bleed – red vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Miss You (12” single) pink vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Some Girls – orange vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Their Satanic Majesties’ Request – white and clear vinyl (Netherlands)
  • Through the Past, Darkly – green vinyl (Netherlands)
• Steely Dan
  • Can’t Buy a Thrill – yellow vinyl (Canada)
  • The Royal Scam – yellow vinyl (Canada)
  • Greatest Hits – yellow vinyl (Canada)
  • Aja – yellow vinyl, red vinyl (Canada)
• Synergy (Larry Fast)
  • Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra – clear vinyl (U.S.)
  • Sequencer – clear vinyl (U.S.)
  • Chords – clear vinyl (U.S.)
• Neil Young – Harvest – peach colored vinyl (UK)

Many of these albums are now quite rare and are sought out among collectors, particularly the colored vinyl titles by The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Unusual Colored Vinyl Records

The majority of colored vinyl records are pressed using a single color – red, green, blue, etc. Occasionally, there have been examples of records pressed using more than one color or a color that wouldn’t be considered a “normal” color.

Twelve inch singles by Kraftwerk and Metallica have been issued on pale green “glow in the dark” vinyl. Madonna’s Hard Candy was released on a red and white swirl “candy” vinyl. Several titles, starting with Faust’s self-titled 1971 LP (UK) were pressed in clear, transparent vinyl.

A Bob Marley title was pressed with three colors of vinyl – red, yellow, and green, to evoke the colors of the Jamaican flag.

Others are made using a hodgepodge of colors and are known as “splatter” or “swirl” vinyl, depending on the appearance of the finished product.

There have been quite a few examples of multicolored vinyl pressings in recent years, mostly from small, privately-owned record companies. Third Man Records, run by Jack White of White Stripes fame, has released a number of unusual colored vinyl records in the past few years.

Privately Pressed Colored Vinyl Records

Sometimes, a record company or pressing plant employee will take it upon themselves to press colored vinyl records, even though they have not been authorized to do so by their employer. They may do this for their own use, or with the intention of secretly reselling the records at a profit at some point in the future.

Because of the covert nature of these pressings, it’s not possible to document all of them, and sometimes, they aren’t even discovered until many years (or decades) after they were initially manufactured.

Collectors are generally very interested in these sorts of titles, provided that it can be demonstrated that they were manufactured at the time of the record’s initial commercial release and that they were made at the same facility used to press the regular, black vinyl copies of the same record.

Here’s a list of a few of the titles we’ve seen over the years that appear to have been privately pressed as colored vinyl records:

• The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night – a single copy of this album is known to exist on pink vinyl.  This copy was found at a Los Angeles yard sale!
• Dave Brubeck – Jackpot – one copy of this LP is known on blue vinyl
• Dion – Runaround Sue – copies of this 1962 LP are known to exist on both green and brown vinyl
• Fats Domino – Just Domino – One copy of this 1962 LP is known to exist on multicolored vinyl
• The Doors – The Doors – one test pressing of this album is known to exist on white vinyl
• Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding – copies of this 1967 LP are known to exist on red and on yellow vinyl
• Electric Light Orchestra – Ole ELO! – While yellow vinyl copies of this album were officially issued as promotional items, there are also copies on red, white, and blue vinyl that were pressed by a record company employee.
• John Lennon/Yoko Ono – Milk and Honey – green and yellow copies exist; these were reportedly pressed from legitimate stampers, likely by a record company employee
• Julie London – Julie Is Her Name – a single copy of this 1955 LP is known to exist on half red/ half green vinyl (see photo)
• Ketty Lester – Love Letters – one copy is known to exist on multicolored vinyl
• Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed – two copies are known to exist on multicolored vinyl
• Nina Simone – The Amazing Nina Simone – one blue vinyl copy of this 1959 album is known
• Ike and Tina Turner – River Deep, Mountain High – one copy of this album is known on blue vinyl

This list is hardly comprehensive, but because of the nature of these pressings, it’s impossible to document all of them. New ones are discovered all the time; the Julie London album, pressed in 1955, turned up for the first time in 2014!

Unauthorized or Pirate Colored Vinyl Records

Since collectors have demonstrated a willingness to buy just about anything by their favorite artist, a number of unscrupulous individuals have taken it upon themselves to issue quite a few colored vinyl records by famous artists.

These titles are technically known as “pirate” pressings; they very closely resemble official releases, but are actually unauthorized private pressings.

As these pressings are unofficial and are not related to official releases by the artist represented, nor are they authorized by the artists’ record companies, these pressings rarely attract much attention from record collectors.

They do, however, usually sell for quite a bit more than the standard, black vinyl pressings of the same title, usually selling for $30-$40.

Here are a few examples of titles we’ve seen for sale on colored vinyl that are unauthorized:

• Led Zeppelin
  • Led Zeppelin I – multiple colors of vinyl
  • Led Zeppelin II – multiple colors of vinyl
  • Led Zeppelin III – multiple colors of vinyl
  • Houses of the Holy – multiple colors of vinyl
  • Physical Graffiti – multiple colors of vinyl
• Pink Floyd
  • The Piper at the Gates of Dawn – multiple colors of vinyl
  • A Saucerful of Secrets – multiple colors of vinyl
  • Dark Side of the Moon – multiple colors of vinyl (these are distinctly different from the authorized pressings listed above)

There are numerous other examples of these, but it’s impossible to document all of them.

Colored Vinyl Records Today

Limited edition colored vinyl pressings continue to this day, particularly among companies that specialize in reissuing older titles. The original pressing of a Bob Dylan album from the 1960s might have been on black vinyl, but you can buy a red vinyl pressing today!

Many titles released in the past five years have been issued as colored vinyl records, sometimes for the entire run and sometimes as a limited edition item.

About five years ago, Warner Brothers Records began reissuing the entire Metallica catalog as high quality pressings, some were mastered at 45 RPM for better sound quality. All of these titles were briefly available as colored vinyl records, though several of the titles were limited to 100 colored vinyl copies. Later pressings in the series were manufactured in larger quantities to help satisfy collector demand.

Record companies today understand that it’s a bit more work than it used to be to persuade customers to pay cash for hard media, rather than downloads. Because of this, it’s quite common these days to see titles issued as colored vinyl records as an added incentive for the customer to buy.

That’s not the only reason why someone might want to buy colored vinyl records, however.
Because colored vinyl pressings are generally more free of impurities than black vinyl, many of them provide good sound quality. This is particularly true of those colored vinyl records which are pressed for promotional use by radio stations. Regardless of sound, they’re all popular among collectors, if for no other reason than the fact that they’re different and unique.

Click here to view our selection of colored vinyl records.

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Beatles Albums and Why People Collect Them

When it comes to record collecting, some artists are more popular with collectors than others. No artist, however, is quite as collectible as the Beatles, though Elvis Presley comes close. Despite being available for more than fifty years and with most of their records never going out of print, Beatles albums draw more interest, and sell for more money, than those by any other artist.

Collector interest in Beatles albums isn’t limited to original pressings, either, though first pressings of their records do command a lot of interest. Later issues, reissues, limited edition items and compilation Beatles albums assembled long after the group broke up in 1970 are also of interest to record collectors.

In this article, we’ll attempt to give an overview of the sorts of Beatles albums that tend to attract the most attention among collectors and we’ll show a few examples of some of the Beatles albums that tend to sell for the most money on the collector market.

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Beatles Albums on Parlophone
Beatles Albums on Vee Jay
Beatles Albums on Other Labels
Beatles Albums on Capitol
Yesterday and Today
Beatles Albums on Apple
Other Foreign Releases of Note
Picture Discs and Colored Vinyl
Bootleg Beatles Albums
Recent Releases
Conclusion

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Beatles Albums on Parlophone

While collectors worldwide are usually the most interested in Beatles albums from the country in which they live, there is also a lot of collector interest in Beatles albums from two countries in particular – Great Britain and the United States. British Beatles albums are of interest because the band hailed from that country, and their records were usually issued in the UK before they were released anywhere else.

British Beatles albums also defined what releases should look like and which songs they should contain, making any releases from other countries that differed in any way collectible in their own right.

American Beatles albums are of interest because Capitol Records, the group’s American label, reformatted a number of their albums, changing titles, track listings and artwork, resulting in a number of Beatles albums that were unique to the United States.

Beatles albums issued in Great Britain between 1963 and 1967 were issued on the Parlophone label. The first issues of the band’s debut album, Please Please Me, were issued using label art that dated to the late 1950s, a label known among collectors as the “black and gold” label. This label art was used for only a month or two before being changed to the “black and yellow” label that Parlophone used throughout the remainder of the 1960s, making first issues of Please Please Me quite rare in comparison to later pressings, particularly in stereo.

It has been estimated that perhaps 40,000 or so mono copies of the album were issued on the black and gold label and no more than 900-1000 copies in stereo. As this album was the first album by the Beatles issued anywhere, collectors around the world are interested in acquiring copies of Please Please Me on the black and gold label.

While minor label variations are rampant with Beatles albums, as minor details such as tax codes, the placement of the words “sold in the UK” often appeared in various places on the label or were possibly omitted completely from one pressing to another, the primary interest with collectors lies in obtaining the earliest pressings possible of a given record.

Given that these Beatles albums remained in print for years without obvious changes to the cover or label, how can one know if they’re looking at an early pressing or a later one?

It’s possible to determine whether a particular copy of Beatles albums on Parlophone are early pressings or a later pressing by examining the numbers that are stamped in the area around the record’s label known as the “dead wax” area. These numbers usually indicate the catalog number of the album itself, so that record company employees would know which stampers to use to press a particular record when grabbing them from storage. Those dead wax numbers also indicate, however, roughly how many records of that title had been pressed before it.

Stampers on Parlophone LPs are marked using a stamped letter or series of letters that is generally visible at the 3 o’clock position in the dead wax. A stamper code usually consisted of one, two or three letters, using the table below:

G=1
R=2
A=3
M=4
O=5
P=6
H=7
L=8
T=9
D=0

These letters are derived from the phrase “Gramophone Ltd.” and the letters may appear individually or in combination with others. Each stamper was usually used to press 300-500 discs, and then it was discarded and replaced with a new one. The first 300-500 copies of a given title, for instance, would have the letter “G” stamped in the vinyl at the 3 o’clock position. The next 300-500 copies would use a stamper with the letter “R.” Later pressings might have multiple letters, such as RM, or GRO, which would represent the 24th and 125th stampers, respectively.

As a general rule, Beatles albums with earlier stamper numbers tend to sell for more money among collectors than those with higher stamper numbers, with the emphasis on owning a copy of the album that was pressed as close to the original date of release as possible.

Keep in mind that Beatles albums in Britain were issued in both mono and stereo through 1969 (Yellow Submarine) and that both mono and stereo pressings would have their own sequence of stamper numbers. At the time of the release of Please Please Me in early 1963, mono records outsold their stereo counterparts by a ratio of nearly 100:1, making early stereo pressings quite scarce in comparison with mono copies. This ratio changed through the 1960s, and by 1968, most records sold were in stereo, making mono pressings of later Beatles albums, such as the White Album or Yellow Submarine much harder to find than stereo pressings.

It’s also worth noting that UK Beatles albums are generally harder to find than their American counterparts, as the country is smaller and has fewer buyers. An original American copy of just about any Beatles album will be easier to find than its British equivalent.

Albums issued in Britain by the Beatles, 1963-1967:

• Please Please Me (March 1963)
• With the Beatles (November 1963)
• A Hard Day’s Night (July 1964)
• Beatles for Sale (December 1964)
• Help! (August 1965)
• Rubber Soul (December 1965)
• Revolver (August 1966)
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (June 1967)

In addition to the Beatles albums above, which were pressed by Parlophone for sale within the UK, the label also pressed a few Beatles albums that were intended to be exported to other countries. These were all rather limited in production and are quite rare today and are highly sought out by collectors.

• Something New
• The Beatles Second Album
• Beatles VI

The three albums above have the same title, cover art and track listing as the American albums of the same title, but they have Parlophone labels instead of Capitol labels.

• The Beatles (The White Album) – Same as the regular UK pressing, except that the album has Parlophone labels instead of Apple labels.
• Yellow Submarine – This pressing, intended for export to Portugal, has an Odeon label, rather than an Apple label.
• Abbey Road – Same as the regular UK pressing, except that the album has Parlophone labels instead of Apple labels.
• Hey Jude – Same as the regular UK pressing, except that the album has Parlophone labels instead of Apple labels. Issued as an export-only release in 1970; the album was released in 1979 with Apple labels.
• Let It Be – Same as the regular UK pressing, except that the album has Parlophone labels instead of Apple labels.

In addition to the titles above, four different Beatles albums were pressed on colored vinyl in 1978 for export to the United States:

• Magical Mystery Tour – yellow vinyl
• The Beatles (The White Album) – white vinyl
• Abbey Road – green vinyl
• Let It Be – white vinyl

American Beatles Albums on Vee Jay

While the history of Beatles albums in the UK is pretty straightforward, with all albums being released on the Parlophone label through 1967 and on the Beatles’ own Apple label thereafter, the story of Beatles albums in the United States is a bit more complex.

When the Beatles released their first single, “Love Me Do”, in late 1962, Parlophone’s American counterpart, Capitol Records, passed on the opportunity, as they’d had a poor track record in selling British artists to the American public. A small Chicago-based label, Vee Jay Records, ended up with the rights to the Beatles’ early singles and their first album, which they initially declined to release as the singles by the band they’d released had sold poorly.

In the meantime, the Beatles put together a string of hits in the UK, and Capitol Records took notice. When the cash-strapped Vee Jay neglected to pay royalties on the singles they’d sold, Parlophone assigned the rights to the American market to Capitol, and a series of lawsuits followed. As Capitol prepared to release the Beatles second album (With the Beatles in Britian, and Meet the Beatles in the U.S.), Vee Jay decided to release the Please Please Me album after all, and in early January 1964, two different Beatles albums appeared in stores in America, one on Capitol and one on Vee Jay.

The Vee Jay release of the Please Please Me album was released as Introducing the Beatles and was rushed to market in such a hurry that the first pressings didn’t even have a listing of the songs on the cover. Instead, the back cover of the album simply had photos of other albums by Vee Jay artists.

During the first quarter of 1964, lawyers for the various labels sorted out the matter of whether Vee Jay or Capitol had the rights to the Beatles catalog, and in the end, Vee Jay was given until October, 1964 to stop releasing Beatles product. In addition, they were told that they’d have to remove two songs, “Love Me Do” and “PS I Love You”, from the Introducing the Beatles album.

Tiny Vee Jay was ovewhelmed by demand for their only Beatles album, and they subsequently contracted pressing of the album to multiple companies, which resulted in dozens of pressing and label variations. Some covers listed song titles, others had blank white covers, and some albums were pressed with smaller labels intended for 45 RPM singles when they ran short.

With the October deadline coming up, Vee Jay decided to repackage the limited amount of Beatles material they had in order to increase sales. They repackaged Introducing the Beatles as Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles by simply putting discs labeled Introducing the Beatles into new covers. They also combined Introducing the Beatles with the album The Golden Hits of the Four Seasons and sold the two record set as a “battle of the bands” package, titled The Beatles vs. the Four Seasons, complete with a poster and a scorecard on the cover.

Yet another album combined four Beatles songs that had previously been issued only as singles with a number of songs by singer Frank Ifield and was given the awkward and misleading title of The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage, which gave buyers the mistaken impression that the album was recorded live in concert. This album was issued with two different covers, and the second one, which features a drawing of the Beatles (but no Frank Ifield) on the cover, is among the rarest of all Beatles albums.

Vee Jay also released an album of interviews with the Beatles titled Hear the Beatles Tell All, and this was the one Beatles title that Capitol Records was not able to release themselves, as the album contained no music by the band.

While Beatles albums on Vee Jay sold well in 1964, they were all out of print by October of that year, and many of them were treated poorly by their owners. Because of this, it’s quite difficult to find any Beatles album on Vee Jay in collectible condition today. In addition, Introducing the Beatles has been heavily counterfeited over the years, and may be the most heavily counterfeited record of all time. Most counterfeit copies can be identified by thin vinyl, poor quality printing on the label, and having the name of the band and the title of the album separated by the spindle hole. In addition, most counterfeit copies have stereo covers but have discs that do not say stereo on the label.

As mono albums were more popular than stereo pressings in 1964, Vee Jay pressed approximately 50 mono copies of each title for every stereo copy, making stereo pressings of Introducing the Beatles, Songs Pictures and Stories of the Beatles and The Beatles vs. the Four Seasons much rarer and more expensive today than their mono counterparts.

Beatles albums issued by Vee Jay Records in 1964:

• Introducing the Beatles (January 1964) – This was the same album as Please Please Me in the UK, with two songs, Please Please Me, and Ask Me Why, removed to cut the songs from 14 to 12. After a lawsuit, those two songs were added back to the album, and the songs Love Me Do and PS I Love You were removed.
• Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles (October 1964) – This is the same album as Introducing the Beatles, but with a different cover. The discs inside the cover still say Introducing the Beatles and have that album’s catalog number printed on the label.
• Jolly What! The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage (February 1964)– This album contains four Beatles songs and 8 by Australian singer Frank Ifield. Originally issued with a cover showing an old man with a Beatle haircut, the album was later briefly available with a cover showing a drawing of the Beatles and the “Jolly What!” removed from the title. The latter version is among the rarest of all American Beatles albums. The title is quite misleading, as the phrase “on stage” suggests that the album was recorded live. The songs were all studio recordings.
• The Beatles vs. the Four Seasons (2 record set with poster)(October 1964) – This album combined Introducing the Beatles with The Golden Hits of the Four Seasons in a “battle of the bands” concept, which even included a scorecard on the back cover so that buyers could compare the two artists on a song-by-song basis.
• Hear the Beatles Tell All (interview album) – An album of interviews with the Beatles

Beatles Albums on Other Labels

Prior to signing their contract to record for Parlophone in early 1962, the Beatles recorded some songs in Germany as a backup band for British singer Tony Sheridan. These songs, which included “My Bonnie,” with Sheridan on vocals, and “Ain’t She Sweet,” with John Lennon singing, were licensed by a number of record companies that combined those songs with the work of other, largely unknown bands in order to release a “Beatles” album at the height of Beatlemania in 1964.

Atco Records released an album titled Ain’t She Sweet, combining a few of these songs along with songs by a band called The Swallows. MGM Records used a band called The Titans to fill out an album called The Beatles With Tony Sheridan and Guests. Both of these albums were later reissued on subsidiary labels under different titles. No one ever heard of the Titans or the Swallows again.

Another label called Savage Records released an album called The Savage Young Beatles that contained much of the same material. This album was a bit unusual in that it included a photo of the Beatles on the cover.

Another company called Greatest Records didn’t even bother licensing material; they simply released an album called The Original Greatest Hits, which contained material originally released on Capitol Records.

Greatest attempted to hide this by not mentioning the words “The Beatles” anywhere on the cover, but the drawing of four heads with Beatle haircuts on the cover made it clear exactly what the buyer could expect to hear.

All of these albums are somewhat scarce today and are fairly collectible. They don’t draw the attention of the Parlophone or Capitol releases, but most serious collectors have at least one of the above albums in their collection.

American Beatles Albums on Capitol

Once Capitol Records secured the rights to release Beatles albums, they began to release them with gusto. The record-buying public had demonstrated that they were willing to buy albums in quantities previously unseen in the music industry, so Capitol set out to give the public as many Beatles albums as they were willing to buy.

A couple of differences between the way record albums were sold in the UK vs. the U.S. led to significant differences in album titles and content. In Britain, an album often contained up to 14 songs, while in the United States, albums were typically shorter, having 12 songs instead.

In addition, American albums usually included songs that had been previously released as singles, while albums sold in Britain did not. As Capitol always tried to ensure that the latest album also contained the latest singles, some songs ended up being removed from the albums to make room for the singles. Over time, the removed songs added up and with fewer songs per album and extra songs available from singles, Capitol found themselves with enough Beatles songs to issue a number of albums that were unique to the American market.

Between 1963 and 1966, Parlophone issued seven albums of new Beatles songs. During that same time period, Capitol issued eleven, along with a two-record set of interviews called The Beatles Story.

The Beatles weren’t too happy about this arrangement and when their contract came up for renewal, they insisted that album titles, artwork and content be consistent worldwide. This was the case for all albums from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 through Let It Be in 1970.

Albums issued by Capitol, 1964-1967:

• Meet the Beatles (January 1964) – This album had the same cover as Britain’s With the Beatles, but five tracks were dropped and the single I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There and This Boy were added.
• The Beatles Second Album (unique U.S. release) (April 1964This album was actually their third American album, and included deleted tracks from Meet the Beatles, the “She Loves You” single with both UK and US b-sides (“I’ll Get You” and “You Can’t Do That”), and two new songs that had previously been released in the UK on an EP – “Long Tall Sally” and “I Call Your Name”
• A Hard Day’s Night (June 1964) – The UK album featured 14 Beatles songs, including 8 from the film of the same name. The U.S. album had a different cover, and mixed 8 songs from the film with four instrumental songs by the George Martin Orchestra that had been used in the movie.
• Something New (unique U.S. release) (July 1964) – This album, unique to the U.S., had 8 songs from the UK A Hard Day’s Night LP, plus “Slow Down” and “Matchbox” from a UK EP release and the German version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”The Beatles Story (unique U.S. release) (November 1964) – This two record set consisted of interviews and portions of press conferences, along with song segments and narration that told the story of the Beatles rise to success.
• Beatles ’65 (unique U.S. release) (December 1964) – This album contained 8 songs from Beatles for Sale, which wasn’t released in America, along with “I’ll Be Back”, “I Feel Fine”, and “She’s a Woman.”
• The Early Beatles (unique U.S. release) (March 1965) – This album contained 11 of the 14 tracks recorded for the Please Please Me LP and was essentially Capitol’s version of Introducing the Beatles.
• Beatles VI (unique U.S. release) (June 1965) – This album included the other 6 songs from Beatles for Sale, two songs recorded just for the U.S. market (“Dizzy Miss Lizzy” and “Bad Boy”), a B-side (“Yes It Is”) and two tracks from the UK Help! Album (“You Like Me Too Much” and “Tell Me What You See.”)
• Help! (August 1965) – Like A Hard Day’s Night before it, Help! was released as a 14 track Beatles album in Britain but in the states it had 7 Beatles songs and five instrumental orchestral pieces from the film. The U.S. release had a unique cover that differed from the UK version.
• Rubber Soul (December 1965) – The U.S. version dropped four songs from the UK album of the same name and added two songs from the UK Help! LP – “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “It’s Only Love.”
• Yesterday and Today (unique U.S. release) (June 1966) – A hodgepodge of tracks from various sources, including songs from the UK Help!, Rubber Soul and the then-unreleased Revolver LP, plus both sides of the “Day Tripper” single. See more about this LP below.
• Revolver (different tracks from UK LP) (August 1966) – The U.S. album removed three songs from the UK LP, as these had already been issued on Yesterday and Today a few months earlier.
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (June 1967) – Same as the UK LP
• Magical Mystery Tour (unique U.S. release) (November 1967) – Tracks from the film of the same name were issued as a double 7” EP set in Britain, but the EP format did not sell well in the U.S. market, so the tracks were combined with songs from three singles issued that year to form a complete album.

All albums from Meet the Beatles through Magical Mystery Tour were issued in both stereo and mono; mono pressings of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour are relatively rare, as most buyers were purchasing stereo copies at the time of those albums’ release.

Yesterday and Today

The 1966 album, Yesterday and Today, was a unique release in the Beatles catalog as well as a unique headache for Capitol Records and it became the only Beatles albums to actually lose money on its initial release, despite the fact that it reached #1 on the album charts.

Yesterday and Today, issued in June 1966, was a collection of tracks from three different UK albums, plus both sides of the “Day Tripper” single. As the album was unique to the American market, Capitol needed artwork for it and contacted the band’s management. The photo they received was an usual image of the members of the band wearing butcher smocks while sitting on a bench. Scattered about were heads and bodies from toy dolls and pieces of raw meat.

Promotional copies of the album were sent out to the media and radio and the reaction to the cover photo was hostile. So hostile, in fact, that Capitol made the decision to change the cover to a photo of the band sitting around a steamer trunk. The album had been printed at three different pressing plants, and while the plant in Jacksonville, Illinois destroyed all of their copies of the so-called “Butcher cover” in order to print new ones, the plants in Scranton, Pennsylvania and Los Angeles opted to paste the new cover over the existing ones in order to save time and money.

Very few of the original, “first state” covers survived and only a handful were known to have been sold at retail when the album finally hit the stores. The covers that most buyers saw on the album’s day of release were either new covers printed in Illinois or “pasteover” covers from the other two plants. A few enterprising individuals discovered that it was possible, using steam or chemicals, to remove the second cover to reveal the Butcher cover underneath.

The cost to Capitol to fix the cover problem was reportedly more than $250,000, which equates to nearly $2 million today.

Original “first state” pressings of Yesterday and Today with the Butcher cover photo are quite rare, and sealed copies have sold for as much as $75,000 on the collector market. “Second state” copies, with the trunk cover still attached sell for anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $10,000 or so, depending on condition. “Third state” issues, which are copies that have had the trunk cover removed, can sell for as little as $50 to as much as $3500, depending on the condition of the cover and the degree of success in removing the trunk cover without damaging the image underneath.

The Butcher cover is perhaps the single most sought after of all Beatles albums, and demand remains strong today, despite the fact that they aren’t all that rare. Capitol probably shipped several hundred thousand copies when the album was new, but over time, many of them have been lost or damaged.

We have written a comprehensive article about the Beatles Butcher cover. You can read it here. (opens in a new window)

Beatles Albums on Apple

In 1968, the Beatles created their own record label, Apple Records, to be used for their own releases as well as those by other artists signed to the label. Beatles albums released on the Apple label were pressed by Parlophone in Britain and by Capitol in the United States and were identical in title, cover art, and content.

Titles issued on Apple, 1968-1970

• The Beatles (aka “The White Album”) (November 1968) – Issued in a plain white cover; original UK issues had covers that opened at the top, rather than the side. Each copy of the original pressing had a unique number stamped on the front cover. The two record set included four 8”x10” photos and a large poster. Issued in the UK in stereo and mono; in the U.S. in stereo only.
• Yellow Submarine (January 1969) – Soundtrack album; issued in mono and stereo in the UK but U.S. releases were all stereo.
• Abbey Road (September 1969) – Issued only in stereo in both the UK and U.S.
• Hey Jude (February 1970) – A compilation of singles and B-sides that had not previously been issued in album form. The LP was issued in the U.S. in 1970, but not released in the UK until 1979.
• Let It Be (May 1970) – First issues in the UK came in a box that included a large book containing photos from the film of the same name. U.S. issues did not include the book or the box.

The Beatles (White Album) and Yellow Submarine, unlike the UK issues, were released in the United States only in stereo, as sales of mono records in the U.S. had decline to the point where Capitol records was no longer pressing them.

Other Foreign Releases of Note

Beatles albums issued in the 1960s in other countries generally followed the UK format, though a few albums issued in Canada, such as Yesterday and Today, followed the U.S. format. In Japan, Beatles albums were issued in both configurations.

Japanese Beatles albums of the 1960s were initially pressed on red “Everclean” vinyl, which was specially formulated to minimize static electricity. Later issues were pressed on standard black vinyl. While the red vinyl pressings were not intended to be collector’s items, they have become so over time, and red vinyl copies of Beatles albums from Japan always sell for more money than their black vinyl counterparts. Also of interest on Japanese Beatles albums is the paper sash, or “obi” that was originally attached to the cover. The presence (or absence) of the obi can greatly affect the selling price.

A few other foreign albums tend to attract attention from collectors, including a compilation album from Denmark that shows the Beatles wearing parkas and another from France that shows them riding horses.

Picture Discs and Colored Vinyl

In the 1960s, the original Beatles albums from Japan, which were pressed on red vinyl, were the only albums by the band issued anywhere in the world using a color of vinyl other than black. In the late 1970s, record companies began issuing albums by a variety of artists on colored vinyl as limited edition items. These included a number of titles by the Beatles.

In the United States, Capitol Records released the following Beatles albums on colored vinyl in 1978:

• The Beatles 1962-1966 – red vinyl
• The Beatles 1967-1970 – blue vinyl
• The Beatles (The White Album) – white vinyl

In the UK, four titles were released in 1978 on colored vinyl – Magical Mystery Tour (yellow), The Beatles (The White Album – white), Abbey Road (green) and Let It Be (white.)

In Canada, there were two colored vinyl Beatles albums issued:

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – gray marbled vinyl
• Love Songs – yellow vinyl

In France, the following Beatles albums were issued on colored vinyl:

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – clear, green, yellow, blue, purple, orange
• The Beatles 1962-1966 – red vinyl
• The Beatles 1967-1970 – blue vinyl
• The Beatles (The White Album) – white vinyl

In Japan, the following Beatles albums were released on colored vinyl:

• The Beatles 1962-1966 – red vinyl
• The Beatles 1967-1970 – blue vinyl

In the Netherlands, the Beatles Greatest Hits was released on both gold and purple vinyl.

The Beatles (The White Album) was released on white vinyl in Germany.

In addition to the colored vinyl albums listed above, a few experimental pressings of Beatles albums have turned up on colored vinyl over the years. These were experimental pressings that were not intended for commercial sale:

• Beatles VI – clear vinyl
• Love Songs – brown swirl vinyl/clear vinyl (one disc each)
• The Beatles (The White Album) – clear vinyl, gray and white swirl vinyl, red and white swirl vinyl (one disc only)
• The Beatles 1967-1970 – clear vinyl (one disc only)

About the same time as the colored vinyl releases, Capitol Records issued two different Beatles albums as limited edition picture discs:

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Abbey Road

These were released in die-cut covers that allowed buyers to see the record, which had the artwork from the cover pressed into the vinyl itself.

The two titles above were also issued as picture discs in Japan. Abbey Road was issued as a picture disc in Holland, with a different cover and artwork from the U.S. or Japanese issues. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was issued as a picture disc in Germany, with a different cover from the U.S. or Japanese issue.

Bootleg Beatles Albums

In addition to the authorized releases issued worldwide by Capitol, Parlophone, and Apple, a number of unauthorized, or “bootleg” Beatles albums have been issued by unknown parties over the years.

The first of these appeared in 1969 or so, and were recordings of the then-unreleased Let It Be material. Other titles soon followed, initially in plain white covers with rubber-stamped titles on them. Later issues became more elaborate, with either paper title inserts attached to the cover or properly printed covers.

At the time, U.S. copyright law was vague, and many of these bootleg Beatles albums were sold in regular record stores and even in department stores. By the mid-1970s, Congress changed the laws to make such unauthorized pressings illegal.

A few titles, including those issued by the famous bootleg label Trademark of Quality, were released on colored vinyl. The content of these bootleg Beatles albums usually fell into two groups – live recordings from 1964-1966 and previously unreleased material. As no authorized live album by the band was available until 1977, bootleg Beatles albums of live material were quite popular in the early 1970s.

One popular title, a recording of the Beatles performing in Japan in 1966, was titled Five Nights in a Judo Arena.

Most of the unreleased studio material was of very poor quality, as they were usually made from copies of copies of copies of tapes that had been passed around among collectors. In the late 1980s, a series of bootleg albums issued under the title of Ultra Rare Trax became available and offered exceptional sound quality recordings of several hours of previously unreleased material. The quality of this material was so good that it eventually led to the release of the three-volume Anthology series in the mid-1990s.

A few bootleg Beatles albums even included material that wasn’t recorded by the Beatles at all, such as the frequently-included track “Peace of Mind” (also known as “The Candle Burns”), whose source remains unknown, and “Have You Heard the Word”, which was actually a single by a group called The Fut. Another track that often appeared on bootleg Beatles albums was “The L.S. Bumble Bee,” which was actually a track by comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that sounded nothing at all like the work of the Beatles.

Early Beatles bootlegs, particularly those on colored vinyl or those pressed as picture discs, remain popular with collectors. Bootleg picture discs include material from the Let It Be sessions and the band’s 1962 audition recordings for Decca.

Recent Releases

Even though the Beatles broke up in 1970, both Capitol and Parlophone continue to release new albums every few years. These have mostly been compilation albums, starting with the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 sets released in 1973.

Later titles included Love Songs and Rock ‘n Roll Music, which collected ballads and rockers, respectively. An album called Rarities was released in 1980 that included songs that were previously unavailable in LP format.

In 1982, Capitol released Reel Music, an album of songs from the Beatles films. In 1995 and 1996, three albums entitled Anthology 1, 2, and 3 were released, and these contained material that was previously only available on bootlegs.

Newer releases have included high-quality box sets containing all of their UK albums in stereo and a separate box set containing mono pressings of all of their albums that were originally released in that format.

All of these albums have sold well, often to buyers who weren’t even born when the band broke up.

Beatles Albums Conclusion

More than 40 years after the Beatles stopped working as a band, collector interest in their albums remains high. Prices for rare and hard to find items continue to climb, with particular emphasis on the Yesterday and Today Butcher cover and the first pressing of the UK Please Please Me LP on the original black and gold label.

For newer collectors, there are lots of moderately priced items on the market, and one can still put together a good sized collection of Beatles albums without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars.

And why not? The Beatles made a lot of great music, and collecting Beatles albums is fun.

Click here to view our selection of Beatles albums.

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Audiophile Records – What Are They?

The term “audiophile” has a number of meanings; one definition we found was, “hi-fi enthusiast: somebody who has an enthusiasm for sound reproduction, especially high-fidelity music recordings.” That’s probably a good overall assessment; it’s someone who has an appreciate for how music sounds.

What are audiophile records? Presumably, “audiophile records” would refer to records that were created for the enjoyment of people who like well-recorded sound.

Or, in short, “records that sound good.” In that case, why aren’t all records audiophile records? After all, no one makes records to intentionally sound bad, do they?

No, companies don’t intentionally make records that sound bad, though many records don’t sound as good as they possibly could.

All record companies intend for their product to be enjoyable for the listener. That said, every record company and every artist has different objectives in terms of what they’re trying to accomplish, and who they’re trying to please when they release a record. Is the goal to make money?

To make sure the artist is pleased with the result? Or to give the listener the best possible experience? Sometimes, these objectives are at odds with one another, and the result is often a record that doesn’t sound as good as it could. While all records could be audiophile records, few of them actually are.

Ideally, all recordings would be made under ideal recording conditions, with the greatest care taken to ensure that the recording produced a realistic reproduction of the music played in the studio. The tapes would then be transferred to production stampers with the greatest of care, and the records would be pressed using quiet, high-quality vinyl and packaged in such a way as to protect the finished disc as much as possible.

In a mass-production record company environment, those results rarely occur, though they are becoming more common as the record companies realize that consumers are now more picky than ever before about how they spend their money.

While most record companies today strive to make a quality product, from recording to final pressing, that wasn’t always the case. In the era of stereo records, we had a period where many, if not most, records produced qualified as audiophile records, then a long period where virtually none of them did. Today, as we enjoy the return of vinyl records to the marketplace, fans of well-recorded music are again able to enjoy listening to audiophile records.

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Early Audiophile Records
Audiophile Records by Design
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Audiophile Records Today

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Early Audiophile Records

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a few record companies, such as Columbia and Atlantic, spent a lot of time trying to make sure that their recordings sounded great and that their finished product was of a high quality. Their albums were well-recorded, with a sense of space and depth that truly immersed the listener in the experience.

Both companies were early adopters in acquiring then-expensive stereo and/or multi-track tape recording equipment. In addition, their records were pressed from quality vinyl, with quiet surfaces that reproduced the music well without producing distracting noise or ticks or pops that often comes with records pressed from poor quality or recycled vinyl compounds.

In the late 1950s, those companies, along with RCA, discovered that those consumers who were early adopters in buying stereo playback equipment had larger than average amounts of disposable income and they set out to make a quality product to appeal to those buyers. That’s not surprising; the cost of a stereo record album in 1960 equates to more than $40 today. Buying a new record back then was not an impulse purchase.

RCA in particular was an innovator in stereo recording, particularly in their classical releases, which were recorded using a three track tape recorder to capture the left, right, and center of the orchestra. These techniques were later used for RCA’s popular recordings, as well, and their records, issued under the “Living Stereo” banner, captured a realism that is still revered by audiophiles today. Many RCA stereo albums from that era command prices in the hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars on the collector market.

This early “golden age” of stereo and high quality recordings didn’t last all that long; in fact, it was over in less than a decade. There were various reasons for changes in the industry, but the result was the mass production of records that, for the most part, didn’t sound that great when compared to what had been available just a few years before.

The price of stereo equipment began to drop as the 1960s wore on, and more people started buying stereo records. Their lower-priced equipment didn’t do as good a job of reproducing stereo sound, and RCA compensated for this beginning in 1963 when they introduced their “Dynagroove” process.

Dynagroove attempted to compensate for the deficiencies of consumer-grade equipment by artificially boosting bass frequencies and reducing the overall volume level of the music on the records.

While RCA claimed that the Dyangroove process added “a remarkable degree of musical realism,” the music community disagreed as did many stereo and hi-fi publications of the time.

Unfortunately, RCA continued using this process for all of their recordings for nearly a decade. By the time they stopped using it, they’d already adopted something far worse – Dynaflex, which we’ll cover shortly.

Another mid-1960s process that hurt the sound of records was the Haeco-CSG process, which attempted to correct a problem caused when consumers played stereo records on mono phonographs.

Between 1957, when stereo records were first introduced and sold alongside their mono counterparts, and 1968, when mono records were finally phased out, consumers had to choose either mono or stereo records when they made a purchase. Early mono phonographs could not play stereo records without damaging them, but by the late 1960s, manufacturers were using needles that were compatible with both formats.

The problem during playback was that a stereo record played on mono equipment would artificially boost the sound of any information that was present in both channels of the stereo disc. This resulted in recordings that didn’t sound right, as part of the music, usually the vocals, would play back at a higher sound level than intended.

The Haeco-CSG (“compatible stereo groove”) process attempted to correct this and allowed record companies to produce a record in one format only – stereo, which would play back at the same level regardless of the type of phonograph used to play it.

While this was great for record companies, as it allowed them to dramatically reduce manufacturing costs, it was terrible for consumers who appreciated high-quality sound, as the phase-cancellation process used by CSG resulted in “tinny” sounding records with relatively little bass.

Although the CSG process was used for only two or three years, it was often used at the master tape mixing stage, leaving master tapes of albums released during this time by several major record companies (the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic group among them) forever sounding artificially wrong.

While there are now processes available to remove the CSG artifacts from recordings from the 1968-1970 era when it was primarily used, most copies of albums released during that era suffer from poor sound quality due to its use.

By the early 1970s, various record company mergers with other labels and acquisitions by companies with no prior interest in music (such as Kinney’s buyout of Warner Brothers in the late 1960s – Kinney’s primary business to that point was managing parking garages and janitorial services) led to an increased interest in the bottom line and an emphasis on producing greater profits over producing a good-sounding, quality product.

These mergers, combined with a global oil crisis and a relative shortage of vinyl, led to cutbacks in quality across the industry. Many records were lighter in weight and indifferently manufactured, resulting in records with lots of surface noise and a tendency to warp. Making matters worse was the tendency of the record companies to press their records from noisy, recycled vinyl. With new vinyl (and the oil needed to make it) being scarce, companies would grind down their unsold product and reuse it for new releases.

Perhaps the worst example of this were the records RCA pressed at this time. These were extraordinarily thin pressings were so thin that you could almost fold them in half.

RCA knew these records were of poor quality, but they attempted to sell this obvious step back in quality as a feature, which they even chose to name – Dynaflex. These records were quite flexible, and weighed about half as much as a regular LP.

Dynaflex records sounded terrible and were prone to warping, but RCA actually advertised these pressings as an improvement, going so far as to claim that they were less likely to warp than traditional pressings from heavier vinyl.

While Dynaflex records were less prone to actual breakage than their predecessors, they were more prone to warpage, leading to the derisive nickname, “Dynawarp.” If you were unfortunate enough to buy albums from RCA artists around 1970 or so, you had the double problem of purchasing records by likes of the Guess Who, Elvis Presley or Jose Feliciano that were plagued by the problems of both Dynagroove and Dynaflex. You spent the same money that you used to, but now you received a product with thin, compressed sound on a disc that was more likely then ever to warp.

Adjusted for inflation, records were far more affordable in the early 1970s than they had been a decade earlier. This led to increased sales. Record companies expanded and opened more pressing plants, but this led to yet another decrease in quality. Ideally, to get the best-sounding record, you want to use the two-track master tape to make it.

This isn’t possible, of course, as record companies don’t want to use their only two track master to produce millions of records. The tape would wear out if they did that. So they’d use copies of that tape instead. Sometimes, they’d use copies of copies, with each copy sounding worse than the tape from which it was made. The product was widely available at an affordable price, but the finished product sounded worse than ever.

As a side note, there was a small label in operation from the late 1940s through the 1970s that called itself “Audiophile Records.” This label specialized in jazz recordings, and took great care in making sure their records sounded as good as possible.

As far as we know, all of their releases were pressed on red vinyl, and many of their early titles were cut at 78 RPM, as the company felt that speed offered better fidelity. Despite the label’s attention to quality, they were never overly successful, with their records being seen as a niche market.

The 1960s and early 1970s were not a good time for audiophiles, as the mass-produced product of that decade largely resulted in poor quality pressings made from noisy vinyl. It didn’t matter if the albums were well-recorded or not, as they playback was likely to sound terrible regardless of what kind of equipment you were using to listen to it.

Audiophile Records by Design

Sheffield Lab

In the early 1970s, a record mastering engineer named Doug Sax and a musician named Lincoln Mayorga discovered that many of their old 78 RPM singles sounded better than newer recordings. This led to the formation of one of the earliest companies to intentionally produce audiophile records – Sheffield Lab.

Sheffield specialized in “direct-to-disc” recordings, which sent the signals from the artists’ microphones directly to the cutting lathe, bypassing the tape deck (though a tape deck was used as a backup.) These recordings produced records of astonishing depth and clarity and the label’s occasional releases became quite popular in the hi-fi and audiophile community.

There are several problems with the direct-to-disc process, however. Because the music is recorded live to the acetate, an entire album side had to be played and recorded at once, with no opportunity to make corrections later or overdub instruments or additional voices at a later time.

What was played live was what went on the record. Another problem was that the lack of a master tape meant that when the stampers wore out, production of a particular title must come to a stop forever.

Since most artists were, by that time, accustomed to recording in a studio with 8, 16 or even 32 track tape recorders and were more comfortable with a recording process that allowed them to record, and overdub or make corrections at leisure, direct-to-disc recordings were somewhat of a niche product that worked best with small jazz groups, who were accustomed to performing live with limited overdubbing.

A few other labels attempted to produce records using similar direct-to-disc methods, including Century, Direct Disk Labs, Crystal Clear and M&K Realtime, but most of them were out of business by the early 1980s.

Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs Audiophile Records

In the late 1970s, a company called Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, founded by Brad Miller, decided that it was time to produce audiophile records, meaning records that manufactured to sound good as the music on them, and records intended for people who actually care how their music sounds.

Mobile Fidelity wasn’t new; the company had been founded around 1960 as an outlet for recordings of locomotives for train buffs. The company later expanded to include a few race car recordings, but through the 1960s, they were mostly a company that produced high-quality, but little-noticed, sound effects records.

In the mid-1970s, the owners of the label had noticed that the records issued by the major labels were of relatively poor quality and that they sounded a lot worse than what had been available ten or fifteen years earlier.

They came up with what was then a novel idea to produce higher-quality records than what was then available, allowing listeners to experience well-recorded albums, such as Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon or John Klemmer’s Touch, as they were meant to be heard.

Miller’s plan was to approach the major labels and license recordings to some of their albums from major artists. They would negotiate, for example, with Capitol Records to release Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon themselves. They would insist on using only the master two-track tape, rather than a copy, or a copy of a copy.

The acetate from which the stampers were made was cut on the lathe using a process known as half speed mastering. Half speed mastering was a process where both the tape recorder playing back the album during mastering and the cutting lathe that cut the acetate from which stampers were made were both run at half of the normal speed, thus creating a more accurate groove in the record. This process, which required special equipment and a lot of extra time, was also thought to improve spatial imaging and bass response in the finished product.

The company also made the decision to use only new, high-quality, “virgin” vinyl, as opposed to the recycled vinyl that was then in use by nearly every major record company.

The vinyl that Mobile Fidelity used was a proprietary compound made by JVC in Japan called Supervinyl and had JVC manufacture the records in Japan. It was translucent, with a brownish-gray color when held to the light, had exceptional wear properties for repeated play, and had dead-quiet surfaces that allowed you to hear just the music, rather than a combination of music and record surface noise.

Mobile Fidelity sold their records for nearly double the price of that of the major record companies, but enjoyed considerable success in the days prior to the invention of the compact disc. Their records were available in specialty record shops and at hi-fi stores, which often used their albums as demonstration discs.

Mobile Fidelity also declared up front that all of their titles were to be limited editions, claiming that fewer than 200,000 copies of any of their titles would ever be pressed. While this appeared to be an appeal to scarcity to encourage sales, it actually had more to do with requirements from the record companies from whom they were licensing the recordings. Most, if not all, of their contracts had time limitations on them; Mobile Fidelity could only sell a particular title for a specified period of time before they were contractually required to discontinue their sales of that title.

By licensing titles that were already big sellers, such as the Pink Floyd LP, Supertramp’s Crime of the Century, and the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty, Mobile Fidelity became quite successful, though not all record companies were interested in licensing their product to the label, nor were they interested in having it demonstrated to the public that the records they were selling themselves didn’t sound very good.

In 1982, Mobile Fidelity went a step further in producing audiophile records by creating the Ultra High Quality Record, or UHQR. These records used heavier, 200 gram vinyl, than the regular 140 gram releases from the company. The records were truly flat, unlike regular records, which tended to be thicker in the middle than at the edge. The records were kept in the presses longer than their regular releases in order to produce a better-defined disc. Only eight of these UHQR releases were ever issued, and they were limited to 5000 copies per title and were sold at a then-outrageous retail price of $50.

Other Modern Audiophile Records Labels

With the success of Mobile Fidelity, other companies soon joined the trend of releasing mass-produced audiophile records. Some of the early competitors were California-based Nautilus and Nashville’s Direct Disk Labs.

Nautilus produced about 50 titles through the early 1980s, before going out of business due to financial issues with their owner. They did, however, produce noteworthy titles by The Allman Brothers Band, Elton John, and John Lennon, among others.

Direct Disk Labs had best been known for their direct-to-disc releases, but they ventured into the same territory as Mobile Fidelity and Nautilus by licensing titles by Derek & the Dominoes, Elton John and Peter Gabriel, among others.

They only issued a handful of titles, but were noteworthy in that they released titles by artists who recorded for Columbia Records, a label whose products Mobile Fidelity didn’t release. Those titles included albums by Neil Diamond, Blood Sweat & Tears, and Loggins & Messina.

As they were then the largest record company, Columbia Records didn’t see that it made sense to license their titles to other companies who would then try to sell them by suggesting that their products were better than what Columbia was producing, even though that was exactly the case.

So in 1981, Columbia Records decided to make their own audiophile records, releasing both half speed mastered pressings of titles recorded on analog tape and albums using the then-new digital recording process, though the digital titles were mostly classical. These pressings were made entirely in-house, and used a higher quality vinyl than what Columbia used for their regular pressings.

Columbia’s audiophile records consisted of an odd mix of older, classic titles combined with then-new releases.

While Columbia’s titles, which included albums by Bob Dylan, Boston, Pink Floyd, Barbra Streisand, Willie Nelson, Earth Wind & Fire and others were quite good, many buyers and audiophiles were annoyed by the combination of prices that were double those of Columbia’s regular pressings and by the fact Columbia was effectively choosing to improve a small selection of their products, when they had the ability to improve the quality of their entire product line.

Instead, the more expensive, higher quality audiophile records sat in the same bins as the noisy, indifferently manufactured regular pressings, with both produced by the same company.

In Canada, A&M records started their own line of half speed mastered audiophile records, and had them pressed by JVC in Japan using their proprietary “Super Vinyl.” Many of these titles, by artists such as Supertramp, Styx, the Carpenters, and The Police, were widely available for sale in the United States.

While these records looked a lot like those from Mobile Fidelity and used a similar half speed mastering process, the tapes used to make these audiophile records were at least one generation down in the duplication chain from those used to produce Mobile Fidelity records, resulting in a product with a quiet playing surface but sometimes spotty sound.

With the increased number of companies producing audiophile records, consumers were confused and frustrated by the experience of seeing the same titles sometimes offered in multiple versions at a wide variety of price ranges with little information offered as to what, exactly, they were buying. By the mid-1980s, a glut in the market and the introduction of the compact disc put all of these companies except Mobile Fidelity out of business.

Japanese Audiophile Records

While all of this was going on, a few people quietly noticed that records imported from Japan tended to always sound better than their American counterparts.

Part of that had to do with the fact that the Japanese record companies always used premium materials in their product manufacturing – the vinyl was of high quality, their cover printing was of high quality and they took great care in the mastering of their acetates and plating of their stampers.

The Japanese record companies even packaged their records using non-abrasive rice paper inner sleeves, instead of the heavy paper used by American record companies that often damaged the discs after repeated play.

In the early 1980s, tens of thousands of Japanese LPs were imported into the United States and sold as high quality “audiophile records.” Many of these titles were pressed in Japan by JVC, the same company that was pressing records for Mobile Fidelity, often using the same vinyl, though rarely the same master tapes.

The importation of Japanese audiophile records was halted in the mid-1980s when the American record companies realized that they were losing money on sales of imported records. Royalty payments to artists are negotiated on a country-by-country basis, with higher rates in the United States and Great Britain than in other countries, such as Japan.

If an American buyer purchased an imported Japanese album of a title that was also available as a domestic pressing, the royalty payment to the artist and likely the profit to the record company itself, would be less.

With the record companies putting an end to the importation of Japanese audiophile records, they then set out to try to get rid of the record altogether, instead promoting the digital compact disc, which had significantly higher profit margins. Unfortunately, audiophiles didn’t care for the sound of compact discs, and many simply stopped buying music altogether as records became scarce in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Audiophile Records Today

After forcing records from the market in the early 1990s, the record companies found themselves with little product to sell after consumers balked at paying high prices for compact discs and resorted instead to illegally downloading low-quality mp3 files from the Internet.

Realizing that they could still sell physical product if they made something that people felt was worth buying, the major record labels started selling a high-quality product that has long been popular with the public – records.

The public has responded, and today, every pressing plant in the world is running at full capacity.

Today, with the resurgence in sales of vinyl, lots of companies are again making audiophile records. After a brief period of bankruptcy, Mobile Fidelity is back in business, and Warner Brothers Records is selling albums on a Website with the title Because Sound Matters.

Often, these are limited edition pressings cut at 45 RPM (on twice as many discs) to produce even better sound quality than the standard 33 1/3 pressings. Mobile Fidelity is back in business again after a short period of bankruptcy, and other companies such as Classic Records and Acoustic Sounds have stepped in to add to the quality pressings available on the market. Newer labels include names such as Equinox, Analogue Productions and the Electric Recording Company.

The latter company produces painstakingly detailed reproductions of obscure classical titles that are limited to 300 copies only. The titles they choose to release may be obscure, but they’re albums that often sell for upwards of $1000 on the collector market.

Analogue Productions has been producing audiophile records in two versions – a regular pressing that plays at 33 1/3 RPM and a pressing that plays at 45 RPM. The 45 RPM pressings require that a single album be spread over two discs, but the higher speed allows for less distortion and better sound quality. The company is doing so well that they have built their own pressing plant.

Across the board, the overall quality of the records available today is the best it’s ever been. Record companies today are making a determined effort to make their product as good as possible, with careful attention paid to the quality of the mastering process, the quality of the vinyl used in pressing the records themselves and the tapes used in the mastering process.

While sales of vinyl records are the highest they’ve been in twenty five years, the sale of records is still a niche industry, as most consumers purchase digital downloads. As records represent a premium product that sells at a premium price, the companies making records today realize that quality matters more than ever, and if they don’t make a good product, consumers are going to take their business elsewhere.

The term “audiophile records” is really rather vague, and can encompass a wide variety of recordings, both those intended to be of high quality, such as those from Mobile Fidelity, as well as vintage titles that sounded great because that’s how the record companies at that time made all of their products. Nevertheless, if there’s a record out there that sounds great, with a wide soundstage and a sense of three dimensional depth to it, you can rest assured that people will be lining up to buy it.

Records today sound better than ever. If you like quiet vinyl and good representation of the recorded music on it, you may find audiophile records to be to your liking.

Click here to browse our selection of audiophile records.

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We have written a number of articles about various aspects of record collecting. We hope you find them to be helpful.

Why do people collect vinyl records? – An explanation about record collecting.

Acetates and Test Pressings – What are they?

Audiophile Records – Albums made to sound better than regular pressings

Beatles Albums – Information about Beatles albums from around the world

Beatles Colored Vinyl Albums – Beatles albums from around the world that were issued on colored vinyl

Bootleg Records – Unauthorized pressings including live albums and ROIR pressings

Butcher cover – The story of the Beatles’ most notorious album – Yesterday and Today

Colored Vinyl – Information about records pressed on some color of vinyl other than black

Counterfeit Records and Pirate Pressings – Information about fake rare records

Japanese albums – Why collectors seek out records from Japan

Lesley Gore records – We have a large collection of albums, singles and more by the singer.

Most Valuable Vinyl Records – The Top 10 Rarest Albums That Were Sold in Stores

Picture Discs – Information about picture discs and their history

Pink Floyd Albums – An overview of unusual records by one of the world’s most collectible artists

Stereo Records and Mono Records – Why collectors prefer one or the other

Vintage Vinyl Records – 9 Reasons Why Collectors Like Them – The reasons collectors might prefer vintage records over new ones

Vinyl Record Collecting Glossary – A collection of useful terms related to records and record collecting

Vinyl Record Storage and Care – Taking Care of Your Investment

Vinyl Records Value – What determines what your records are worth?

White Label Promo – Information about promotional releases