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THE BEATLES - YESTERDAY AND TODAY - ORIGINAL 1966 CAPITOL RECORDS STEREO LP ST-2553
ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING
MONSTRUOUSLY RARE ORIGINAL BUTCHER COVER ONE OF THE RAREST AND MOST COVETED RECORD ALBUMS
THIS IS A COMPLETELY UNPEELED SECOND STATE UNPEELED PASTEOVER COVER, WITH THE TRUNK PHOTO PASTED OVER THE OFFENSIVE IMAGE OF THE BEATLES SHOWN WITH THE BUTCHERED BABY DOLLS AND BLOODY CHUNKS OF MEAT .
RARE STEREO BUTCHER COVER, MUCH RARER THAN MONO
UNKNOWN PRESSING FACILITY, POSSIBLY CAPITOL RECORDS, HOLLYWOOD LOS ANGELES
ORIGINAL BLACK CAPITOL LABEL WITH MULTICOLORED SPECTRUM RAINBOW BAND ALONG THE LABEL S EDGE AND CAPITOL S LOGO ON TOP 12 O CLOCK POSITION OF THE LABEL
THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. PRESSING THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.
THICK, HEAVY CARDBOARD COVER, AMERICAN STYLE.
THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING
MACHINE-STAMPED MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL DEAD WAX OF THE RECORD
MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL DEAD WAX ENDS WITH -A1/-A5 .
PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW
Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a recycled image from our previous auction. What you see is what you ll get. GUARANTEED
Of course, what we have here is a legendary Beatles BUTCHER COVER album, unavailable anywhere outside of US in this form other than a cheap replica . Yes, folks, this is the real thing: 100 guaranteed, original, genuine pressing of one of the rarest albums in existence.
The album is such a critical part of the Beatles legend and record-collecting lore, that we feel anything we could say on the subject would be entirely redundant. Arguably, everyone knows everything that there is to know about it.
Nonetheless, let s give it a shot: in 1966, as the Beatles stopped touring and their American label Capitol began fearing that the group would not be able to compete with the nascent psychedelia what with their family-friendly, warm and fuzzy mass appeal the label decided to add some gravity and oomph to their market image. Not having any clue how to proceed that s Capitol for you, folks forty years later, they still don t have a clue, although they are now a little better than their competitors, courtesy of their Blue Note reissue program , the label made even by record label standards - a remarkably idiotic decision to portrait the Fab 4 as gasp a bunch of Jack-the-Ripper types holding dismembered and disemboweled babies and chunks of bloody red meat and, if that was not enough, wearing blood-stained butchers aprons and, get this: grinning profusely, as if deriving some strange libidinal gratification from this unseemly act. Yikes A lifetime achievement Academy Award for corporate cretinism Haliburton and Enron have NOTHING on this
I can only try to imagine the look of shock and disbelief on parents faces as they entered the local Sears store the morning the album was released. I ll be willing to bet 95 of them walked away in total disgust, not wanting to even touch the piece, let alone buy it for their teenage kids. Oddly enough, the subplot would return to haunt the Beatles on a number of occasions for the rest of their career: during the making of the White Album, as a possible Charles Manson connection, during the Paul-is-dead controversy, and so on and so forth .
And, therein lies the reason for the rarity of the album: fearful of the satanic implications of the cover mind you, Roman Polansky s Rosemary s Baby was released that very same year , the buying public voted with their feet, and the vote was a resounding NO. Realizing duh what they had done, fearing the backlash from the alienated public and dreading the possibility that the new Beatles album which, in fact, was a composite of preceding three UK albums with a few hit singles tossed in for good measure may become the first Beatles album not to go gold in the States, Capitol promptly pulled any and all already distributed copies from the stores most of whom were a part of the Sears chain , filled up a giant landfill literally we kid you not and rolled a bulldozer over each and every copy they could retrieve. They may well have thrown the entire corporate management into that hole and get it over with.
That s it, folks. The long and short of it. The infamous story of the short life and ignoble death of the Beatles Butcher Cover. The original cover, with the original butcher photo visible on the front panel is usually referred to as first state .
Ah, but wait that s not all. Realizing that tracking down and destroying tens of thousands of remaining copies out there and at their expense would be tantamount to corporate suicide, Capitol did, in fact, do something moderately intelligent: as a stopgap measure, they altered a small group of covers by pasting over the new photo slick, showing the Fab 4 gathered around an open trunk suitcase a trunk we can only suspect was originally used to store those dismembered baby dolls and chunks of meat no tofu here - until a brand new, completely remade and remodeled cover was ready for the market . These interim versions of the butcher cover are almost as rare as the first pressings, and can be easily identified by a few visual clues, of which the most prominent one is the V-cut on Ringo s sweater showing through the pasted-over white paper slick. These second versions are usually referred to as second state or pasteover butcher covers. As you can see, the copy we have here is a second state . We have circled electronically, of course the detail on the cover where Ringo s sweater on the offensive image is visible.
How many hundreds possibly thousands of times are butcher covers more rare than the regular, trunk covers? I don t have a clue. I am sure that some statistics and historical data exist somewhere, but this is largely speculative in view of the fact that many butcher covers were effectively, well butchered when their owners attempted to peel them off. As a result, many butcher covers were essentially destroyed or seriously damaged in the process. In other words, any existing historical data must be mitigated by the fact that many surviving butcher copies were essentially disfigured beyond recognition by their owners. This may help explain why the butcher copies are many times rarer than any historical evidence might suggest.
To put things in perspective, the year 1966 was a big year for corporate cover censors: mind you, in this same year, the Mamas and the Papas had to endure humiliating censorship of their Toilet Seat cover, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons survived no less than three encounters with the artwork police on their Four Seasons sing Bacharach-David and Dylan album , Jefferson Airplane s first album was altered in both content and form cover had to be changed, too , Bob Dylan presumably on his own volition? changed the layout on his Blonde on Blonde album, deleting the image of Claudia Cardinale the Fugs first album underwent no less than 4 four alterations, the cover of the Monkees first album had to be changed because of misperceived transsexual reference, Buffalo Springfield s first album had to have a song excised from BOTH record AND the cover Simon and Garfunkel s second album The Sounds of Silence underwent no less than three cover revisions Velvet Underground s first album Velvet Underground Nico, also known as the Banana Cover had to have back cover significantly modified because of a legal dispute. In other words, corporate censors and self-censors were out in full force back in 1966.
Needless to say, despite or perhaps precisely because of the controversy, Yesterday and Today quickly became a RIAA-certified million-seller, topping the Billboard pop charts. In the sea of official regular covers that flooded the market, it is virtually impossible to find surviving copies of the original butcher covers. They are a sight unseen. We comfortably and without any reservations state that the censored covers outnumber toilet bowl covers at a ratio of AT LEAST 500:1.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING THE CONDITION OF THIS ITEM:
We have good news and bad. Let s have the bad ones first:
The record is in a really lousy condition and probably only good as a frisbee. If the buyer needs a better copy, the cover can be easily matched with one of many thousands of surviving stereo copies in better condition, which are still abundant and nowhere near as rare as the butcher cover -- which, as we all know, is the main prize here. Also, the cover has a fair share of flaws: please read the full description of the condition below for more details.
Now for the good news: the trunk slick which covers the butcher slick is nearly 100 intact NO attempt to peel it off has been made. Only one small chewed bottom corner affects the trunk slick on an area probably smaller than 20 square millimeters roughly 0.05 square inches however, because the trunk slick is about 1/4 inch 1/8 on each side wider than the underlying butcher slick, the small dented corner will NOT impact the butcher slick at all, and, if the winning bidder decides to peel the trunk slick, it is all but certain that he will find a perfectly preserved, immaculate butcher slick underneath.
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CONDITION:
THE RECORD
IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded we grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight
a CAUTION: The vinyl is only POOR and probably not suitable for repeated, continued playing. Numerous scratches and scuffs of all shapes, sizes, lengths and depths noted.
b The record comes in the original stock inner sleeve.
c The record is pressed on a beautiful, thick, inflexible vinyl, which was usually used for the first or very early pressings. Usually, the sound on such thick vinyl pressings is full-bodied, vivid, and even dramatic. Do not expect to obtain such a majestic analog sound from a digital recording
d Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording
THE COVER
THE COVER IS ABOUT VERY GOOD MINUS VG- .
The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:
- Cover has all three seams top, bottom and spine partially split, as follows:
- Top seam: completely split
- Bottom seam: between 6 and 8 inches /15 to 20 centimeters.
- Spine: between 4 and 6 inches / 10 to 15 centimeters.
- Note: the two corners on the spine have been carefully taped with a TINY piece of scotch tape less than 1/4 x 1/2 to prevent further splintering. This can easily be removed.
- Cover has some visible fraying/tattering on all three seams
- Visible shelf wear noted on the opening side VISIBLE ON BACK SIDE ONLY
- Cover has all four corners slightly worn / dinged two corners on the opening side are more affected than the two corners on the spine
- Cover has a few tiny wrinkles along the spine
- Cover has some ring wear. On the scale from 1 to 10 1 being the least, and 10 being the most severe , we assess the severity of ring wear as 5.
- Cover shows some yellowing on both sides, apparently from aging.
- Back cover has a few yellowish dust speckles scattered here and there these tiny spots are not overly obtrusive or distracting
NO OTHER VISIBLE FLAWS OR IMPERFECTIONS ON THE COVER
POSTAGE SHIPPING:
We offer three postage rates for domestic orders: USPS Media Mail, USPS Priority Mail and USPS Express Mail and three rates for international shipments: USPS First Class, USPS Priority International Mail, and USPS Express International Mail in a small number of cases, we will, at our discretion and for purely technical reasons, substitute First Class Mail with eBay s Global Shipping, which is fundamentally the same service at about the same cost . INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND BUT DO NOT INSIST that you select USPS International Priority Mail when making a payment.
INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from one region of the world to another. For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates, please click on Shipping, returns, and payments tab in the header of our listing.
CRITICALLY IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
A All orders valued at 50.00 or more will be shipped fully insured against loss, damage or theft by ShipCover, eBay s contracted insurer, at our expense B Yes, we do combine items into a single shipment in order to enable this feature, the winning bidders should WAIT until their last item of interest ends and ONLY THEN make a payment. Doing otherwise will result in multiple shipments to the same customer and forfeiture of multiple shipping charges already paid. C Because we do not play-grade our items, we do not know how the purchased item will play on the buyer s equipment. We can only make reasonable inference on the record s playing condition based on its visual appearance. D This seller will NOT cancel erroneous, frivolous and prank bids. The bidders can do so on their own, by visiting eBay s Site Map, then clicking on Bid Retractions link. E This seller does not specifically grade or describe certain items, such as: shrink cellophane wrap and accompanying extras inserts, booklets, etc. however, the presence of these items WILL be noted and accompanied by the gallery photo s . F Please do not submit any bids on our items if you have insufficient user history. G Other than in very rare justified cases, failure to pay for the item you won amounts to a fraud and will result in a permanent ban on bidding on our future listings. H We will NEVER deliberately, knowingly or willingly provide a false, deceitful or misleading information.
OUR REFUND POLICY :
WE OFFER UNCONDITIONAL MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE POSTAGE INCLUDED WITHIN 30 DAYS FROM THE RECEIPT OF THE MERCHANDISE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED STILL SEALED ITEMS MUST BE RETURNED SEALED IN ORDER TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A REFUND. NO EXCEPTIONS
FINE BUT IMPORTANT PRINT
1 The year indicated in the title bar is the year of the original release, NOT necessarily the year of the actual pressing for the actual generation of the pressing, please see our item description top section, the text in red letters . 2 Please do NOT bid based on the title bar, subtitle bar or item specifics box alone instead, please read the entire description before bidding 3 Absolutely NO order cancellations after the auction closes. ever, under any circumstances. We can ONLY cancel bids before the item closes. 4 We are unable to provide matrix-, stamper- or other pressing information in the final 24 hours of the auction. 5 All disagreements and miscommunications can be - and will only be - solved in a civil and mutually respectful manner please avoid puerile, offensive, abrasive or menacing language 6 This seller will accommodate all reasonable requests and - unless seriously molested - is generally a flexible, pragmatic and agreeable person.
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2001,2007 MDJ. All rights reserved.
