Picture Discs

Picture discs are records that appear to have pictures, images, or graphics on their playing surface. While most phonograph records are black, except for the label in the center, picture discs may display a photograph or artwork over the entire playing surface.

Picture discs look like round photographs, though unlike photographs, they can also play music.

From a manufacturing standpoint, picture discs consist of a solid core, made of plastic, paper, or metal, that has a paper image placed over it. The core and photo are then covered with clear vinyl and the grooves are pressed on top of them using traditional record presses.

This process necessarily uses less vinyl in the grooves than standard records, and often yields less-than-optimal sound quality. Because of their substandard sound quality, most picture discs are produced as limited edition products, generally targeted at collectors, and are intended to supplement the supply of standard black vinyl records.

Browse by Category

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

History of Picture Discs
Vogue Picture Discs
Children’s Picture Discs
Cardboard Picture Discs
Picture Disc Albums
Prototype Picture Discs
Bootleg Picture Discs
Interview Picture Discs
Shaped Picture Discs
Picture Discs Today

Featured Products

Click here to view our selection of picture discs.

History of Picture Discs

While picture discs of albums date from the early 1970s, the technology isn’t new. Postcards laminated with playable records appeared during the first decade of the 20th century.

As these postcards were constructed differently from later versions, they are not normally considered as picture discs in the contemporary sense. The first commercial examples of picture discs using standard core-photo-vinyl construction date from the early 1930s, where they appeared in the form of ten inch, 78 RPM singles using a paper core with a shellac playing surface.

One of the earliest commercially released picture discs was a 78 RPM record by country singer Jimmie Rodgers – Cowhand’s Last Ride/Blue Yodel No. 12, released in 1931 by RCA Records.

The record is quite rare today, and sells for several thousand dollars when it turns up for sale. These early picture disc examples were quite fragile, and one rarely encounters a copy of the Jimmie Rodgers record that doesn’t have cracks or chips in the playing surface.

Early examples of picture discs had numerous problems – they were hard to manufacture, had a higher than average defect rate and suffered from poor sound quality. The sound quality issue wasn’t all that noticeable in the era of 78 RPM records, however, as most players were also of poor quality and a relatively high noise level during playback was pretty common for all 78 RPM records.

The various problems associated with the manufacture of picture discs, including the higher manufacturing costs, made them a relative rarity in the marketplace during the 1930s. During the Depression, few people had much in the way of disposable income, and the higher retail price of picture disc records made them a tough sell in a depressed economy. As the 1940s arrived, wartime rationing made producing anything but a standard black record impossible, as materials of any kind were relatively scarce through the end of 1945.

Vogue Picture Discs

Shortly after the end of World War II, a company called Vogue Records, from Detroit, Michigan, started a record label with the unique business model of selling only picture discs.

Their product was of a much higher quality than earlier pressings, and included much better sound quality than had been seen with the format.

Part of this had to do with the company’s manufacturing process, which used a solid aluminum core which was covered with a playing surface that was not too different from modern vinyl.

Unlike RCA’s early picture discs, which featured black and white artwork, Vogue’s products used eye-catching, bright, colorful graphics, making the product difficult to ignore in the record store.

Vogue was only in business for a year or so, releasing roughly 70 different titles during that time. In addition to those 70 titles, a number of “prototype” examples of unreleased Vogue titles have surfaced over the years. While Vogue picture discs were reasonably popular then and remain so today with collectors, several factors hindered the company’s success:

Their records cost more to produce than that of their competitors, and thus carried a retail price that was almost twice the price of their competitors’ products.

The company’s roster of talent was modest, and they didn’t have any big stars signed to the label. Most of the best-known recording artists of the day were locked into contracts that required them to record exclusively for their record labels, and Vogue found it difficult to sign artists who were likely to have hits.

The company’s location in Detroit, far from the music centers of New York or Los Angeles, likely contributed to the problem with a lack of talent at the label.

While Vogue Records was in business for a short time, their picture discs are surprisingly popular among collectors today, with several titles regularly selling for more than $500 on the collector’s market. Several unreleased prototypes have sold for as much as $8000.

Their appeal today is much as it was in the 1940s – they are attractive records offering colorful examples of period art and music in a single package. Due to their high manufacturing quality, quite a few Vogue picture discs survive today, and more common titles can be purchased for as little as $10 or so.

The demise of Vogue in 1947 more or less brought an end to the commercial manufacture of picture discs, at least those intended for the adult market. Nearly 25 years would pass before a record company again attempted to sell picture discs as anything other than a novelty item for children.

Children’s Picture Discs

While we are not aware of any picture discs for the adult market that were offered for sale in the 1950s, we do know of several companies that marketed them to children during this time.

Voco Records and the Record Guild of America produced picture discs of children’s music using a rather odd format – their records were seven inches in size, like a standard 45 RPM single, but they played at 78 RPM.

While not all of the company’s titles were released as picture discs, many of them were. To save costs, these picture discs were manufactured without a reinforcing core, simply laminating a playing surface over a printed image, which was probably cardboard.

A few Record Guild of America titles survive today and they tend to sell for modest prices on the collector’s market, probably due to the fact that they were products for children, leaving many surviving examples in poor condition.

Another company called Voco Records made picture discs for children in the 1950s. These were seven inches in size and appear to have been manufactured at both 45 and 78 RPM speeds. Not much is known about this company, other than the fact that they were made in Toronto, Canada. The few examples we’ve seen were quite attractive and colorful, and reminiscent of the Vogue Records from a decade earlier.

One other unusual variant on picture discs for children that appeared in the 1950s was a product called Red Raven Movie Records. These were picture discs that had a series of 16 still images printed on the disc around the record’s perimeter.

Each of the images was one frame of a short animation sequence that repeated every time the record (which played at 78 RPM) made a rotation on the phonograph. In order to view the animation, a small device with 16 mirrors had to be placed on the spindle of the phonograph.

Red Raven’s picture discs were short-lived, probably due to the high cost of manufacturing. After a short time of making picture discs, the company cut costs by producing colored vinyl records with an oversized label. The labels had the animation sequence printed on them, though the playable part of the record was simply colored vinyl.

Red Raven records are not to difficult to find today, though the mirrored device that’s necessary to view the animation sequence is quite hard to find. Without it, you’re just looking at an interesting design that’s spinning around while the record plays.

Cardboard Picture Discs

In the late 1960s, there was a short-lived revival of sorts regarding picture discs for the teen market. In 1967, Motown Records released a set of 16 different 7” 45 RPM cardboard picture discs through Topps, the company that was then best known for producing baseball cards.

These picture discs had a photo of the artist on one side, which was the only side with a playing surface. The other side had text information about the artist and the song.

These are the only picture discs of this type that we’ve seen that were sold at retail during the 1960s.

Artists and titles in this series were:

#1 Diana Ross & The Supremes – Baby Love
#2 Diana Ross & The Supremes – Stop In The Name Of Love
#3 Diana Ross & The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go
#4 The Temptations – My Girl
#5 The Four Tops – I Can’t Help Myself
#6 Marvin Gaye – How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
#7 Martha & The Vandellas – Dancing In The Street
#8 Stevie Wonder – Fingertips – Part 2
#9 Four Tops – Baby I Need Your Loving
#10 Stevie Wonder – Uptight (Everything’s Alright)
#11 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Shop Around
#12 The Marvelettes – Please Mr. Postman
#13 The Temptations – The Way You Do The Things You Do
#14 Martha Reeves & The Vandellas – Love Is Like A Heat Wave
#15 Diana Ross & The Supremes – Come See About Me
#16 Diana Ross & The Supremes – My World Is Empty Without You

A couple of years later, cardboard picture discs were given away free by Post Cereals as an incentive to get customers to buy the cereal. It was common practice at that time to include a small toy or trinket in a cereal box as an incentive, but these records were actually printed on the back of the box itself.

Adding to the incentive to buy was the fact that there were usually several different records available, which were numbered on the label.

This gave buyers reason to purchase more than one box of cereal. Over the years, we’ve seen titles by the Monkees, the Archies, the Jackson 5ive, and Bobby Sherman.

There were usually four different picture discs available for these promotions, and most of the titles included multiple songs. While the sound quality was poor, the opportunity to get four or five songs by a popular artist at no extra charge when buying a box of cereal was a pretty good deal.

A surprising number of these cardboard cereal box picture discs survive today and they tend to sell for relatively modest ($10 or so) prices. There are exceptions, however – surviving examples that included the complete cereal box with the record still attached have sold for upwards of $100.

Picture Disc Albums

After a period of a quarter century in which no picture discs appeared on the market for adult audiences, the first “modern” picture discs began to appear in 1971.

The first of which was the debut album by British progressive rock band Curved Air, Air Conditioning. This album, released as picture discs only in the United Kingdom, was certainly eye-catching, though it, like its predecessors, suffered from poor sound quality.

Due to complaints from buyers, the picture disc edition was limited to a pressing of 10,000 copies, at which time it was replaced by a standard, black vinyl edition.

In 1973, a second LP picture disc appeared, again from the UK, entitled Magical Love by the progressive rock band Saturnalia. This disc also had a holographic label in the center that was attached using glue. Over time, most of these have fallen off, and finding a copy of the Saturnalia disc with the label intact these days is somewhat difficult. Again, these picture discs were plagued by sound problems, and didn’t sell particularly well. As far as we know, that particular album was never reissued on vinyl, making it possibly a picture disc-only release.

In the late 1970s, American record companies began to send out picture discs as promotional items to programmers at radio stations. These picture discs were largely produced by an independent company called Fitzgerald-Hartley, under contract to the major record labels. Most of the picture discs produced in the United States in the late 1970s carry a Fitzgerald-Hartley “PicDisc” logo.

You can see a short video of picture discs being manufactured below. (Caution!: Video includes loud music!)

These promotional picture discs, unlike most records sent to radio stations, weren’t really intended for airplay, as the sound quality wasn’t good enough for that purpose. They were eye catching, however, and record companies hoped they’d get enough attention from radio station personnel to get the records played on the radio.

It isn’t known as to whether they actually helped in that regard, but these picture discs, including titles by Meat Loaf, Bob Welch, Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen, along with long-forgotten bands such as Liar, Fandango, and The Cryers, caught the attention of collectors, who were soon paying up to $100 (in 1970s dollars) for records that the record companies had been giving away for free.

A few of the titles released in the late 1970s as promotional picture discs include:

Joe Cocker – Luxury You Can Afford
Elvis Costello – My Aim is True/This Year’s Model (tracks from both albums)
Peter Frampton – I’m in You
The Jacksons – Going Places and The Jacksons
Elton John – A Single Man (later released commercially)
Kansas – Point of Know Return
Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell (black cover; burgundy cover copies were sold commercially later)
Molly Hatchet – Molly Hatchet, Flirtin’ With Disaster, Beatin’ the Odds, Take No Prisoners
Willie Nelson – Stardust
Bob Seger – Night Moves
Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town
Starcastle – Citadel
Toto – Toto
Bob Welch – French Kiss
Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London (12” single)

The record companies quickly realized that they had a product for which buyers would gladly pay a premium, and by 1978, commercially released picture discs began to appear on the market.

The first commercially produced album picture disc was released in early 1978. Titled To Elvis: Love Still Burning, the disc, issued on the tiny Fotoplay label, featured a painting of Elvis Presley on the disc, though the material on the album consisted of other artists performing Elvis songs.

The record, which was, as far as we know, the only record that Fotoplay ever released, was deemed significant enough to merit a cover story in Billboard magazine in August of that year.

Shortly thereafter, Mushroom Records issued a picture disc edition of Heart’s Magazine LP in a “limited” edition of 100,000 copies, along with another 30,000 copies in Canada. Each copy was numbered on the back cover, with the number expressed as a fraction, like this: 15355/100,000. Magazine was the first commercial picture disc album that was widely available for sale, as the album was available for sale by all of the major record chains.

The record sold so well that Mushroom actually pressed more than 100,000 copies. We once saw one that was numbered at 105,000 or so, making the numbering on the cover look rather strange: 105,857/100,000.

Not surprisingly, picture disc copies of Magazine, despite Heart’s decades of success, are not particularly hard to find, nor do they sell for a lot of money today. At any given time, there are 50-75 copies for sale on eBay, and most of them are still sealed and unplayed, nearly 40 years after their initial release.

The success of the Elvis and Heart LPs led to a number of releases in picture disc form by the major record companies, including titles by a number of then-famous artists. While all of these titles were manufactured as limited editions, not all of them were numbered.

Titles released between 1978 and 1980 in the United States included:

The Beatles – Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Bee Gees – Spirits Having Flown
Blondie – Parallel Lines
Boston – Boston
The Brothers Johnson – Blam!
Cher – Take Me Home
Peter Frampton – Frampton Comes Alive! (single album edition of the two record set)
Heart – Dreamboat Annie
Jefferson Starship – Gold
Kiss – solo albums by Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley
Barry Manilow – Greatest Hits (an unusual two record picture disc set)
Paul McCartney & Wings – Band on the Run
Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell (burgundy cover; black cover copies were promotional)
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
Elvis Presley – A Legendary Performer, Volume 3
Linda Ronstadt – Living in the USA
Rush – Hemispheres
Bob Seger – Stranger in Town
Steve Miller – Book of Dreams
Rod Stewart – Blondes Have More Fun
Styx – Pieces of Eight
The Who – Who Are You?

For a short time in the late 1970s, bins at records stores everywhere were full of picture discs, and the stores that sold imported pressings from Europe usually had a few titles for sale that weren’t available in the states.

At a time when record albums had a suggested retail price of $7.98, picture discs of the same titles had a list price of nearly double that, at $13.98. That equates to about $46 in 2015 dollars, and this high pricing, combined with the relatively poor sound quality of picture discs, soon came back to haunt the record companies.

Many consumers returned their expensive picture discs to the stores as defective, some due to sound quality issues and others because they were warped.

Part of the warping problem had to do with the die-cut covers used to sell the records; most were sold in cardboard covers with an 8” circle cut out to allow the record, which was enclosed in a clear plastic inner sleeve, to be seen by potential buyers. These covers weren’t as sturdy as regular album covers, and the combination of poor cover design and tight shrink wrap led to a lot of warped picture discs.

The record companies temporarily worked around this problem by printing a disclaimer on the cover, usually with some variation of – “Limited Picture Edition – Sound quality may not be comparable to conventional edition.” The record companies then refused to take returns on picture discs, and stores began to sell them on an “as-is” basis with no return privileges for buyers.

By 1980, picture discs could often be found in the cutout bargain bins, usually with holes punched in the cover or with a corner of the cover clipped off to indicate that it was a clearance item. We recall seeing hundreds of solo album picture discs by members of Kiss in the bargain bins, often with prices as low as 99¢. Ironically, those titles that were remaindered several decades ago are commanding premium prices today as collectibles.

Since 1980, record companies worldwide have occasionally released picture discs, though they are usually limited in production to a few thousand copies. In the United Kingdom, the format is usually used only for singles, rather than albums.

Prototype Picture Discs

Collectors eagerly seek out picture discs of records by artists they collect and admire, and some of these records can sell for hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, particularly those items that exist only as prototypes.

These would be records which were intended to be issued either commercially or as a promotional item in picture disc form, but for whatever reason, were not. These titles are often pressed in very small quantities; in some cases, perhaps as few as ten.

One of the rarest such examples is a ten inch record of the single, Xanadu,by Olivia Newton-John and the Electric Light Orchestra, intended to be created as a promotional item, but ultimately rejected by the record company.

As such, fewer than 50 of these were produced as prototypes, and copies have sold for as much as $10,000 at auction.

Another example was the single “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police, which exists as a prototype picture disc depicting only a few colored squares. Another Police prototype is an odd square picture disc depicting the CBS logo. This is odd, as the Police had no association with CBS Records.

This particular disc was probably made as a test of cutting shapes, and the employees at the pressing plant simply used whatever stampers were available at the time, leading to the creation of a rare Police collectible.

A 1976 LP by Dolly Parton, All I Can Do, was pressed as a picture disc for then-RCA executive Jozsef Bellak at his request. While rumors exist that 2-3 of these were made, only one is currently known to exist – it was Bellak’s personal copy and it was sold for $1500 in 2012.

Bootleg Picture Discs

Bootleg records, or records containing music that has been released without the knowledge or permission of the artist whose music appears on the record, have been around for decades.

Bootleg records became quite popular in the early 1970s, when a number of individuals discovered that the copyright laws then in effect didn’t prohibit them from releasing live and unreleased material by popular artists such as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones.

Starting in about 1979, bootleg picture discs began to appear on the market, offering much of the same material that had been previously released by labels such as the Trademark of Quality, The Amazing Kornyfone Record Label (TAKRL), Wizardo and Rubber Dubber. Early bootleg picture discs by the Beatles included the Beatles Decca demo recordings, an LP called The Beatles in Italy, and a live recording of their 1966 performance in Japan.

Other bootleg picture discs to be appear over the years include titles by Madonna, Metallica, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, among others. As is usually the case with bootleg recordings, the sound quality of these releases varies widely from title to title. Adding to the suspect sound quality is the noisiness of the picture disc itself. Still, collectors usually flock to buy these releases, as they are both unusual and limited in production.

While bootleg picture discs aren’t terribly common, they have appeared regularly over the past 35 years or so and are still manufactured to this day.

Interview Picture Discs

An interesting variation on bootlegs were the interview picture discs that began to appear on the market in the mid-1980s.

While it is illegal for someone to release music recordings of an artist with whom they do not have a contractual agreement, it is not illegal to release recordings of that artist simply speaking.

This led to several companies releasing “interview” picture disc albums that featured nice photos of the artist or band on the record itself but only included recorded interviews with the artists within the grooves. This allowed companies to sell picture disc albums by famous artists without having to be concerned with violating copyright laws.

Because these records do not contain any actual music, they draw less attention from collectors than authorized releases that contain music, though some older ones, particularly those by highly collectible artists such as David Bowie, Pink Floyd, or Madonna, often sell for $40 to $60 when they turn up for sale.

Shaped Picture Discs

After the success of promotional picture disc albums in gathering attention for artists’ new releases, the practice of releasing promotional picture discs was extended to singles.

A few promotional titles were released in picture disc form as 12” singles and after that, a few were sent to radio stations as 7” picture discs.

The next step in the evolution of the modern picture disc was the development of die-cut, or “shaped” picture discs. These were manufactured at a full 12” size, but then cut to a shape that was something other than round. The grooves were still round, of course, so the record could be played, but the outer edge might be cut to all manner of intricate shapes.

The first of these shaped promotional picture discs was a record of about 10” in size that was shaped like an octagon for the Toto single “Georgy Porgy.” This was soon followed by “Message in a Bottle” by the Police, which was cut to the shape of a star-shaped police badge.

Commercial shaped picture discs soon followed, though the format has always been far more popular in the UK than in the United States. As the records are pressed at a 12” size before having material cut away, these picture discs are always used for singles, rather than albums.

A few examples of shaped picture discs to have been released over the years:

AC/DC – Danger (fly-shaped)
Heart – Nothin’ at All (heart shape)
Elton John – I’m Still Standing (piano shape)
Madonna – Into the Groove (heart-shaped), Lucky Star (star-shaped)
Motley Crue – Smokin’ in the Boys Room (comedy and tragedy masks shaped)
The Police – Message in a Bottle, Don’t Stand So Close to Me, Roxanne (all badge-shaped)
Prince – Purple Rain (motorcycle shape), Paisley Park (balloon shape)
Rush – Countdown (space shuttle shape)
Toto – Georgy Porgy, Africa (Africa-shaped)
ZZ Top – Gimme All Your Lovin’ (car shape)

There have been hundreds of shaped picture discs sold over the years from record companies around the world. As these are usually limited to a few thousand copies of any given title, shaped records by major artists usually command respectable ($50-$100) prices on the collector market.

Every now and again, copies of a picture disc that was intended to have been cut to a shape but have not actually been cut and are still at the original 12” size, are offered for sale. These are usually prototypes or test pressings that were saved by record company employees before the cutting process. The prices for these can vary widely, based on the artist, but uncut shaped picture discs by U2, Madonna, Iron Maiden, Queen, Prince, and the Police have all sold for $1000 at auction.

One must be careful when playing a shaped picture disc, as it’s possible to damage the needle on your phonograph if you miss the grooves when cueing the record for play.

Picture Discs Today

While they’re not as common today as they were a few decades ago, picture discs are still produced today. They’re generally released as limited edition pressings alongside their black vinyl counterparts and are intended for the collectors who just want to have everything by a particular artist.

In the United States, the format is almost always used for albums, but in Great Britain, picture disc singles, including shaped ones, remain popular as limited edition collector’s items.

Picture discs aren’t much good for everyday play, but they look nice on display and make a nice addition to any record collection.

Click here to view our selection of picture discs.

Share this:

Most Valuable Vinyl Records

Vinyl records have made a comeback in recent years, and as a result, people are often searching for information about them online. One of the most popular searches, oddly enough, is for the phrase most valuable vinyl records.

People know that some records are more valuable than others, and that many records are quite expensive. As a lot of people are now giving thought to the boxes of records in their attic or basement that they haven’t touched in decades, it makes sense that they might have a curiosity as to whether they personally own any of the most valuable vinyl records.

The short answer is – they don’t, and neither do you. That’s not because you don’t have good taste in records or that you simply bought the wrong ones in the store all those years ago.

The real reason that you, or any randomly selected individual, don’t own any of the most valuable vinyl records is because, with few exceptions, nearly all of the most valuable vinyl records are highly unusual, one-of-a-kind items.

We’re talking about things like Elvis Presley’s cut-with-a-lathe acetate of “My Happiness”, or the one acetate of “That’ll Be the Day” by the pre-Beatles Quarrymen, or the intentionally pressed-in-a-quantity-of-one albums by the Wu Tang Clan (Once Upon a Time in Shaolin) or Jean-Michele Jarre (Music for Supermarkets).

Those records are indeed the most valuable vinyl records, but they’re all unique, aren’t likely to change hands anytime soon, won’t be affordable if they do, and aren’t records that anyone reading this article actually own.

We suspect that when people do a search for “most valuable vinyl records”, what they really want to know is “Do I personally own any of the world’s most valuable vinyl records?” We know that when we bought our first record price guides back in the late 1970s, the first thing we did was look up records we owned to see if we had anything that was worth a lot of money.

Featured Products

Click here to browse some of the rarest records we have in our store.

We didn’t, of course, and that’s because nearly all of the top 100 of the world’s most valuable vinyl records are individually cut acetates, test pressings, pre-production (not commercially released) items that were never formally released, or other items that likely would only have been available to record company employees or in some cases, only to the artists themselves. A few other items on the list are ultra-rare pre-World War II blues 78s and ultra-rare 45 RPM singles that were released on tiny regional record labels and were quickly forgotten.

That being the case, we put this article together to list some of the world’s most valuable vinyl records, but with a bit of a twist. This article will cover the rare and the valuable, but only record albums, and only albums that were actually commercially available. We’re leaving out the 45 and 78 RPM singles because on this site, we focus on albums, so we’ll restrict the list to that format only.

That is, these are albums that were, at least in theory, sold in stores and records to which the general public might have been able to purchase at one time or another.

We’ll list 10 of the world’s most valuable vinyl records, more or less in order of value. Keep in mind that these are prices for items that have been sold publicly. Obviously, private sales are just that, and we have no idea as to the sorts of deals that may have gone on between private collectors.

World’s Most Valuable Records – The Top 10

It likely won’t surprise most readers to see that a majority of the most valuable vinyl records are by the Beatles. They are perhaps the most heavily collected artist, and the single biggest-selling band of all time. With that kind of interest, it only stands to reason that a number of albums by the Beatles would appear on a list such as this one.

Beatles – Yesterday and Today sealed stereo “first state” Butcher cover (1966) – $125,000 – The infamous withdrawn pressings of the Beatles 1966 American LP Yesterday and Today are perhaps the most sought out album in history. The album was intended to be released with a photo that depicted the Beatles dressed in butcher smocks, posing with chunks of raw meat and parts of disassembled toy dolls. This cover became known as the “Butcher Cover.”

The response to review copies of the album was hostile, and stores were threatening not to stock the album when it was formally released to the public. Capitol Records changed their mind about the cover and printed new ones…which they then pasted over the photo with the dolls.

While the covers with the second cover pasted over the first one, known as “second state” Butcher covers, are collectible, the “first state” covers that never had the second cover pasted over it are among the rarest and most valuable of all records. Most of the review copies were sent back to the record company at their request, though it appears that a handful of copies were sold at retail in Southern California. Mono copies are considerably rarer than their stereo counterparts, and only a handful of copies survive today in pristine, still-sealed (unopened) condition.

There may be a few dozen sealed mono copies in existence, but there are likely fewer than 10 known sealed stereo copies, and one of them sold for $125,000 in 2016.

While a sealed stereo “first state” Butcher cover can sell for six figures, even a mint one can sell for considerable amounts of money, and copies have sold for more than $15,000

Mono sealed copies, mono or stereo opened copies, intact second state copies and peeled “third state” copies of this album sell for considerably less, sometimes for as little as $100, depending on condition.

Click here to read a more comprehensive article about the Beatles Butcher cover.

Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan with withdrawn tracks (1963) $35,000 – Bob Dylan’s first album, released in 1962, drew some critical notice but didn’t sell well enough to make the Billboard charts. His second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, on the other hand, drew attention and sold well enough to reach #22 on the American Billboard album chart.

The album consisted mostly of self-written material, including the now-classics “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

The album was issued in both mono and stereo, but at Dylan’s request, four songs were withdrawn from the album shortly before release and replaced with new ones.

The intended original album contained the songs:

• “Rocks and Gravel”
• “Let Me Die in My Footsteps”
• “Gamblin’ Willie’s Dead Man’s Hand”
• “Talkin’ John Birch Blues”

These songs were replaced with:

• “Girl From the North Country”
• “Masters of War”
• “Bob Dylan’s Dream”
• “Talkin’ World War III Blues”

Even though the original version of the album was ready for release, new stampers were manufactured with the new songs, and the album shipped to stores on the scheduled day of release with the second set of songs.

It appears, however, that at some point during the early days of manufacturing the album, a few copies were accidentally pressed using the stampers for the original intended version of the album. On the mono copies, the labels listed the second set of songs, but actually played the withdrawn tracks. These can be identified by either playing the record or by examining the stamped numbers in the “dead wax” area near the label. The numbers on the rare version of the album end in -1, followed by a letter. Later pressings have “2” (or higher) as the final digit.

Only a dozen or so mono copies have been found so far, and only two copies have been found in stereo. The stereo pressings are easier to identify, as not only do the records play the original songs, but the labels also list the original songs.

Mono copies have sold for as much as $12,000, but one of the two known stereo copies sold a few years ago for $35,000. As these were pressed by mistake, these copies may very well have found their way into record stores back in 1963, and it’s possible that more copies are still out there.

The Beatles and Frank Ifield On Stage (1964) $30,000 – When the Beatles first started releasing records in Britain, their UK label, Parlophone, offered their contract to the label’s American counterpart, Capitol. Capitol declined the offer, as English acts hadn’t sold particularly well in the U.S. up to that point.

Tiny Vee Jay Records ended up with the contract. They released a few singles that went nowhere, and gave up. When Capitol announced their intentions to release the Meet the Beatles album in early 1964, Vee Jay realized that they had a bunch of Beatles material sitting in their vaults.

A lawsuit from Capitol prohibited Vee Jay from releasing any Beatles product after October, 1964, but between January and October of that year, they released Introducing the Beatles, Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Beatles (a reissue of that album with a different title), The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons (that album again, along with a Four Seasons LP) and Jolly What! The Beatles and Frank Ifield.

Frank Ifield was an English singer whose biggest hit was “I Remember You,” which reached #5 on the U.S. charts in 1962. The Jolly What! The Beatles and Frank Ifield LP was a collection of eight songs by Ifield, along with four tracks by the Beatles: “Please Please Me”, “From Me to You”, “Ask Me Why”, and “Thank You Girl”.

That album was released in February, 1964 with a cover depicting a drawing of an old man with a mustache wearing a Beatle wig. The album sold poorly, and in October of that year, looking for a last-minute boost in sales before their rights to sell Beatles records went away, Vee Jay made some changes to the album:

• The title was changed, dropping the “Jolly What!”, but retaining the “On Stage,” suggesting that the album was a live recording, which it was not.
• All four Beatles song titles (but none by Ifield) were listed on the cover
• The cover was changed to one with a drawing of the four members of the Beatles
• “The Beatles” was printed in a lighter, easier-to-read font than was “Frank Ifield”

The new cover was only available for a few weeks and while exact pressing figures are unknown, it’s likely, based on sales over the years, that only a few hundred mono copies were pressed, and likely fewer than 100 stereo copies were pressed.

The version of the album with the old man on the cover is rare, and copies sell in the $100-$400 range, depending on condition and whether they are mono or stereo.

Mono copies of the second cover are rare and sell in the $5000-$10,000 range. The stereo pressing is one of the most valuable vinyl records sold in the U.S. by the Beatles and a sealed copy was offered for sale a few years ago by a prominent Los Angeles record store for $30,000.

Those looking to cash in should be aware that both the mono and stereo copies of this album have been counterfeited, with most counterfeit copies lacking the printing of the album’s title on the spine of the cover.

The Beatles – The Beatles (aka “The White Album”) low-numbered copies (1968) $10,000+ – After the 1967 LP Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album that had an unusually elaborate cover, the Beatles went minimalist on their 1968 follow-up. Titled simply The Beatles, the album had a cover that was all white, though the name of the band was embossed on the cover.

In addition, every copy of the album sold during its initial release was individually numbered. Multiple copies were made in both the U.S. (in stereo only) and in the UK (in mono and in stereo) bearing #1. These were given to members of the group and to high-ranking record company employees.

A few years ago, Ringo Starr sold his personal mono copy with #1 on it in an auction and it sold for $750,000!

All other copies were consecutively numbered (though various numbering systems were used) on both U.S. and UK pressings and copies numbered into the millions. One would think that since every copy bears a unique number that all copies should share equal value, but collectors are particularly interested in finding copies that have low numbers.

Pricing can vary dramatically for numbered copies of The Beatles depending on the number. A mint copy with a six or seven digit number might sell for $100 or so, but copies numbered under 100,000 draw higher prices, and the prices increase substantially for copies lower than 10,000, 1000, or 100. In 2008, a UK copy with #5 sold for £19,201 (about $27,000 U.S.) and we recently saw a U.S. copy with number 32 offered for sale for $10,000.

While copies numbered under 100 were likely all issued to record company employees, it’s possible that numbers above that were sold to the public and these could sell for anywhere from $1000-$10,000, depending on the number.

The Beatles was sold with numbered copies in a number of different countries besides the U.S. and the UK, and prices will vary widely depending on the country and the number. Still, there are a lot of low-numbered copies out there, and The Beatles is one of those rare cases where you might just have one of the world’s most valuable vinyl records sitting in your closet.

The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966) stereo pressing without the song “Sunday Morning” $22,000 – The 1966 debut by the Velvet Underground, the self-titled The Velvet Underground & Nico, sold poorly but remains one of the most influential albums of all time.

The album featured a banana on the cover in the form of a sticker and printed above it were the words “Peel slowly and see.” Many people did just that, and it’s hard to find an original copy of that album in either mono or stereo that still has a fully intact banana.

Copies of The Velvet Underground & Nico in mint condition with a complete banana have sold for upwards of $1000, but in 2017, a previously-unknown variation of the LP came up for sale. This version was missing the song “Sunday Morning,” which would ordinarily have been the first song on side one of the album.

The cover and label of this particular U.S. pressing did list that song title, but the record did not include the song on it. Apparently, the album was originally intended to be released without the song, but it was added at the last minute and new stampers were made. As with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, a few copies appear to have been pressed with the earlier stampers by mistake, creating an ultra-rarity.

The only copy known to date sold for $22,000 in 2017, which would certainly qualify it as one of the most valuable vinyl records and was a stereo copy. Most stereo copies of the album have the letters “REV” (for revision) etched in the dead wax area near the label on side one. Copies of this ultra-rare version can be identified by either playing the record, where “I’m Waiting for the Man” would be the first song, rather than “Sunday Morning.” Alternatively, the record can be identified by the lack of “REV” in the dead wax on side one.

The Beatles – Introducing the Beatles stereo with “ad back” cover (1964) $15,000 – Yes, another Beatles album, and another album from the misfit label Vee Jay. Vee Jay had acquired the rights to an album’s worth of Beatles songs (released as Please Please Me in the UK) in 1963, but due to the poor sales of several singles, the label, which was strapped for cash, decided not to release the album.

When Capitol released “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and announced the release of Meet the Beatles in January, 1964, Vee Jay remembered that they had the unreleased album in their vaults and quickly rushed to release it to the public.

The label titled the album Introducing the Beatles and quickly put together a front cover with a photo of the band, but they were in such a rush to get the album to stores that they didn’t bother to create a back cover for the album. First pressings of the album, issued in both mono and stereo, list no song titles anywhere on the cover. The back cover of the album shows pictures of 25 other Vee Jay albums, but has no information about either the group or the contents of the record.

About the same time, Vee Jay also released a few copies of the album that had blank white back covers. This may have been a production error. Within a couple of weeks, a “proper” album cover listing song titles was added to the album, and a couple of weeks later, that back cover was changed as two songs (“Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You”) were dropped from the album and replaced with two others (“Please Please Me” and “Ask Me Why.”

The first version of Introducing the Beatles with the 25 cover photos on the back cover is known as the “ad back” cover and the version with no printing at all is known as the “blank back” cover.

The “ad back” version is the more valuable, as it’s both harder to find and is considered to be the original pressing of the album. Stereo copies have sold for as much as $15,000, putting them among the most valuable vinyl records, and mono copies have sold for about half that price. As Vee Jay pressed about 50 mono records for every one in stereo, the stereo version is a relative bargain.

“Blank back” copies sell for $3000-$5000, depending on whether they are mono or stereo, but finding a blank back copy without a lot of cover wear is quite difficult.

While Introducing the Beatles is the most heavily counterfeited album of all time, most of the counterfeit copies of this album are of later pressings. We are not aware of counterfeit copies of either the ad back or blank back versions of this album.

Be aware that due to the large number of counterfeits of this album, most people believe that Introducing the Beatles is actually a fairly common album. That’s not the case; it’s rather rare and exceptionally so in stereo.

The Beatles – Please Please Me UK stereo with black and gold label (1963) $21,000 – The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was released in Britain nearly a year before its U.S. release as Introducing the Beatles. The album was initially released in March, 1963 in the UK on the Parlophone label, and first pressings were available only in mono.

A month later, stereo copies were released, and like the mono, the label used on the record was the then-current black Parlophone label with gold print. Shortly after the stereo release, Parolophone changed their label artwork to a black label with yellow and white print, and that label was used for all subsequent pressings of the album through 1969.

At the time, mono records typically outsold stereo pressings by a ratio of nearly 100:1, as most buyers did not own stereo phonographs. While mono pressings sold fairly well when the album was first released, stereo copies did not, and it is estimated that fewer than 1000 stereo copies were sold with the black and gold label before Parlophone changed label designs, making the first-issue stereo pressings quite rare, given that the album eventually sold millions of copies.

While original mono copies are rare, it’s the stereo pressings that qualify as being among the world’s most valuable vinyl records.

Finding an original stereo UK pressing of Please Please Me is quite difficult, but it’s even harder to find a copy in collectible condition, as most people who bought the album played it until it was worn out. Mono copies turn up for sale fairly frequently, but stereo copies are much harder to find and much more expensive.

In 2014, a stereo copy in exceptional condition sold on eBay for £14,994, or about $21,000 in 2018 dollars.

Stonewall – Stonewall (1976) $14,000 – You may not have ever heard of a band called Stonewall, and that’s not surprising. They released only one album, the self-titled Stonewall in 1976, and it’s not even fair to suggest that that album was even properly released.

Stonewall was issued by the small Tiger Lily record label, and Tiger Lily is known among record collectors as a “tax scam” label. Tiger Lily was apparently run by Morris Levy, who was also the president of Roulette Records. Under tax laws in effect in the 1970s, record labels could charge recording, pressing and distribution costs against profits.

Tiger Lily was apparently set up for the express purpose of not making money. The label solicited tapes from a variety of artists who thought they might get a record deal. Ordinarily, when record companies solicit tapes, they listen to them, find artists the like, sign them to a contract, and put them into a studio to record an album.

Tiger Lily Records apparently took a different approach. They asked for tapes, cut records from them and released the albums without any effort to promote them and often without even informing the artists and certainly without paying them their due royalties. Most of the titles were pressed in small runs of a few hundred copies, and then then were deleted from the catalog.

Most Tiger Lily albums purchased by the public were likely found in the discount bins.

In the meantime, Tiger Lily fabricated recording and distribution “costs” which they used to offset profits at the main label, Roulette.

The 60+ known albums released by Tiger Lily covered the full spectrum of music, from pop to country to hard rock. Everything released by the label is collectible to some degree, but some records are harder to find (and contain better music) than others.

Stonewall was an album by a hard rock group if the same name, and the album compares favorably to a number of better-known hard rock acts of the era, such as Grand Funk Railroad or Cream. Their lone album is also one of the hardest titles to find on the Tiger Lily label, and in 2014, a copy of the album was sold on eBay for $14,100.

We’ve never seen a copy and we don’t know anyone who has, but there have to be more copies out there than the handful that have turned up to date. While it’s likely that future copies that turn up will sell for less money than $14,000, the album still qualifies as one of the most valuable vinyl records sold to date.

It’s also a pretty good album, and it has since been legitimately reissued.

The Beatles – The Beatles (aka “The White Album”) UK export copies (1968) $10,000+ – Yes, the White Album appears on this list again. This time, it’s not the number on the cover that matters (though it might affect the price.) This particular version of the White Album is the version that Parlophone Records in Britain made especially for export.

In 1968, the Beatles created their own record label, Apple Records. All of their records from that point on, in both the UK and the rest of the world, were intended to be issued on that label and in most countries, the White Album appeared with green Apple labels. Due to some legal issues, the Apple trademark hadn’t yet been secured in a few countries when the White Album was released.

For service to those countries (in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa), Parlophone pressed a few copies of the White Album that had black and yellow Parlophone labels, rather than Apple labels. There were likely only a few thousand copies ever pressed like this, if that, and most of them have long since vanished.

A copy in pristine condition was sold in 2015 for just under £10,000, or about $14,000 in 2018 dollars. This record is an interesting listing among the most valuable vinyl records as it’s a UK pressing that one might find just about anywhere other than the UK, as the record was made only for export.

Beatles – Yesterday and Today red Capitol “target” label (1971) – Yes, another pressing of Yesterday and Today by the Beatles qualifies as one of the most valuable vinyl records, but this one is not a Butcher Cover.

After the Beatles created their own Apple Records label in 1968, all of their new albums in the U.S. and the UK were released on that label. In the U.S., even older titles were eventually reissued with Apple, rather than Capitol, labels, and this remained the case until the Apple label was dissolved in 1975.

In 1970 or 1971, due to an error at Capitol’s Winchester, Virginia pressing plant, a few copies of the 1966 LPs Revolver and Yesterday and Today were inadvertently pressed using the red “target” style Capitol label that was then in use for all non-Beatles albums issued by Capitol.

The Revolver pressings are fairly rare, and sell for $300-$500 when they turn up for sale, compared to $30 or so for the regular Apple pressings. The mispressing of Yesterday and Today, on the other hand, is exceedingly rare, and to date, only 2-3 copies have turned up for sale.

A copy with this label was sold in 2016 for $11,250. While only a few copies are known, it’s quite likely that others are out there. It should be noted that prior to moving the Beatles Capitol albums to the Apple label, all of them were briefly available on a green Capitol label that has similar artwork to the red label.

While red label pressings of Yesterday and Today would sell for thousands of dollars, the green label pressings command prices in the $100 range, as they are far more common.

Hank Mobley – Hank Mobley Blue Note 1568 (1957) – $10,000 – Hank Mobley was a tenor saxophone player who had a long career, the early part of which was spent with Blue Note Records of New York City. Many of Blue Note’s releases from the 1950s have long been sought out by collectors, and first pressings of a number of their titles from the 1950s routinely sell for more than $1000.

The most valuable of all of them is the self-titled Hank Mobley, released in 1956. Oddly enough, the album was Mobley’s sixth title for Blue Note, but for some reason, the first pressing of that album was quite small, with estimates that no more than 300-1000 copies were printed.

First pressings can be noted by a discrepancy in the record company’s address on the label; side one lists the city as “NYC,” while side two lists “New York 23.” For whatever reason, the album was not reissued after Blue Note was acquired by Liberty Records in the mid-1960s, making all copies of the album relatively rare compared to other Blue Note titles.

While Hank Mobley has long been a highly sought out album by fans of jazz and hard bop, in recent years, the price of the album has escalated dramatically. Copies often change hands for upwards of $5000, and in 2015, a buyer on eBay paid £7300 ($11,000 in 2018 dollars) for a pristine copy.

Copies with “NYC” on both sides also command high prices and sell for almost $5000 in mint condition.

Most Valuable Vinyl Records Conclusion

No list of the most valuable vinyl records can be either complete or definitive. Thousands of records are sold every day, and new high prices are established all the time. As we mentioned earlier, the true examples of the most valuable vinyl records are odd, one-of-a-kind items that likely come from the collection of either the artists themselves or high-ranking record company employees and are not the sorts of records that the layman is likely to encounter.

Others are obscure singles, either 45 or 78 RPM that were pressed by tiny regional labels or which were pressed by major record companies but withdrawn prior to release, with only a few copies “leaking out.”

In this listing of the most valuable vinyl records, we’ve tried to list albums only, as that’s what our site is about. We also tried to list only records that were sold commercially. Granted, they might have been available only in select regions or available only for a short period of time. In a couple of cases, they’re records that were released by accident using stampers that were mistakenly used at the pressing plant by employees that weren’t paying as much attention as they should have been.

Do you own one of these records? Frankly, it’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible. In our nearly 40 years of selling records, we’ve had exactly one of the records on this list – an “ad back” stereo copy of Introducing the Beatles.

Still, a big part of record collecting is the thrill of the chase and hunting down of rarities, and every one of the most valuable vinyl records listed here is something that someone, somewhere, might possibly encounter in going through a box of used records at a yard sale, a thrift store or even a record shop.

LIkely? No, but the unlikely happens every day. Good luck!

We don’t have the most valuable vinyl records, but you can browse some of the rarest records we have in our store.

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

Featured Products

Click here to view our selection of colored vinyl records.

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.

Share this:

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.

Browse by Category

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

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

Featured Products

Click here to view our selection of Beatles albums.

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.

Share this:

Acetates and Test Pressings – What Are They?

Example of an acetate label[/caption]

Most record collectors, like any other buyers of phonograph records, are primarily interested in commercial releases; that is, copies of records that were manufactured with the intention that they be sold at retail to the public. These are the kinds of records that are likely to comprise the bulk of anyone’s record collections

Serious collectors are usually interested in owning just about anything and everything produced by artists that they admire, and unusual items such as acetate pressings (also known as “acetates” or “lacquers”) or test pressings. These are records or components of record production that were manufactured not for sale, but to evaluate the process of making the commercial record itself.

As both acetates and test pressings are fairly rare, they tend to command a lot of interest in the collector market. While such pressings by any artist are rare, there is generally a lot of interest in acetates and test pressings by artists who are themselves popular with collectors, such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and so on.

In this article, we’ll discuss the nature of acetates and test pressings, how they are made, why they are made, and what makes them of interest to collectors.

Browse by Category

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

Acetates and Lacquers
Uses for Acetates
Collector Interest in Acetates
Counterfeit Acetates
Test Pressings
Collector Interest in Test Pressings
Counterfeit Test Pressings
Conclusion

Featured Products

Click here to see our selection of acetates
Click here to see our selection of test pressings

Acetates and Lacquers

While acetate pressings are usually referred to by record sellers and collectors as “acetates,” the term used to describe them within the industry is “lacquers.” That term makes more sense, as there isn’t any acetate used in the production of these records. For purposes of this article, however, we’ll call them “acetates,” as that’s the popular term used in the record collecting world.

Acetates represent the first step in the physical manufacture of a record, be it a single or an album. While acetates are technically “records” in the sense that they can be played on a turntable or phonograph, they are not pressed out of plastic using mechanical stampers, as are commercial records.

Instead, acetates are individually created using a cutting lathe, which is a device that loosely resembles a turntable. Acetates are lacquer-coated aluminum discs that are entirely smooth when first manufactured. They are “cut” by placing them on a cutting lathe that has a signal fed to the cutting head from either a live audio source or a performance recorded on magnetic tape. As the music plays, the cutting head cuts a groove in the soft lacquer surface.

The lacquer-coated disc rotates while the music plays, and the recording engineer controls the lathe, which must be periodically adjusted to compensate for changes in volume during the performance and to allow for gaps in between tracks.

In the early days of recording, music was played live in the studio and recorded directly to acetate discs. Since the 1940s, most performances are recorded first to magnetic tape and then transferred to acetates at the convenience of the record company.

Once the cutting process is complete, the disc is playable on any turntable to evaluate the performance, if necessary. Due to the softness of the lacquer coating, acetates are not particularly durable and will wear out and become noisy with repeated play. Acetates that are used for evaluation purposes are not generally used for production. Other discs will be cut for that purpose and then will be nickel-plated as part of the process to produce the stampers that will be used to make test pressings and later, records for sale to the public.

Uses for Acetates

Acetates are made for two purposes – to evaluate a recording and its suitability for pressing records and to use in the production of the finished product itself. For production, an acetate is first nickel plated and the plating is removed to create a negative image known as a father.

This process can be repeated by plating the father to produce a positive image known as a mother. The mother can be duplicated to create stampers. Typically, a father can be used to create about ten mothers and each mother can create ten stampers. A stamper can be used to press anywhere from 300-1000 finished records.

If all of the mothers and stampers are exhausted due to high production, another acetate must be cut and the process repeated.

Acetates are considerably heavier than records of a comparable size and usually weigh two to three times as much. While most acetates do have a label, these are generally generic labels with blank lines intended to be filled in by hand. Information found on the labels of acetate pressings usually consist of the name of the artist, the title(s) of the song(s) and perhaps the date the disc was cut and the timing of the song(s) on the disc.

Lacquer-coated blanks used to cut acetates used to have more than one hole near the center. One was the usual centering hole for the cutting lathe and/or turntable spindle; the other was a drive hole that fit a pin on the lathe to ensure that the disc wouldn’t slip on the lathe. More modern cutting lathes use a vacuum pump to hold the disc in place, making the drive hole unnecessary.

On rare occasions, there is a third purpose for acetates – sometimes, when a record company is in a hurry to get their album or single to radio stations, they will send acetates directly to radio. These are usually supplemented with regular vinyl pressings as soon as it can be arranged, as acetates are entirely unsuited to repeated play, as might be warranted by having them played on the radio.

Collector Interest in Acetates

What is the appeal of lacquers and acetates to collectors? There are a few reasons that collectors might be interested in owning acetates by the artists whom they collect:

They’re rare. Obviously, as acetates must be cut on a lathe, one at a time, they are going to be extremely limited in production. In general, there are probably fewer than a half dozen acetates cut of any single or album title. Most will be used for record production, and the process of plating them to produce a father destroys them.

A few others will be used for evaluation or promotional purposes, though it’s relatively rare for acetates to find their way out of the hands of record company personnel and into the public market. Their rarity alone makes them desirable. A popular album may sell in the millions, but only a couple of people are likely to ever have the opportunity to own an acetate copy of that album.

Good sound – Acetates sound terrific. While acetates are not suitable for repeated play on a turntable, they are playable and they usually sound better than the finished records sold at retail. Acetates are cut directly from the tape, where records are made from stampers that are made using multiple plating processes. Each step on the process to create a stamper creates a slight loss in quality, so acetates that haven’t been worn out from too much play will almost always sound better than finished records.

Unique content – Sometimes, artists have acetates prepared of songs just to hear how they sound as a record, though they may not have any intention of releasing them commercially. These may be working versions of songs that are later changed before release or songs that aren’t intended to be released at all.

On other occasions, acetates may be cut of “working” versions of albums, where the order of the songs may not be final. In other cases, one or more songs may appear on an acetate made early in the production process of an album but the final version of that album may not include them, making the acetate a rare collectible. We recently saw an acetate of the 1977 album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl that was a working version of the album that contained two songs that were not on the finished LP. Those two songs have never been commercially released, making that particular acetate a desirable Beatles rarity.

About two years ago, someone found a box containing nearly 150 Bob Dylan acetates in a building in New York. Many of these acetates contained unreleased songs and/or different versions of songs from the versions that have been commercially released. Several of these discs have been sold publicly at prices in the several-thousand-dollar range.

A few bootleg albums have been released in acetate form over the years, simply as a gimmick. The only titles we have seen like this originated in Japan, usually in limited editions of no more than twenty five copies. As producing discs one at at time is both expensive and labor intensive, product of bootleg acetates as a commercial product is not a very common practice.

Prices for acetates can vary widely, depending on the artist and the content. Obviously, the more collectible the artist, the greater the interest from the collecting community. While all acetates are rare, collectors will be more interested in (and pay higher prices for) examples that feature unreleased material or versions of songs that are not otherwise available.

An acetate of an album by an artist that isn’t particularly collectible might sell for $10 or even less. On the other hand, an acetate containing unreleased material by a well-known artist might sell for thousands of dollars. About ten years ago, an acetate containing rough versions of the material that became the first album by the Velvet Underground sold for more than $25,000. That material has since been released commercially.

An acetate of Elvis Presley’s first recording sold for $300,000 in 2015 to musician Jack White of White Stripes fame.

Counterfeit Acetates

Unfortunately, in the collecting world, nearly anything of value has been counterfeited, and that includes test pressings and acetates. They’re rare, they’re in demand, and they can sell for a lot of money, and that has led unscrupulous individuals to create acetates that appear to be original, record company-produced products but are actually homemade items that have no inherent value.

While counterfeit acetates exist for a number of artists, the most common artist represented by these discs is the Beatles. Many of these fake discs have labels that say either “EMIDISC” or have a representation of the Beatles’ own Apple label.

Since legitimate Beatles acetates turn up infrequently, few potential buyers have enough experience to be able to determine if an item offered for sale is a legitimate item or a counterfeit.

Many of these counterfeits have been artificially aged to give them a look of authenticity, and a number of them have sold for three and four figure prices at auction. The best advice we can offer to potential buyer is to know your seller and to get a guarantee when you make your purchase.

Test Pressings

Along with acetates, collector also have a lot of interest in records known as test pressings. It’s not a clever name; a test pressing is exactly what the name suggests – a record manufactured for the express purpose of evaluating the finished product.

Test pressings might be manufactured for the purpose of listening to material that is being considered for commercial release or they might be made as a test of production stampers for a finished commercial record.

Unlike acetates, test pressings are vinyl records pressed from stampers and are physically virtually identical to commercially available records. The only difference is that test pressings usually have custom labels similar to those found on acetates. These labels might have the words “test pressing” pre-printed on them and may include blank lines that can be filled in by hand to indicate the name of the artist, the title of the album, the catalog number and perhaps the date of manufacture.

Like acetates, test pressings are occasionally sent out to radio stations for promotional use if the production discs aren’t yet ready, but most of the time, they’re simply used to evaluate the finished product. This would include making sure that the record contains the correct and intended versions of the songs on it, that the sound quality is acceptable and that the playing order is correct.

Test pressings are usually found without printed covers. They are usually packaged in plain white covers. Often they will be accompanied by a “label copy sheet,” which is a sheet of paper that contains the information that would ordinarily be printed on the label of a finished album – the album title and catalog number, the name of the artist, song titles and running times, the name of the record company and publishing information for the songs themselves.

Collector Interest in Test Pressings

Collectors like test pressings for many of the same reasons that they like acetates. While they are made further along in the manufacturing process than acetates, test pressings are usually the first discs made from production stampers, so they will likely sound better than commercially available, or “stock” copies of the records sold in stores.

Scarcity – Test pressings, like acetates, are also relatively rare. While acetates may be unique or limited to just a couple of discs, test pressings are usually manufactured in larger, though still limited, quantities. Unless test pressings are made to be issued as promotional copies, they are generally limited to no more than twenty copies, though the number of discs manufactured can vary widely.

Alternate or unreleased material – Like acetates, test pressings sometimes contain either unreleased material or songs that are different in some way from the commercially available versions of that particular album. The 1972 Beach Boys album Holland was originally intended to include a song called “We Got Love,” but the record company was unhappy with the song selection. The group recorded a song called “Sail On, Sailor” that was used in the place of “We Got Love” on the commercial release. A few test pressings of the earlier version exist and are of great interest to Beach Boys collectors.

A few test pressings of Bob Dylan’s 1975 LP Blood on the Tracks exist with different songs from the released version. The album was close to its release date when Dylan decided to rerecord a large portion of the album. Reportedly, only five copies of the test pressing of the original recording are known to exist. One of them recently sold for $12,000.

Test pressings of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 album Born to Run were sent to radio stations in a printed gatefold cover that was blank on the inside and which featured the name of the artist and the title of the album in a font that looked like handwriting, rather than the block print used on the final version. Several hundred of these “script cover” test pressings were sent out to radio stations and are quite sought after today, usually selling for upwards of $1500 when they’re offered for sale.

The first live album by Genesis, 1974’s Genesis Live, was briefly intended to be a two record set but was ultimately released as a single album. A few test pressings of the two record set were made in the Netherlands. This set includes material that has otherwise never been released, and the few copies that have turned up over the years have sold for as much as $4000 at auction.

The audiophile label Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs released eight titles in the early 1980s as Ultra High Quality Recordings, or UHQR, as they are known. These titles were made using a then-uncommon heavy-weight 200 gram vinyl pressed with a special “flat” profile that the company did not use for their regular pressings. All eight titles were limited to 5000 copies for commercial sale. The company also made test pressings of a handful of titles that they were considering releasing in the UHQR format, but which they ultimately decided not to release.

These titles included all thirteen of the UK Beatles albums, along with A Trick of the Tail by Genesis, Rickie Lee Jones’s first album, and The Grand Illusion by Styx, among others. These rarely-seen test pressings usually sell for upwards of $1000 each on the rare occasions when they are offered for sale.

Unreleased albums – Occasionally, artists will complete an album with the intention of commercial release, only to have the release canceled for any one of a number of reasons. These unreleased albums usually exist in the form of test pressings, and sometimes they turn up for sale.

One good example would be Läther, by Frank Zappa. The album, intended as a four-record set, was recorded in 1977. Zappa’s record company rejected the finished album, though test pressings exist. The album was finally released officially in 1996.

Another unreleased Zappa album, Crush All Boxes, was intended for release in 1980, but was scrapped in favor of releasing You Are What You Is instead. At least one test pressing is known to exist of that title.

Counterfeit Test Pressings

While counterfeit acetates are fairly common, counterfeit test pressings are not. We have seen a few examples over the years, including the original version of Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. The most common counterfeit test pressings would be for titles that were otherwise unreleased. Buyers should exercise due diligence when considering a purchase, but as a rule, counterfeit test pressings are relatively uncommon.

The nice thing about test pressings is that they are physically no different from a commercially available album, which means that they can be played as often as any other record. Most collectors don’t buy them to play them, however; instead they tend to buy them as a collectible item in addition to the regular version of the album.

Acetates and Test Pressings Conclusion

While acetates and test pressings could hardly be regarded as something that every collector might find essential, they are unusual and interesting items to add to one’s collection. They’re relatively rare, they usually offer superior sound, and they occasionally offer access to material that otherwise might not be commercially available.

Click here to see our selection of acetates
Click here to see our selection of test pressings