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Tracklisting & More Information
Background:
The Australian Mono LP issue was first released in October 1963. The first press of approximately five hundred copies used UK imported sleeves. This second press had a unique Australian printed silk laminate finish flipback sleeve.
Both presses were made from UK master plates and the first two presses both have -1N matrix endings.
The second press was done in January 1964 and used a slightly different black & gold label design, before being replaced by the more familiar black & yellow design when they started pressing in quantity [and also in Stereo] in March 1964.
This means that Mono copies of 'With the Beatles' also exist with this label design, although that had a unique sleeve & the black & gold label lasted less than a month.
Just to make things really confusing for the collector, when the Mono copies changed to the black & yellow design, the Stereo copies were issued on a black & silver label similar to the black & gold but with 'banner' style text.
For information: The first press labels had the 'Made in Australia' text runnng around the bottom of the label just inside the perimeter text & just under 'THE BEATLES'. The second issue has the 'Made In Australia' text to the left of centre, below the central dividing line under 'PARLOPHONE'. There were still small variations in font & placement, even on these restricted quantities of labels, but the main differentiator between first and second is the shift of 'Made In Australia'.
Like all Beatles presses, the description of 'first' and 'second' is more of an academic exercise as the presses didn't actually stop making Beatles records & had to run fairly constantly from 1964 until the mid Seventies to meet demand.
This was the first band to stress EMI pressing capacities to the point where they actually had to out source & they were unprepared for the sheer demand for Beatles records, all over the world.
Condition:
The sleeve is silk laminated in finish, which appears to be more a function of the thick paper / thin card they used than any actual laminating process. Because of their flimsy nature, these seldom survive in one piece.
The first thing that you will notice is that the sleeve text, both front & back, is cyan and not black. This was done for cost saving purposes as cyan ink was cheaper than black, rather than for any attempt to make the sleeve unique.
There is no 'MONO' logo at the top right of the sleeve as I guess that they didn't expect to be pressing anything other than this at the time.
The front picture is also unique, but in a more subtle way. Australian Union rules forbade the use of foreign negatives for sleeve artwork, so EMI Australia had to make their own. This was achieved by photographing an imported UK sleeve & making the print negative from that instead. This led to the sleeve art being not quite as crisp and a little more pastel than the UK original. Further evidence of this is that the Angus McBean credit on the front of the UK sleeve is actually visible on the bottom flipback on the back of this sleeve!
Unsurpisingly, given the flimsy nature of this sleeve, this sleeve is not without its battle scars. The sleeve has split along most of the bottom seam and has the beginnigs of a split to the centre of the spine. There is a degree of ringwear and minor discolouration, which is to be expected, along with some general stressing and a tear at the opening. There is a nice touch of a pre-decimal Australian price of fifty two shillings and sixpence being written on the top flipback.
The sleeve notes are the familiar Tony Barrow notes and, apart from being cyan, the back is very similar to the UK issue with Australian copyright text at the bottom.
What is remarkable, however, is that the sleeve shows no areas of paper loss & all text is still clearly readable. The flipbacks are complete and secure. This is far from being the usual case.
AS previously mentioned, the labels are of a black & gold design similar to the first UK issues. There are a few subtle differences, such as the inclusion of grammatically correct commas in some of the song titles and the large publishing logos near the centre. There is a fair amount of spindle marking aroung the centre hole, indication a degree of play [or a bad aim], but the labels remain clear and bright and do not appear to have faded unduly.
The matrices in the runoff area are the same as the UK presses, run off from UK plates, both ending -1N.
The vinyl is a little bit of a treat. Although obviously played, it does not suffer from the usual deep gouges of a much partied album, but instead retains the respectful dignity of a senior citizen that has been reasonably well looked after. There are a few light surface hairlines visible in places but nothing that interferes with play.
A certain amount of background noise is inevitable in cases like this, but this & any burring is kept to a minimum thanks to the heavyweight high quality pressing of the time.
It's not mint, no, but it remains one of the few survivors of the thousand or so Antipodean copies of this album on a black & gold label, so should be treasured just for that.
This is the first time we've actually managed to find a respectable copy like this in over thirty years of scouring the world for rare records and it may be some time before we are able to find another !
Tracklisting:
01. I Saw Her Standing There
02. Misery
03. Anna
04. Chains
05. Boys
06. Ask Me Why
07. Please Please Me
08. Love Me Do
09. PS
LP RECORD
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